My name is Jeremy Hanke. I’m a father with two young children in the house and I wanted to instill my kids with a love of games, but have a limited tolerance for Candyland, Hungry, Hungry Hippos, and Monopoly.
I’ve always been fascinated by strategy card games, as well as with animals and nature. As such, I set out to find out if there was a real-world animal-based game that taught the strategies normally found in collectible card games, but couldn’t find one. The fantastic ones that were targeted with my boys’ age ranges were so much about add-ons that I felt like it was a never ending money hole (not to mention the designs were like Attention Defecit Disorder overload, which was not great for a family that already struggles with ADD).
So I decided to make my own game, one based entirely in the real world (albeit set a little ways in the future), with the initial idea of just making it for my family. Using info I’d gleaned from some of the blogs and podcasts of the best game makers in the industry, my goal was to craft a game that used real world animals and objects to build real world strategy, but with a greatly streamlined gameplay to make it easier to learn, so younger players could get involved.
As I began working on Wild Wars, and doing more research on all the animals I thought I knew, I discovered so much more about these animals and their habitats that I’d never grasped before that I began to truly understand that the real world was no less “magical” than the worlds of fantasy. It became my mission to share this. After I tested the game with some young kids in a class I teach, the response was so favorable–with 7 and 8 year olds eagerly setting aside video games and other distractions to play–that I realized I needed to make the game available to the public.
When I saw that parents of young kids had fun playing it not just with their kids, but with other adults, as well, I began to understand that nearly all ages could enjoy this game. So, earlier this year, we released the first two decks of Wild Wars cards: Land and Sea. We anticipate the remaining three–Underground, Forest, and Sky–to be available by this summer.
If you’re reading this, hopefully it’s because you’re someone who’s looking for a fun new strategy game for you, your kids, or another family member to play! If so, hopefully Wild Wars can be that for you!
-Jeremy Hanke
