Micro Abacus Games

Affordable, thought provoking games that are highly replayable.

Ben Baker is the founder of Micro Abacus Games.

Like many people, I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly and Settlers of Catan. It's hard to recall when I realized there was more to board gaming, but I believe it began with either Kingdomino, Patchwork and Sagrada around 2017 or 2018. I've learned a lot since then about board gaming and board game mechanics.

This game design journey for me, though, started when my older brother out of the blue designed a game he called Almost Heroes – a mostly for fun card game based on the movie (itself, a parody of Lewis and Clark). Well, I liked this idea so much I decided to try re-designing it, and re-design it I did until I had a fully fledged prototype of a Lewis and Clark themed board game I called Corps of Discovery. This game itself went through 3 different playable iterations, all the while I was learning a lot about the pitfalls of board game design and prototype creation.

Then around 2020, I discovered a game called Rolling Realms and I started especially taking enjoyment in designing fan realms for the game, based on other games I owned and enjoyed. This started becoming like a sort of past time, and before I knew it I had designed 20+ of them and posted them to the variants forum of the game on BGG. Later on, Stonemaier Games contacted me and expressed interest in publishing one I'd done, and it has recently been officially published (it's a promo realm based on Hokkaido, you can check it out here).

It's been many years since, and more than a couple prototypes have been created that may never see any tables beyond my local board game group. (but perhaps some still have bright futures ahead). Regardless, Micro Abacus Games is the result of those endeavors.

As an analytics software developer by day, I try to bring an analytical mind to board game designs. I think from the ground up: mechanics I want to incorporate, to other games that I really enjoy and why I enjoy them, and how I can integrate these aspects into a thematic experience that makes sense and is enjoyable to play. I have 5 personal tenets of board game design I try to adhere to on top of this.

Designing board games and all the other content is 100% a part time endeavor so progress on projects can be slower than I'd like – but progress nonetheless!

Games

Dice Castles, Ice Cream Truck Wars, Petra: Era of Prosperity, Speed8ing