As a scholar, I study games (among other media), but I also began designing tabletop games when I was ten years old. After a two-decade hiatus, I returned to game design in 2015, and in 2018 I launched a boutique tabletop design company, Pandora Games. It’s purpose is to re-create lost or forgotten ancient games, and to push game design in new directions. Pandora Games is both a means of applying my academic knowledge to work in a different domain entirely, and to explore new forms of thought and interaction through play, which in turn informs my other work.

The first game we reconstructed was Mehen, a 5,000 year old game from ancient Egypt that was almost entirely forgotten. The game is incredibly unique in that it was played on a spiral gameboard in the form of a snake (the god Mehen, who wraps himself around Ra as a protector at night when Ra must traverse the underworld). It could also play up to six players. No game instructions have survived, but using archaeological, pictorial, and written evidence, I reconstructed the game as it could have been played. I experimented with the geometry of the board (working from archaeological finds) and various rules until I hit upon a form of play that linked everything we know about the game and most importantly, was extremely fun. I worked with a local wood artist to realize the game in a deluxe, artisanal version carved from solid cherry. We successfully launched the game via Kickstarter and quickly sold out. In 2022 we released a new, less expensive version made from a fabric board and wooden pieces.

I followed up Mehen with two more ancient game sets: Men, a mysterious game with 16 linear spaces and 16 grooves, and The Ur Variations, a unique board with movable tiles that enable it to play four ancient games from Egypt and Sumeria, as well as four new games that I developed for the set, all of which could have been played in the time period in question. Together, these three sets form my “Ancient Games Trilogy.” They are all hand-crafted, numbered, artisanal games with one production run only.

In 2021 we launched a Kickstarter for Supernova, my first hobby game manufactured in a factory. This wild game uses the spiral geometry I had perfected for Mehen without any historical constraints. The result is a game of orbital mechanics and non-linear thinking that asks players to command a wing-group of four ships orbiting a dying star to harvest its last bursts of energy before it explodes and destroys everything in its vicinity. Exploring alternate geometries (and with them alternate forms of thinking) has proven extremely rewarding—I’m quite proud of this game! It isn’t for everyone, though: it involves almost no luck, and is a strategic brain burner. Playing the game is an exercise in combating the human brain’s tendency to think linearly. The players who manage to train themselves to think in spirals are the ones who pull off the most spectacular moves.

For in-depth information on individual games, visit Pandora Games.