“The year was 1999… 5 Guys… 2 Weeks of Vacation!”
Games to complete, endless fun, and an unlimited stockpile of food...
Although this group of friends had carefully selected all the games they would play on the PC, sorted out the play order, and had enough camaraderie to mock each other’s gameplay, there was one thing they hadn’t calculated: the food stockpile they thought would never run out.
Ten days’ worth of food was gone in just two days.
Back then, there was no home delivery system over the phone. The nearest store was 500 meters away, and ordering from a restaurant wasn’t financially feasible for five guys.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there was another issue—the building where the apartment was located had no elevator, and the flat was on the fifth floor.
It was at that moment cracks began to form in the group’s unity. No one wanted to go shopping, endure that walk, and then haul those heavy bags up five flights of stairs—only to share the haul with four other guys.
They needed to choose a lucky “volunteer.” Drawing straws or picking names out of a hat seemed too cliché and easy to manipulate. So, they decided to settle it with dice. But even that wasn’t sufficient, as relying on a single dice roll could always favor the same “lucky” person.
Instead, they stopped playing their planned games and came up with a solution: a game called “swordsman vs. axeman,” where everyone created a character.
"Each character had a set number of hit points, and players would face off by rolling two dice."
The losers would battle each other in a final showdown, and the ultimate loser—after taking the final blow—would reluctantly head to the door to put on their shoes for the long journey ahead.
Years later, everyone had jobs and responsibilities, but the game lived on. Occasionally, during reunions, it was revived for nostalgia, with the loser footing the bill at dinner.
Then, at the end of one of these showdowns, someone suggested in early 2019 that the game could be turned into a different concept.
Although he struggled with his amateur drawings and created some bizarre card designs, he managed to produce the first sketches of the game.
And then... Of course, no one listened to him. That is, until he shared the idea with a friend who had drifted away from the group long ago.
