Starring Everybody!...and me.

So, yeah, my game and I were in a documentary called The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop, and it was pretty awesome.  If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen the movie, but if you haven’t, go take a look.  It digs into the board game hobby from a bunch of different angles, including the World Series of Board Games, a bunch of well known designers, a philosphy professor, the Roger Ebert of board games Tom Vassel, a bunch of awesome gamers, and me.

If you’re wondering what it was like being in the movie, I can answer that with a word.  Stressful.  But that was all me. Simon and Jesse, the team behind the camera, were absolutely awesome throughout, and I only opened my doors to them because they were continually kind, understanding, and earnestly passionate about board games and the people behind them.  All the time on camera was honestly fun and easy, because I was getting to babble with people who care about a lot of the same stuff I do. We've been to Mets games together. I only let me people I like see me that vulnerable.

No, the stress from the movie all came from me.  

I was already wigged out over whether the The Last Summit was going to happen or not.  I really didn’t want the game to end up on the pile of projects that never got finished, and the only way to make that happen was to convince a bunch of strangers to vote for it with their wallets. When I had my moments of doubt, I really started wondering if it was a smart choice to immortalize that process for all time.  Having an HD recording of a project I loved possibly crashing upon the rocks didn’t sound like the best keepsake. The interviews also meant deconstructing each playtest and pitch in the moment, rather than just plowing through. So that little stare into the now, that built up the weight of every little thing.

Thank the gods we funded.

And thank the gods the movie is really good. I think it really catches the spirit of the community gathering around games, and I'm very proud I got to be part of it. The only regret I have is that my parents got to see it in the theater and I didn't. (Long story. They sent me a t-shirt.)

If you want to know more about how the game came to be and how I designed it, welp, that’s where this blog comes in. 

Here’s a breakdown of the entries I wrote about making The Last Summit, with a little director's commentary about how this lines up with the movie.

To All The Games I’ve Loved Before

I started making games for fun about a decade ago.  This describes all the games I designed and scrapped over the years that ended up leading me, eventually, to The Last Summit.

The First Test in Someone Else’s Basement

This is the literal first test of The Last Summit 1.0 where I decided to try out my new idea not on my friends, but on the gamers housed in the august halls of one of the nation's greatest universities.  

My Little Brother, Ozymadias

After finally pulling together the main concept of the game, I got to watch someone break it in the most interesting way possible.  

Gencon: A Unity of Strangers

Here’s when Simon and the documentary came in. June 2021. Just after the pandemic, after I’d decided to fully take the plunge, pay artists, designers, and really start making this a Game, I signed up to playtest at GenCon. It was my first time trying to network there, so I put a quick post on a Facebook group asking if people had any suggestions on what to do or where to go.

Enter Simon.  

He responded asking me about being a first time designer, and let me know about the flick he was making. After talking a few times, he asked if he could tape me pitching and teaching the game, and maybe interview me after the playtests. I figured, why not? 

There’s some audio from that debrief after the first tests in the movie if you can spot it, and I know the blog post makes it sound like this was a frustrating round of testing, but it was the first time I really got a reaction to the full game.  Not a dummy version, or a janky half baked idea I was feeling out.  This was strangers playing my full free standing game, and…they kinda liked it. It was the shit.

The Roughest Playtest

This was Pax Unplugged, in December of 2021.  If there was a low point in the design process, it was this. I thought I had the game basically done, and then this particular playtest wholloped every sense of that security. I had to start over again.  It was that brutal.

What you see in the movie comes in just about there. Over the course of 2022, I worked out budgets, I marketed, I networked, and I played…a lot…of games.  I remade The Last Summit about three more times until I finally thought it worked.  All of this built to Pax Unplugged 2022, which you see in the flick.  A year after thinking the game was dead, I came back to the scene of the crime.  

That game of Last Summit you see us playing in the movie?  Neither Simon and I knew it but two people at that table would end up writing reviews that helped put the game on the map. I literally didn’t realize who they were until I checked out the names signed onto my mailing list.

Then came the reviews, the Kickstarter, and the actual making of the game. (We literally put together 250 copies of the game in the back of a bar in a single evening.  Thanks again to my friends who helped enable my insanity.)

As of 2025, I am personally sold out of the game. It’s still up for sale at Zatu, but I’m out.  The only three copies of The Last Summit in my home are the last prototype that I carried with me for over a year to all those playtests, and two finished copies that I’m keeping.  (Two because there’s a solid chance I drop my own game in a puddle or something.) It's a small run but it feels fantastic to have this out in the world in over a dozen countries, and five continents. (Thanks to that one pledge from Australia!)

Over the course of making this, I got to meet so many awesome designers, artists, filmmakers, and gamers. There was even one gentleman who liked the game enough that he helped translate the game into Portuguese for free, just to help more people gain access to this thing. Which is crazy! If you’re reading this you’re awesome.  

I’ve made friends, added a tube to my game collection, and ran out my pitch while standing underneath a retired Blue Angel. 

It was pretty awesome. Can’t wait to play again.

P.S. A few people have asked what they can do to support me and the game, and honestly, the best things you can do would be to review The Last Summit on BGG if you haven't already, and follow my Instagram. That's where announcements on new games and projects will be coming out first. (Fingers crossed, early next year, you all may be kicking up some snow.)

And, hey, thanks for asking!