Pocho & Papa

There’s a special moment in every game designer’s journey when a game stops being an idea on paper and becomes something you can hold in your hands.

From Screen to Table

The prototype cards for Ballpark Skirmish and Ballpark Skirmish – Kid’s Edition just arrived from DriveThruCards, and we couldn’t be more excited. We’ve been designing, testing, and refining these games for months using printed paper prototypes, but there’s something fundamentally different about holding professionally printed cards.
The weight. The finish. The way they shuffle. Suddenly, the game feels real.

The Magic of Physical Components

As game designers, we spend countless hours staring at spreadsheets, tweaking card text, adjusting mechanics, and running simulations. But all of that digital work, all those iterations and refinements, they’re building toward this single moment—when you open a box and see your game looking back at you.
Even though these are prototypes—not final production copies—they represent a crucial milestone. They’re proof that what started as an idea, what lived for so long as files on a computer or a draft in a sheet of paper, can actually materialize and look like a real board game. They’re cards you can deal, hands you can hold, games you can play.

Sharing the Love

What makes this delivery even more special is that the Kid’s Edition prototypes won’t just stay with us. We’re giving copies as gifts to a couple of friends who love baseball. There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing a game you’ve created with people you know will appreciate it—people who understand the sport, who’ll recognize the strategic choices, who’ll get excited about the same moments that excited us during design.
These won’t be formal playtest sessions with feedback forms and note-taking. They’ll be gifts between friends, games played for the pure joy of it. And honestly, that’s the best kind of testing there is.

What’s Next?

This prototype delivery is a milestone, but it’s not the finish line. We’ll be playing these cards extensively over the coming weeks, and preparing for an eventual pitch to a publisher interested in the game.
But for now, we’re just going to enjoy this moment—the satisfaction of holding something tangible that started as nothing more than an idea and a love for baseball.
The prototypes are here. The games are real. And we can’t wait to play.