I’ve been dreaming of designing and publishing board games since my college days. Of course, there was always a “good” excuse not to try it, but the real reason I never pulled the trigger was that I felt unqualified, intimidated, and overwhelmed by the prospect. It’s one thing to write down a handful of rules on index cards to make your friends laugh; it’s another entirely to manifest a new idea into the world as a polished product that people will love.
After all, I had no insight into how the industry operated. I had no professional experience designing games. And I had no idea how to create, manufacture, and market merchandise. Like most dreams, it felt incredibly out of reach.
During my subsequent 15 years of dreaming, I spent about 12 as a copywriter in advertising. I sharpened my ability to come up with a “big idea” and then express that idea across multiple creative executions for various media channels (i.e., a brand campaign with TV, social, and radio ads). I learned how to move from input to output. From thought to thing. Essentially, I learned how to be a creative professional.
In 2022, I was hired as a Sr. Copywriter at Magic: The Gathering for their Secret Lair brand. During the interview, I was told I’d be writing product blurbs and Twitter posts, but my first assignment was creating art descriptions for a set of cards featuring Hastune Miku. Then I was writing flavor text. Soon I was pitching wild, new ideas that melded MTG game mechanics, art, and copy to form a cohesive product with a singular creative point of view.
Despite the end result looking different, it was the same thing I’d been doing for years, just in a different form factor—come up with a big idea and bring it to life across individual executions while ensuring each piece complements the whole. But with cards instead of ads. My title changed to Sr. Narrative Game Designer, and I never wrote a single tweet while I was there.
While the work itself was interesting and engaging, I was contractually disincentivized from working on my designs. Technically, any new games I created while employed at Hasbro would belong to the company, even if I worked on them on nights and weekends. And the truth is, while I’d been playing Magic on and off since I was 10 years old, I never loved it the way I love board games. I could feel the itch.
So I left Hasbro/Wizards/MTG/Secret Lair in the Spring of 2025 to focus on building something for myself. Rather than unqualified, I feel capable. Rather than intimidated, I feel invigorated. And rather than overwhelmed, I feel . . . no, I still feel overwhelmed. But I enjoy it. It’s as if all the obstacles that used to seem impassable are not only navigable, but spark a sense of adventure.
So this is Maximum Mischief, an independent tabletop game company founded by a tabletop game lover, to publish games that bring fun, and a bit of chaos, to game night.
Cheers,
Jon