u/Flashy-Actuator6677

When you spend years and years with designing a board game, your family hears about it a lot.

They see the endless prototypes, see you playtesting all the time in your freetime, and listen to you talk for hours about mechanics they don’t even understand. Who could blame them if they secretly think something is seriously off with you?

But these obsessions can bring beautiful surprises.

One day, we were celebrating my father-in-laws birthday. We were sitting on the sofa as usual and Robert was sharing some stories about an early, messy prototype of our game, Bharat. Robert's father is not a very sharing type of person, but suddenly out of nowhere he told us that when he was a teenager, he also tried to design a board game.

I was so happy about this rare moment. His eyes were shining. I have never seen him so excited before. We started talking about games in general, and it turned out he loves abstract, Chess-like games.

Since Christmas was right around the corner, Robert and I decided to make him something special. We downloaded the print-and-play version of The Duke (a brilliant abstract tile-laying game we had heard about from The Dice Tower).

It was the loveliest feeling to spend hours cutting out tiny little pieces of paper and cardboard, gluing the pieces together, and just hoping it would make him happy. And I think it did. :)

I'm Livi, an environmentalist and together with my husband Robert - musician and graphic designer - we'd like to share the story behind our first soon-to-be-published board game: Bharat: Kings of Legend.

Since I was a little girl, I have loved folk tales and mythology. Some stories I heard somehow became alive inside me and stayed with me ever since. About ten years ago, I came across a story of this kind: the Mahabharat.

At the time, Robert and I were living in Cambridge, UK, and were becoming increasingly interested in yoga. Through that journey we found a teacher whose words resonated deeply with us, and we started listening to more and more of his talks.

That was when we discovered his series of lectures on the great Indian epic, Mahabharat. Fantastic tales of kings, yogis and warriors and their struggles woven through lifetimes across millenia. It has the kind of drama which makes Game of Thrones feel like a saturday morning cartoon. It completely blew our minds.

We became so fascinated by the culture and by yoga that we decided to make a bold move: leave our jobs, leave the UK, move back to Hungary, and travel to India for as long as our visas and savings would allow.

Over the years we ended up spending nine months living in the ashram in Tamil Nadu, India - learning yoga, volunteering, and just immersing ourselves in one of the only remaining ancient living cultures. These times were the most magical and rich experiences in my life, it had everything from tending for cows to unspeakable spiritual experiences, from hanging out with monkeys, peacocks and cobras to picking jasmines with the locals, or not even recognising my husband one morning, because he offered his long hair for some ritual and turned completely bald - not to mention tasting the best mangoes on the planet…oh, those mangoes. Whenever I think about it I’m like, what am I doing in Europe anyway?

These times felt like we were living the epic.

The stories of Mahabharata became richer the more context we learned. One idea especially stayed with us. Our teacher often encouraged us not to judge the characters as historical figures, but to experience them as reflections of ourselves. "It is not just history," he would say. "It is your story." That idea completely changed the way I experienced the epic. Instead of asking: "Was this character right?"

I started asking:"What would I have done?" "What would it feel like to be one of those kings?"

With this new insight, the stories of Mahabharata became deeply personal. This, along with the crystal clarity with which our teacher revealed the multi-layered dynamics of being a leader in that age, felt like we’ve got hold of something really valuable, something universal that is so inspiring it yearns for finding expression. The more we looked at what we received, the more it started to resemble something truly unexpected: a game. A bundle of interwoven mechanics, together expressing something much deeper than the sum of its parts.

This eventually became the seed of our game; Bharat. 

As I was always toying with the idea of designing a board game, it felt like everything fell into place: This is what we will do! A Mahabharat board game…How hard could it be, right?

Well, looking back after 8 years of designing the game: pretty goddamn hard. 

(But also kinda beautiful…)

I'm Livi, an environmentalist and together with my husband Robert - musician and graphic designer - we'd like to share the story behind our first soon-to-be-published board game: Bharat: Kings of Legend.

Since I was a little girl, I have loved folk tales and mythology. Some stories I heard somehow became alive inside me and stayed with me ever since. About ten years ago, I came across a story of this kind: the Mahabharat.

At the time, Robert and I were living in Cambridge, UK, and were becoming increasingly interested in yoga. Through that journey we found a teacher whose words resonated deeply with us, and we started listening to more and more of his talks.

That was when we discovered his series of lectures on the great Indian epic, Mahabharat. Fantastic tales of kings, yogis and warriors and their struggles woven through lifetimes across millenia. It has the kind of drama which makes Game of Thrones feel like a saturday morning cartoon. It completely blew our minds.

We became so fascinated by the culture and by yoga that we decided to make a bold move: leave our jobs, leave the UK, move back to Hungary, and travel to India for as long as our visas and savings would allow.

Over the years we ended up spending nine months living in the ashram in Tamil Nadu, India - learning yoga, volunteering, and just immersing ourselves in one of the only remaining ancient living cultures. These times were the most magical and rich experiences in my life, it had everything from tending for cows to unspeakable spiritual experiences, from hanging out with monkeys, peacocks and cobras to picking jasmines with the locals, or not even recognising my husband one morning, because he offered his long hair for some ritual and turned completely bald - not to mention tasting the best mangoes on the planet…oh, those mangoes. Whenever I think about it I’m like, what am I doing in Europe anyway?

These times felt like we were living the epic.

The stories of Mahabharata became richer the more context we learned. One idea especially stayed with us. Our teacher often encouraged us not to judge the characters as historical figures, but to experience them as reflections of ourselves. "It is not just history," he would say. "It is your story." That idea completely changed the way I experienced the epic. Instead of asking: "Was this character right?"

I started asking:"What would I have done?" "What would it feel like to be one of those kings?"

With this new insight, the stories of Mahabharata became deeply personal. This, along with the crystal clarity with which our teacher revealed the multi-layered dynamics of being a leader in that age, felt like we’ve got hold of something really valuable, something universal that is so inspiring it yearns for finding expression. The more we looked at what we received, the more it started to resemble something truly unexpected: a game. A bundle of interwoven mechanics, together expressing something much deeper than the sum of its parts.

This eventually became the seed of our game; Bharat. 

As I was always toying with the idea of designing a board game, it felt like everything fell into place: This is what we will do! A Mahabharat board game…How hard could it be, right?

Well, looking back after 8 years of designing the game: pretty goddamn hard. 

(But also kinda beautiful…)

Dear all! This post is not video game - but it is a game and it is inspired by Indian culture so I thought you might be interested.

I'm Livi, an environmentalist and together with my husband Robert - musician and graphic designer - we'd like to share the story behind our first soon-to-be-published board game: Bharat: Kings of Legend.

Since I was a little girl, I have loved folk tales and mythology. Some stories I heard somehow became alive inside me and stayed with me ever since. About ten years ago, I came across a story of this kind: the Mahabharat.

At the time, Robert and I were living in Cambridge, UK, and were becoming increasingly interested in yoga. Through that journey we found a teacher whose words resonated deeply with us, and we started listening to more and more of his talks.

That was when we discovered his series of lectures on the great Indian epic, Mahabharat. Fantastic tales of kings, yogis and warriors and their struggles woven through lifetimes across millenia. It has the kind of drama which makes Game of Thrones feel like a saturday morning cartoon. It completely blew our minds.

We became so fascinated by the culture and by yoga that we decided to make a bold move: leave our jobs, leave the UK, move back to Hungary, and travel to India for as long as our visas and savings would allow.

Over the years we ended up spending nine months living in the ashram in Tamil Nadu, India - learning yoga, volunteering, and just immersing ourselves in one of the only remaining ancient living cultures. These times were the most magical and rich experiences in my life, it had everything from tending for cows to unspeakable spiritual experiences, from hanging out with monkeys, peacocks and cobras to picking jasmines with the locals, or not even recognising my husband one morning, because he offered his long hair for some ritual and turned completely bald - not to mention tasting the best mangoes on the planet…oh, those mangoes. Whenever I think about it I’m like, what am I doing in Europe anyway?

These times felt like we were living the epic.

The stories of Mahabharata became richer the more context we learned. One idea especially stayed with us. Our teacher often encouraged us not to judge the characters as historical figures, but to experience them as reflections of ourselves. "It is not just history," he would say. "It is your story." That idea completely changed the way I experienced the epic. Instead of asking: "Was this character right?"

I started asking:"What would I have done?" "What would it feel like to be one of those kings?"

With this new insight, the stories of Mahabharata became deeply personal. This, along with the crystal clarity with which our teacher revealed the multi-layered dynamics of being a leader in that age, felt like we’ve got hold of something really valuable, something universal that is so inspiring it yearns for finding expression. The more we looked at what we received, the more it started to resemble something truly unexpected: a game. A bundle of interwoven mechanics, together expressing something much deeper than the sum of its parts.

This eventually became the seed of our game; Bharat. 

As I was always toying with the idea of designing a board game, it felt like everything fell into place: This is what we will do! A Mahabharat board game…How hard could it be, right?

Well, looking back after 8 years of designing the game: pretty goddamn hard. 

(But also kinda beautiful…)

I'm Livi, an environmentalist and together with my husband Robert - musician and graphic designer - we'd like to share the story behind our first soon-to-be-published board game: Bharat: Kings of Legend.

Since I was a little girl, I have loved folk tales and mythology. Some stories I heard somehow became alive inside me and stayed with me ever since. About ten years ago, I came across a story of this kind: the Mahabharata.

At the time, Robert and I were living in Cambridge, UK, and were becoming increasingly interested in yoga. Through that journey we found a teacher whose words resonated deeply with us, and we started listening to more and more of his talks.
That was when we discovered his series of lectures on the great Indian epic, Mahabharata. Fantastic tales of kings, yogis and warriors and their struggles woven through lifetimes across millenia. It has the kind of drama which makes Game of Thrones feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. It completely blew our minds.

We became so fascinated by the culture and by yoga that we decided to make a bold move: leave our jobs, leave the UK, move back to Hungary, and travel to India for as long as our visas and savings would allow.

Over the years we ended up spending nine months living in the ashram in Tamil Nadu, India - learning yoga, volunteering, and just immersing ourselves in one of the only remaining ancient living cultures. These times were the most magical and rich experiences in my life, it had everything from tending for cows to unspeakable spiritual experiences, from hanging out with monkeys, peacocks and cobras to picking jasmines with the locals, or not even recognising my husband one morning, because he offered his long hair for some ritual and turned completely bald - not to mention tasting the best mangoes on the planet…oh, those mangoes. Whenever I think about it I’m like, what am I doing in Europe anyway?

These times felt like we were living the epic.

The stories of Mahabharata became richer the more context we learned. One idea especially stayed with us. Our teacher often encouraged us not to judge the characters as historical figures, but to experience them as reflections of ourselves.

"It is not just history (his-story)," he would say. "It is your story."
That idea completely changed the way I experienced the epic. Instead of asking: "Was this character right?" I started asking:"What would I have done?" "What would it feel like to be one of those kings?"

With this new insight, the stories of Mahabharata became deeply personal. This, along with the crystal clarity with which our teacher revealed the multi-layered dynamics of being a leader in that age, felt like we’ve got hold of something really valuable, something universal that is so inspiring it yearns for finding expression. The more we looked at what we received, the more it started to resemble something truly unexpected: a game. A bundle of interwoven mechanics, together expressing something much deeper than the sum of its parts.

This eventually became the seed of our game; Bharat. 

As I was always toying with the idea of designing a board game, it felt like everything fell into place: This is what we will do! A Mahabharata board game…How hard could it be, right?

Well, looking back after 8 years of designing the game: pretty goddamn hard. 

(But also kinda beautiful…)