The photo at the top of this newsletter shows my trusty companion for the last 15 months. Every time I get a thought about the game, it goes into this book. It’s a Moleskine—because Oscar Wilde, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Ernest Hemingway couldn’t be wrong.

This newsletter is part one of a rather lengthy design diary, and this first part will focus on: The Past!

At the beginning of my life, I was born in Denmark in 1986. I’ll spare you most of the details, except to say that as a kid, I was deeply interested in mathematics, nature, and physics—interests that shaped many of my early life choices.

When I was around 13, my big sister’s boyfriend gifted me Civilization II for PC. That was the start of a lifelong passion for strategy and 4X games! I could play for hours and hours, and when I wasn’t playing, I would sketch out optimal city placements and resource distributions on notepads.

Later, Age of Empires II entered the house, completely transforming how I thought about 4X games. I was so immersed in this universe that I would lose all sense of what was happening around me. (Check the trailer for Sky Empire and guess the reference!)

One particular incident from my childhood stands out. My younger brother and I had agreed on a time when I would stop playing, and he would take his turn—we only had one computer, after all. But at that moment, trebuchets were unpacking, walls were crumbling, and I couldn’t just stop. So, I pushed him away and told him to come back later. This did not sit well with him, and a small skirmish broke out.

My mother, a gentle soul and an expert in raising children, acted swiftly. She opened the disc drive, pulled out the AoE2 CD, and attempted to snap it in half. However, the CD, having been in the computer for 12 hours, was too hot to break—it simply bent back and forth. The fight between my brother and me immediately ended as we stood united against this new common threat. Watching her struggle with the CD, we couldn’t help but laugh. She, however, was red-faced with determination.

But my mother was nothing if not strong-willed. Unwilling to accept this defiance, she turned to us, eyes blazing, and declared, “I WILL get this destroyed!” She stormed outside, and moments later, strange noises started coming from the shed. My brother and I, now sudden allies, peeked out the window—and there she was, standing at the chopping block, hacking the CD to pieces with an axe. She was a great swinger.

That day, we learned an important lesson about laughing at angry people. The irony of it all? My favorite unit in the game was the Franks’ throwing-axeman.

From then on, I jokingly called AoE2 a “4-axe-game.”

The next day, I hopped on my bike, rode into town, and bought a new copy.

Board games entered my life around the same time. I could tell you the usual story of Catan and Monopoly, but—oh no, no, no! I started out with Civilization: The Board Game. This 6-7 hour epic game was already part of my tabletop experience when I was about 17, shortly after it was released. I don’t recall exactly why or how I made this transition—maybe it was the frustration of Civ2’s hotseat multiplayer mode that made the seat a little too hot!

A lot happened after that, and board games drifted away from my life for a while. But in 2017, they came back—this time with Caverna and Scythe.