June 27th, 2006

We are very proud to announce that Whipped! is for sale.

Please form an orderly line to the right and access the Buy button. Let us know how we did. Feel free to contact us as soon as you finish your first game. We would LOVE to hear from you!

June 26, 2006

Now that we have the decks in our hands, we have been working madly to track down game reviewers and places where we think people might be interested in our game. We have had some really encouraging responses, and also some polite declines.

What is becoming evident, however, is that the board and card gaming community is full of really wonderful people. We have received some wonderful letters from even those for whom the “theme does not appeal”, offering kind advice as to where interested people might be, and how we might best go about getting the word out. It is our secret hope, dare I say prediction, that once the decks get out there, and people realize that this isn't a mean-hearted game, but is actually a ton of fun to play in a mixed group, or family, that some of those who are not interested now, will find they want to check it out.

Well, time will tell. We are incredibly proud of our game. It is real, that is, this stuff happens to the best of us – we all have been there or have “lost” friends who were there. It is timely. And most importantly, it is a hoot, a whole lot of fun.

Now that we have actual decks in our hands (and not just the play testing cards that we cobbled together), we play nightly.  The first question I am asked by my three sons when I come home from work is, “Can we play some Whipped! tonight?” I love it.

June 2006

Proof returned with minor corrections. Final decisions to green-light the game made by all. The die is cast. The printing bill paid. We now await until the games arrive via Pusan, Korea to the sunny shores of Kanazawa city. Look! Goosebumps!!!

May 2006

Golden Week is a three day holiday in Japan (don't get us started about that, we know ALL the jokes) and was our first HARD deadline to GET THIS GAME READY TO GO. Well, we came close. The game was just about ready to go. A few more weeks and issues with the printer should be ironed out. Proof comes back from the printers and we stand, actually sat, in awe....

April 2006

More drawing, more erasing, more rule tweaks. Mock decks are getting a bit of serious wear and tear on them. Staying up far too late on Sunday nights, our intrepid game-designers are heard cackling quite a bit by other patrons at the Gusto Family restaurant in Kubo, Kanazawa city. We are all VERY excited about this game.

March 2006

The rules are taking shape. The cards are getting the art, sometimes hideous though it may be, done. Progress is being made for choosing a printer. Website work starts to take shape and form.

February 2006

Three years later our friends gathered again to finally get around to finishing the glorious work that they had begun. Life got busy between 2003 and 2006. Family obligations, work, and generaly craziness distracted us from continuing on with our game. But now the heat was on. Re-dedicated to the cause, nursing our male-pride, and gathering our few remaining wits about us, the big push was on to GET THIS GAME DONE. Come heck or high water, it was going to happen.

March, 2003

One cold Sunday afternoon in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, four friends were sitting around playing a mail-ordered card game that one of the members sadly lamented was “too lame to play”. Although there was no agreement as to whether or not the game in question was universally “lame” one of the friends suddenly had to take an incoming phone call from his wife. This was the second or third time she was summoning him. The three remaining players laughed and gesticulated wildly in his direction as he was responding to his betrothed with, “Uh-huh, yes dear. Right away, dear. Of course, dear. Yes. Yes. Uh-huh, you are absolutely right about that one, dear....” The sound that the three remaining friends were making was the “whipping” sound that married men so often hear.

When the humiliating telephone call was over, one of the three gesticulating friends casually mentioned, “We should make a game about THAT, about being whipped.”

All present stopped, mouths-agape. Wordlessly, the table was cleared, panicky hands reached for scrap paper. There was much tearing of paper into card-sized pieces, comments, suggestions, scribbling, and then much laughter.

Whipped! The Card Game was born.