In 2018, I was on a card game design spree. I designed two games, one called City of Thieves (not published, even though it's the better game in my opinion), and one called Hierarchy. I ran a few playtests with my friends, and once I finished up the game design, I thought it would be a waste to leave them both as prototypes. I wanted to put them out on the internet - I just wanted people to play my games! Hierarchy was the obvious choice to do, since it's a game with open information which means you can play it on standard printer paper without worrying about being able to see through the cards.
So I did a bit of work on the visual design of the cards and then posted it on Reddit . The post got to the front page of /r/boardgames, and it caught the attention of Jason Tagmire, the owner of Button Shy games, a card game company that specialises in 18 card games that they sell in little bi-fold wallets. I couldn't believe my luck that such a company existed! He later contacted me about publishing and we took it to Kickstarter where it was funded almost immediately.
You can buy the game here (though stock may not be available). Even though it hasn't sold as well as some other games by Button Shy, famous game designer/publisher Jamey Stegmaier (designer of Scythe, Viticulture, and Tapestry, and publisher of Wingspan) made a YouTube video about Hierarchy! Game review channel Shut Up & Sit Down also reviewed Hierarchy!
I aspire to publish more tabletop games in the future!
