Few things are better than watching someone discover the Garden for the first time.
This week, I got to experience that with the owner of my local game store.
He’d seen our community having a great time, but hadn’t played himself yet, so I asked him to run a few games at closing time.
By the end of the first game, he said unprompted how fun it was, how easy it was to learn, and how it reminded him of Riftbound, OP, and Gundam, but without the frustrating parts. Then he mentioned he had a fashion background, so I told him about 424, PFW, Moser, Satoshi, and AMBUSH, and he was speechless.
We took a break talked about the art, the animations, the dope shit and just how much of this world has been built and experienced by all of us over the years, and how it all connects through the game.
As we kept playing, I started pointing out different pieces of the lore, the community, and the artists featured in the cards, and how our beloved characters’ stories are reflected in their abilities.
Two games later, a card store owner who didn’t know Azuki had committed to running a weekly tournament, purchased half a dozen cases, and we started texting to talk more about Azuki.
There’s a whole world of people ready to join us and love our story. Yesterday reminded me of that in a very real way.
Thanks to the crew at Kaleido for the games, and s/o
@SteveG60117 for pushing me to share this.