The fun thing about the adages people repeat—and often take for granted as true—is how easily they can be turned around. The original phrase referred to in the title above, handed down by middle managers like the eleventh commandment, is “There is no ‘I’ in team.” The phrase is intended to keep them wild, free-thinkin’ mavericks in the office from going off and doing their own thing when the job requires them to “work well with others” instead. There’s nothing wrong with building a sense of community and teamwork on a team. Ideally, every member of a given team has a well-defined set of duties to leverage their specific skills. A project gets done optimally when everyone focuses on their areas of responsibility and plays their role to their strengths.
What if your team is just one person? Luckily, if anagrammatically, there is a “me” in “team.”
Wicked Marrow Games LLC can’t pretend to be something it’s not. It’s not a company in the usual sense because, as I work, the company I keep is mostly my dog. I’m a one-man show, responsible for all the vital tasks required to design and publish a board game. The short list includes game design, writing, playtesting, creating the graphic design, and drawing the art along with keeping in contact with marketing, manufacturing, and a host of outside resource providers for web design, 3D modeling, emailing, and other stuff. It’s a daunting prospect with dozens of different hats to wear.
I love this. Bring on the hats.
That’s kind of the American Dream too, isn’t it? A scrappy individual has a Big Idea and yanks himself up by the bootstraps to build a successful, tangible venture out of his most intangible hopes and dreams. Incidentally, while NOT strangling himself with those aforementioned bootstraps if at all possible.
So, yes, the first game coming out of the company’s little factory chute is Novel the Board Game, which could be further subtitled, Michael Does All the Things. I’m certainly not the first to attempt such an escapade, as any but the most casual board game collectors know. There are a number of solo designer/publishers out there. The most prominent in my opinion is Ryan Laukat of Red Raven Games. He is sort of the Grandad of Board Game Auteurs Tackling All the Things. He’s been doing so since 2011 when he used Kickstarter to launch Empire of the Void. Coincidentally, he lives with his creative wife, Malorie, about a mile from my house. I met him a while back at a nearby playtesting session for Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies. As tempting as it was to pummel him with questions, I was there to test his game, which I was happy to do because Distant Skies is really fun. I hope my feedback was helpful. And he did ask all of the participants about their backgrounds, and I told him about my project, showing him some bits of the art and design. He was very encouraging and kind. I refuse, by the way, to become the pesky neighbor down the street, so I haven’t really bothered him for advice. On the other hand, now that the game is getting closer to reality, it’s probably smart to reach out to get a few moments of the seasoned veteran’s time.
My purpose in writing this article is to state my position boldly. I am one man, willing to hire help when needed, but mostly enjoying the revelry of wearing all the hats. Getting the game to market will take time and I’m beyond grateful for the eagerness (and patience) of all the hundreds of people already taking an interest in this project. And while the project will require a lot of time to complete, I am determined and relentless and I’m loving everything about this process. Every single day, I get Something done on the project. And those Somethings add up over time to create the Big Thing that I’m sharing with my followers and fans.
Thankfully, I feel so many partnerships intertwining with every aspect. If I say “we are working” on something—even if it’s really just me—it’s only because I need to include people who are contributing Something to the project too, even if it’s just an email or a “like” on an ad or a note of encouragement. All these people are on my team with me.
If it were possible, I’d spell “team” with not just “me” in it, but “us” in it too.