The Making of Shardfall: A Dragon Legends Adventure – Part 1

The Idea

It all started about eight years ago, at a small gaming convention in Tacoma, Washington. Maybe 50 people, tops. Nothing flashy, just good friends, good games, and that feeling you only get when you’re surrounded by people who love rolling dice as much as you do. One night, near the end of the trip, a group of six of us sat down to play Dungeon! – the official Dungeons & Dragons board game. We were excited. This was the D&D board game. I thought I was about to experience something that captured the magic of the tabletop adventures I loved.

But what happened next was… disappointing.

It wasn’t an RPG. Not really. It didn’t even use a d20. There were no character choices, no real roleplay, no sense of story or tension. It just didn’t feel like D&D, not the way I knew it. And that stung. I’d been hoping that Dungeon! could be a bridge, a way to bring some of my “normie” friends into the TTRPG world. I wanted it to be an easy, engaging entry point. Instead, they were bored. Frustrated. And honestly? So was I.

I remember thinking, I can do better than this. (Granted, we all have big ideas at 2AM.)

That moment planted a seed. The idea sat with me for a while before I started actually working on it. At first, it was slow, painfully slow. I was lucky enough to meet another creator who had experience with printing and publishing. He was great, smart, patient, and focused. And that patience? It drove me nuts. I wanted to hit the ground running. I was already talking to artists, getting manufacturing quotes, calculating shipping costs, even speaking with a bank about loans, all while the core mechanics of the game were barely sketched out.

I was impatient. And I paid the price for it.

I pushed hard, every day, trying to move faster than the process allowed. Eventually, it cost me that creative partnership. Looking back, he was right about slowing down, about building the foundation first. But at the time, it knocked the wind out of my sails. I shelved the whole idea, buried it under work and time and other responsibilities.

Until last year.

The Making of Shardfall: A Dragon Legends Adventure – Part 2