About Cards of Fate

I am an independent, UK-based board game designer and publisher. I am on a quest to push the boundaries of storytelling in tabletop games and to enrich the imaginations of the next generation of gamers.

I used to play a lot of video games when I was younger. Perhaps you did too? I vividly remember trawling through my dad's old PC Pro collection, loading up the cover discs on my ancient Windows 98 PC to see what delights awaited me in the games section. They were almost all demos, which meant they either had a limited number of levels or you could only play them for a certain amount of time before you had to buy the full game.

I never did.

Fast-forward to 2015, when I overheard some friends chatting about this cool board game where you traded wood and sheep on a hexagonal island. I decided to buy it for my dad. When we lifted the lid on The Settlers of Catan as a family that Christmas, I discovered modern board games.

Since then I've put a lot of thought into what games are and what they could be. The loose ends and unfinished demos of my youth come back to haunt me, daring me to look around the next corner into so many untold stories. What was behind that locked door? What would have happened to that character? What if? The questions begin to take on a life of their own and coalesce into something new, something inevitable. It feels like drawing from an infinite deck of cards. Each time you're seeing something new for the first time, but you're also revealing the back of the next idea. It's hidden and unknowable, but at the same time you know it's always been there.

These are the Cards of Fate. Shall I deal you in?

— Phil Hazelton
Founder, Cards of Fate