The Design Journey (2022)
Phalanx started because it was raining. In July 2022, I was up at Camp Tesomas as an adult leader with my son's troop. A sudden storm pushed everyone into their tents. With no phone service and no distractions, I was bored and was looking forward to the game night coming up. I really wished I had brought my Magic: The Gathering cards for a tournament later that week. That boredom turned into a specific challenge. I wanted to see if I could capture the tactical tension of a collectible card game using only a standard deck of cards from the camp trading post.
I grabbed a pen and a notebook I had packed and started writing. For the next week, that book and those cards went everywhere. I sketched formations, calculated damage chains, and convinced anyone who would listen to sit down for a match. The field testing proved the concept. The game was not just functional. It was fun. These photos show that original notebook exactly as it looked when I finally made it home.
From Tent to Tabletop
The rules in this notebook established the foundations that still drive the game today. I worked through the math of deterministic carryover, assigned specific tactical roles to each of the four suits, and defined the 4x2 grid that became the canonical Phalanx battlefield. The goal was to remove the luck of the mid-turn draw so that every win was earned through positioning and timing.
The Notebook Archive
The complete visual record from that week at Camp Tesomas, presented in the order it was written.
