I really wanted 2025 to be a big year. I wanted to work hard, and accomplish bigger things. I wanted to establish myself more firmly in the tabletop space, and hopefully dispel some of the imposter syndrome I have around working in game design. While the battle with imposter syndrome may go on forever, I do feel really proud and happy of everything that we accomplished this year, and I feel it’s important to count your wins.
Here’s what we were able to accomplish in 2025
- In April of 2025 we officially incorporated as Witchway Games, LLC:
- This was challenging as I incorporated the same day the tariffs went into effect, which completely derailed months of correspondence and planning with manufacturers in China.
- Despite the challenges, being a company owner again is really cool. It feels official. It costs all sorts of new time and money to make it official, but it’s an exciting venture. I’m proud of how I was able to pivot to US production, and I’m really pleased with the quality of product I’ll be sharing with customers and backers this coming year!
- In June/July we successfully funded a Kickstarter Campaign for our flagship game, MECHROMANCERS:
- This was huge. This was so challenging. Pivoting to US manufacturing meant that instead of 500 copies of the game we were looking at using roughly that same budget to cover just 100 copies.
- I’ve included so much extra content, we had every single high tier pledge filled, and there is so much content that will be included in the base game moving forward because of the support shown during the campaign.
- We over funded! We made it to 115% funding, and this game gets to happen because of the support of so many wonderful people, I’m just ecstatic about it, it really means so much to me that I get to share this game with everyone.
- In September/October I taught my first class at a local teen center, “Fundamentals of Character Design”:
- Teaching has always been something I’ve been passionate about. I work as a tech educator in my full time role, but teaching art was a new experience for me. Teaching kids was a new experience for me as well!
- I found this process messy, challenging, and really fun. It was hard to wrangle between 4 and 10 kiddos between 4th and 9th grade, but it lead to some really fun art, and some really fun teaching moments.
- I liked being asked questions, or when someone wanted to know how to tackle a specific challenge, and watching things “click” for someone and seeing them make something they were pleased with was super rewarding.
- In December I won my first award for game design at the Boston Festival of Indie Games (BFIG), with Trickflip receiving the award for “Best Game in Progress”:
- Trickflip is a really cool design, a very different type of design for me. Sure it has cards and goblins, but i’ve never tried designing a dexterity game before. Getting the chance to play it with people at my favorite convention was just so cool.
- BFIG was awesome and wholesome, just like every year. The feedback on the game was great, and I’m super excited for what the next steps could look like for the game. We’re already looking at entering it in more contests/showcases to get additional feedback, along with implementing some of the fantastic suggestions that came up over the course of the convention!
- It’s hard not to sound egocentric while practicing celebrating wins, but I really wanted to win the award and I’m really happy I did. This was the same award that MECHROMANCERS was nominated for last year, and it felt really amazing to bring the trophy home this year. I feel like it’s a very tangible way to see how I have improved as a designer in just this past year.
- In December I received my copies of several decks of Magi-Nation Duel cards, with cards from two of those decks having my art on it:
- This moment was a little surreal. Hot on the heels of BFIG (the same weekend I believe), I received a package from Arcanist’s Armory that contained my pledge rewards for backing the Magi-Nation Duels Kickstarter that launched in early 2024.
- Inside my backer rewards were some promos, a cool hat, some dice, but the real prize was in two of the pre-con decks. I have art on two cards in the Magi-Nation: Traitor’s Reach pre-con decks! Possession in the Core deck and Heat Spear in the Cald deck were cards I was lucky enough to get to do the art for, and the process was amazing.
- I got to work with some wonderful clients, and I was art directed by one of the original artists of the game, and one of the more influential artists in my life growing up, Matt Holmberg. I remember growing up tracing the art he drew, Deep Hyren and Lightning Hyren really kind of defined my artistic vision in the early 2000’s, and now my art is in the game I grew up loving.
What does this all mean to me though, or mean for Witchway Games? Well, it means we keep at it! 2025 showed us that fantastic people support the work we do, that the games we make are innovative an exciting, and that slowly but surely we’re establishing ourselves within the tabletop space a little more firmly. People we have looked up to historically are becoming peers, external recognition (while not the most important thing) also helps confirm that the risks we’re taking and the design choices we’re making are resonating with players.
What is coming next from Witchway Games in 2026? Well, a lot we hope! It will look a little different in 2026 for sure, the plan is to focus a little less on new designs and instead focus on re-investing in our existing games. What exactly does that look like?
- MECHROMANCERS:
- we’re currently working on 2 expansions for the base game, along with some fun add-ons to help players dive deeper into the world!
- Pocket Duels: Season 02 is currently in development and we’ll be exploring some “Tag Team” mechanics that will hopefully translate up to the core version of the game as well!
- Trickflip:
- we can’t let Trickflip sit idle now that it’s won an award!
- we’ll be working on polishing it up, getting more feedback, and exploring how we can best deliver it to market
- Full Moon:
- we’re looking at revamping Full Moon into a more robust journaling RPG with legacy elements!
- Paper Planes:
- there is one final expansion for the current build of Paper Planes that we’re hoping to release, the “Ever Upwards!” expansion
- Wandering the Whimdark:
- Wandering the Whimdark needs some love and to be brought from Alpha to v1.0, and hopefully 2026 is the year we do that!
- we’re looking at updating the layout of the book with some new tools to help the reader experience, and there is a fully localized LATAM Spanish version that we’re hoping to release as well as a free print and play!
As far as new designs go, there will always be something new and shiny that catches my eye, but it’s looking like Pains of Glass is likely the posterboy for new content from us this coming year outside of the updates listed above. I’m not saying the game will be ready for release, but hopefully we can get an alpha version out there and available as a print and play, or a prototype ordered in prep for a con in December potentially, but we’ll see if we get that far.
Thank you all for your support over these past few years. 2025 was really great, and we’re really looking forward to sharing more of our games with you in 2026.
Thank you ❤
Eric and the Witchway Games family
Witchway Games 