the beginning
In the beginning, there were a few things that brought us into the same circle. We both had recently moved to the Philippines. We both were from the States. We both loved the great outdoors. We both loved board games. That is a recipe for friendship.
After playing several board games with others and talking about past experiences we came up with the idea that we wanted to play a game that represented our love and passion for the outdoors with out compromising the integrity of a well developed board game.
Over the next several weeks we went over a ton of different ideas on what our game could be about. We eventually decided on one of our favorite pastimes. Bicycle touring. Being able to pack all your gear on your bicycle and just ride. When you are tired, you rest. When you are hungry, you eat. It is the best way to travel any country as it requires you to take in all the sites and sounds as you roll across the different landscapes. You truly relish every push of your pedal. So we began our quest.
The proces
Once we had established our initial idea, we realized we needed to make physical copies of everything and play constantly. Since we are both visual and kinetic learners we had to create drafts of the board so we could see and talk things over. Our first real draft included looking at the United States Bicycle Route System (USBRS) Map to design our routes as close as possible, to established bicycle routes in America.
After we had established the routes. We needed to come up with gameplay ideas. Our basic idea was to have individual game play boards called panniers (which are the name of the bags that go on bicycle racks which are filled with the rider's gear) be the main focus. These can be "filled" with the supplies a rider will need to get across the country.
