A Kickstarter campaign was started to fund a board game featuring the City of Athens and its bars by an Ohio University alumnus.
Colton Feathers, who graduated from OU in 2017, created a board game called “Athens Happens,” which is themed around bars in the Athens area.
“The premise of the game is that it’s a night after going out to all the bars on Court Street in Athens and trying to recount what happens that night,” Feathers said.
The playable characters include a freshman, a fifth-year student, a sorority girl and more. The goal is to figure out who blacked out first with what drink and at what bar, Feathers said, similar to popular board game Clue.
“The first person to get the three card combination first wins,” he said.
The bars featured in the board game include The Pub, Lucky’s, Red Brick Tavern, Tony’s, The Union, The CI, Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery and J Bar.
The projected price of the board game is $20, Feathers said.
Feathers was inspired to create Athens Happens from his deep obsession with board games.
“I have a big collection I’ve been working on for years,” he said. “This is the only one that people were really interested in.”
Feathers chose Athens as the setting for the game because of his past experiences in the town.
“I went here and especially since I knew my friends would enjoy playing something like that because we all have the Athens lifestyle,” he said.
Feathers used Ad Magic, the game publishing company that also published Cards Against Humanity, to get quotes to see how much creating a board game would cost.
“I decided I would do a Kickstarter because it was more money than I was willing to spend by myself,” he said.
500 copies of the game will be produced once the Kickstarter campaign is successful.
“I didn’t want to right off the bat say 2,000 copies and then it’s a $15,000 Kickstarter,” he said. “Keeping it down to $5,000 is much more reachable.”
Feathers’ goal is to have the game available for purchase in the middle of Spring Semester, just in time for spring graduation. He plans to visit the campus often to sell the game.
Jenna Shatrich, a senior studying education, said the board game sounds interesting.
“It would be a good memory to have,” she said. “I would buy it. It would be so cool to have.”
Katie Geis, a freshman studying pre-media arts, also likes the idea of a board game about Athens.
“I think I would play it,” she said. “It would be really interesting.”
