He describes it as his “baby.” For the past 14 years, Wendell resident Stephen Rice has been creating, honing and testing his original board game.
Rice calls the game “Master’s Will,” and is currently testing the game’s seventh edition.
“It’s probably half strategy and half luck,” Rice said, explaining that he’s planning to have a final version of the game completed by Christmas, at which time he’ll start approaching manufacturers and publishers about selling the game.
Master’s Will can involve an unlimited number of players. Rice created a design for interlocking blocks that make up the game board — the more blocks, the more players, but the “standard” board fits six players.
Each Master’s Will player gets six playing chips, a knight, a wizard, an archer, a ranger, a castle and a master.
The goal of the game? To have the last remaining master of all the players.
“You lose the master’s chip, you’re out,” Rice said.
Master’s Will is a game of tactics — well, partly. Each chip has a different ability. For example, the archer chip can attack, which is done using dice, across several squares of the playing board.
But it’s also about luck, because drawing different cards from a deck will give players different “bonuses” in play.
Rice hopes his game will be more than a standard board game on the shelf. He hopes it will allow for opportunities for other people to be artistically creative.
Rice created each image on each card, carved each square of the board and created each playing chip (using poker chips). Besides sawing, carving, painting and gluing, Rice has made portions of the game digitally. The playing chips are donned with designs that he made on a computer, and the cartoonish, yet bold, look of the chips is the final version.
“I think this is it,” Rice said. “People like it and it works.”
He envisions a game with a website and templates available for artists to put their own images on cards.
“I’d love to give other creative people an outlet to express their art. I’m big into eclectic arts and I’m big into mystic art,” Rice said.
Rice is an artist and life coach. The Fitchburg-born man has suffered from hemophilia since he was a young child, and has to ice his ankles for hours each day because they are especially prone to bleeding.
Thus, Rice has had lots of time in his life for thought and creativity.
Rice’s studio, located in the Wendell woods, is where he creates his art — from psychedelic drawings with magic markers, to figurines made of wood and glass — as well as where he holds one-on-one sessions for his clients as a life coach and constructs Master’s Will.
“I spend most of my days reflecting,” Rice said. “I let myself follow my impulse.”
While Rice hopes to one day have the game available nationwide, he takes a spiritual approach to the game and isn’t in it for the money.
“It’s about unifying people,” Rice said.
For the last few months, Rice has been hosting game-testing nights for Master’s Will, first at Deja Brew and now at the Wendell Senior Center.
Even in a town of under 1,000 people, at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday nights, a crowd of a dozen or more will filter through the Senior Center to play his game.
“Some people are really getting addicted,” Rice said. “You can have your own strategy in this game.”
A group of Rice’s friends are faithful regulars.
Rice’s friend Jay Molina said the game could develop a cult following.
“It’s on its way to becoming a sensation on the scale of D and D (Dungeons & Dragons),” Molina said.
Others said the game is playable by people of all ages.
“We have three kids living here with us, ages 8, 10 and 11. I bring them up to play the game at the Wendell Senior Center,” Sarah Kohler said. “They learned the basics of the game in one night, and all three of them love it. They love the concepts, strategy, humor and physical nature of the game, and they look forward to the next game all week.”
Another player, Casey Ray, said he hopes the game gets played on a larger scale.
“Master’s Will is without a doubt the greatest skill-meets-chance game I have ever played, filled with laughter alongside fierce competition,” Ray said. “I absolutely cannot wait for Master’s Will tournaments.”
The idea for Master’s Will came from a mythology Rice started writing well over a decade ago, in which a physical competition brought humanity together.
“Warriors would compete in a game instead of going to war,” Rice explained.
And just as in his mythology, Master’s Will is a game that has already brought people from around the world together.
Rice brought the game to Sweden, where he lived for a few years and got married. There, Rice also held game-testing nights.
Master’s Will’s long journey through time and across the globe — as well as the many people who’ve played it — has helped Rice hone the game. It can be played in less than a half an hour, and requires critical thinking and a bit of luck.
“He’s a fantastic designer, and the game looks like a lot of fun for people of all ages,” said Molina, who hopes Rice can continue to expand the game’s player base.
Rice has also tried to make the physical board more practical and portable. The top layers of the ziggurat-shaped board lift up, revealing storage chambers for the playing chips and cards.
He plans on revealing several different versions of the game to potential publishers — a portable, four-person game, for example.
Ideally, if a company were to pursue Rice’s game, he would want to be the project’s creative director or at least in a partnership-like arrangement.
But he’s holding true to the mythology that inspired the game. Rice’s ultimate goal is just to get more people to play it and have fun.
“Even if someone stole my idea and put the game out there and made a lot of money off of it I wouldn’t care,” Rice said. “Because that would mean people like it. It would be validating.”
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.