It’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything here. I’ve been busy with a lot of things — a part-time work contract, job interviews (some good, some less good), a scramble to get the physical Disco Candybar prologue prototype ready to ship if needed — and blogging has taken a back seat. I’m back for today, though I have no idea if I’ll be writing again about this particularly soon.

There’s good news, and there’s bad news that may impact the good news, and I’m not entirely sure where to start.

Let’s just start somewhere in the middle. I’m not going to mince words; the state of or world is a shit show right now. As I write, stock markets around the globe are plummeting. World governments are all pissed at the U.S., and our own leadership is only antagonizing them.

That’s the MIDDLE. Not the bad news.

But back to the good news? Maybe?

In the last week or so, I’ve had two different publishers express curiosity about Disco Candybar. That’s a good thing. Hell, that’s an AWESOME thing. All the work, time, and creative energy I’ve been pouring into this game concept are showing the beginnings of a sign of validation. It’s a tiny light, for sure, nothing to bank on, but it’s something, and I’d like to be joyful, even hopeful about it. It’s definitely motivated me to keep plugging ahead with the project, and to get something ready to send to actual rooms full of interested game studio reviewers.

Now the bad news.

Yesterday, Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that, at the very least, are throwing the dynamics of global finances into chaos. As mentioned before, stocks are cratering, and nations are pushing for countermeasures certain to exacerbate the problem our President instigated. Trump insists that the pain the tariffs are sure to cause — and he acknowledges that there will be pain — will lead to some greater glory once the world starts paying the U.S. his demands.

To shortcut through some of the boring calculus of this story, let me state unequivocally that other countries do not pay the tariffs that Trump has announced. Companies and consumers here in the U.S. do. Tariffs are a tax on imported goods paid by those who need those goods, just disguised with a different name.

China is set to have the most dramatic tariffs levied, ranging somewhere between 34% and 54%, on top of existing tariffs and import taxes.

Nearly every board game publisher in America uses Chinese factories and/or materials to produce their games.

You start to see the big picture here, yes?

Board game publishers will be paying 34-54% more to make their products, meaning board games will cost consumers at least that much more. And if games cost more for consumers, that means fewer will be sold, causing a cascade effect that threatens the existence of things like Friendly Local Game Stores (my last post, Incrementally Vaulting Forward, was about one of my own favorites). But that’s the end of the chain reaction; the beginning is whether it’s even feasible for publishers to stay in business.

This is not a theoretical thought exercise. This is LITERALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

(I consciously try to abstain from going all-caps here. That’s how serious this is.)

So here I am, two days ago riding some hope that something I’ve willed into being might be even more, now filled with anxiety that the industry I love and that I’ve spent the last two decades dedicating myself to may realistically have just been murdered.

I will refrain from voicing my deepest opinions on why we’re at this point. Just know that I’m experiencing all seven stages of grief at the same time, along with (at least) tens of thousands of other in and around this industry.

So here I am. This morning I had a Disco Candybar Prologue prototype that sat at about 95% complete. It needed a few paragraphs of story written, some diagrams, some pages printed and cut out and perforated, and a handful of other short tasks. I looked at it and realized that there is a very good chance it was all for nothing. A total waste. Unsalvageable.

It was so. fucking. close.

It was one of the most difficult junctures I’ve had in weeks — I forced myself to change my mind. Not to embrace the poison of the tariffs, not to celebrate the death of a way of life, but to just get the damned thing finished. If this is the last gut-shot hurrah in my career as a board game designer, at least I will get a complete prototype out of it.

Will I show you the whole thing here now? Out of some bleak and twisted hope that it might still be viable for some bold publisher, no I will not. Some things need to stay under wraps. You get an image of the front page of the Lore Book, and that’s about it. I wish I could show you more, like the perforated tear-out rules pages, but literally EVERY SPREAD in the prologue has significant mechanical or narrative spoilers baked in.

Maybe the publishers who asked about the game still want to see it. Maybe not. I probably won’t know for a few more days. Until then, all I have is this dark, sad mix of hope and anxiety. And a prototype that’s now 95% done.

I think I’m drained for the day. I’ll get that last 5% later. It’s too close to scuttle it.

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