J: "Although I’m a Canadian by birth, I spent most of my childhood in Germany. Although I had no knowledge about the board game industry, I started developing the game Cardchess. The success of 3D Artifacts helped launch Cardchess International, the game company."

The game of Cardchess makes it possible for four players to engage in a game of chess, a problem chess masters have been trying to solve for 250 years.  What are your most recent additions to
the Cardchess family of games?

J: “Our two most recent games are getting lots of attention. Mouse Chaos and Crossword Pyramids are setting new standards in our company and eventually the board game business. They’re fun, challenging and the quality of production far surpasses the majority of the games on the market."

While it seems others agree!  Crossword Pyramids was chosen Best Word Game in 2004 by Games Magazine.  Mouse Chaos was featured in Spielbox, the German board game magazine.  Tell us about these two games.

J: "Crosswords Pyramids consists of four-sided pyramids with the same letter on all four sides. This is the only word game based on dismantling the game by first spelling a word and later removing those letters that were used from the board. By removing those letters, players expose a fresh batch of letters for their opponents to use."

"Mouse Chaos takes place in a kitchen; the cat, mice, chairs, and holes in the wall are all something you would find in a kitchen setting. The various pieces interact with each other just the way they would in real life. The idea is to safely return the mice to the nest. Once they’re home, a secondary or end game is played to determine the winner."

"These are both family games but challenging enough that the board game enthusiasts are also enjoying the games, especially Mouse Chaos."

So what inspires you to create these games?

J: "For some unknown reason my thought process and visualization abilities are always in 3-D. The third dimension allows me to see just a little bit more hidden information that someone else might have missed.  In any creative discipline, the best ideas always turn out to be the simplest ones and this concept couldn't be more true in board game design. The thicker the set of rules, the less likely the game will be a success."

"It also inspires me to see my games draw family and friends back to the kitchen table.  Electronic games have largely become a source of solitary amusement.  Board games are making a huge comeback because they're bringing people back together."

So where do you go from here?

J: "We want to publish a minimum of four strong games each year for the North American and German game markets. We currently have 7 or 8 new games in various stages of development.

We’ll keep our customers informed of our developments by way of our monthly online newsletter. We also feel our customers should have some preferred customer access to our new games."

Obviously, you've already established a reputation after a few short years in the business, yet somehow I think you and Cardchess are just getting started!