A few years ago, I want to say 2018, but the exact timeline has blurred into the fog of startup timelines, long nights, and too much caffeine; I caught myself muttering, “I’m going to design a board game.”
Not just any board game. I wanted one that would let me do the impossible: command luck itself.
What I remember clearly is the feeling: an electric jolt of I want to build something fun. Something insane. Something mine.
I’ve always been a game junkie. Strategy, sport, party, puzzles,… throw something competitive at me and I’ll find a way to be obnoxiously good at it. And yes, I’ll admit it: I like winning. I like being ridiculously good at new things. (thank you, cosmic beginner’s luck that shows up exactly when my ego needs it most).
But there was this one story of a board game that fascinated and scared me at the same time, and I could never really get it out of my head.
The dice game of the Mahabharata.
You know the one. A single game of chausar that literally tore apart the greatest family of the time and set the stage for the bloodiest war the world has ever seen. Whether you read it as mythology or metaphor, one thing is undeniable: the Mahabharata is a story in which a single roll of the dice changed the fate of an entire civilisation.
And at the centre of it all?
Shakuni.
The most misunderstood strategist of all time.
Master of probability, psychology, and chaos.
Rolling dice carved from his own father’s bones. Dice that obeyed him. Dice that let him look destiny in the eye and say, “Nah, we’re doing it my way.”
Tell me that’s not one of the coolest superpowers in all of fiction. (Remember that girl in Deadpool had luck as a superpower too! How cool was she!)
The man didn’t play the game. He owned the game. He tilted the scales of fate so hard that an entire epic had to be written just to deal with the fallout.
What would I do if I had Shakuni’s dice?
Would I be noble and fair? Would I quietly stack the odds in my favour every single turn? Would I burn the table down just to watch everyone else lose?
Goosebumps. Literal goosebumps.
That one question refused to leave my brain. It started whispering mechanics, components, betrayals, comebacks, glorious bastard moves… an entire game built around the intoxicating fantasy of controlling luck.
My brain lit up like Diwali.
Imagine a game where you didn’t just challenge luck; you could manipulate it. A game where luck wasn’t a random villain; it was a weapon you could wield. Abuse. Trade. Steal. A game where you get to be the villain with the magical dice and still walk away as the hero of your own story.
A game where you could, even if just for one evening, become as powerful as Shakuni on a wooden battlefield!
So here we are, years later.
I’m actually doing it.
I’m designing the board game I’ve been secretly dreaming about since that random evening. It’s soaked in Mahabharata flavour (without being a dry history lesson). It’s deliciously, gleefully unfair. It hands you the power to be Shakuni, to cheat fate, to steal victories from the jaws of defeat, to make your friends both hate you and desperately want to be you. Built to thrill you, frustrate you, empower you, and make you question your own moral compass.
It’s not gambling. It’s a hostile takeover of probability itself.
And soon, very soon, I’ll be ready to show it to the world.
So tell me honestly, would you like to play such a game?
Because I think many of you secretly would.
Dice are being carved as we speak. Stay tuned.