It was on the 1st of July, 2019 that I founded Trapped Chest. Founding it on Canada Day seemed like a good idea at the time. Being a statutory holiday meant that I would always have that day off from my regular job, in case I wanted to have some kind of event, and here I am, 2 years later. No event. Just a blog post.

2019 was an exciting year. I made a trip to Essen Spiel, to meet with manufacturers, game store owners and my fellow tabletop players. All in preparation for the late 2020 release of Essence of the Arcane. All the while, nobody knew what was coming…

In early 2020, I was rushing to get some final testing done, before beginning to contact manufacturers. I was a few weeks out from setting up a print run when the lockdown was announced here in Manitoba and I was laid off from my day job.

For 6 months, I was unemployed (fortunately, my job was still there when things picked up again), and was able to spend time on designing more games and personal projects, with the thought that this pandemic was going to be over before winter.

In hindsight, if the lockdown had happened a few weeks later, I would have already committed to a large print run, with the intention of launching a game at C4 Comic-Con in October. If that had been the case, I don’t know what I would have done.

When I started, I had a single small box game and a dream. Today, 2 years later, I still have not released that game, and have several others at various stages of development, including a 300+ page tabletop RPG, a table consuming adventure game, 2 expandable miniatures games and a party game, not to mention the many ideas that are yet to be put to paper.

Essence of the Arcane was supposed to be released in 2020. Now I am shooting for late 2022, and hopefully, I get to release others in the years that follow.