The History of High Rise Hustle

Our final prototype for the 2022 Otto Awards at Fastaval, Denmark's largest role-playing and board gaming convention.

In 2017, I bought "Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game" as a birthday present for my sister. That was my gateway game and she never got it back.

From there, my love for the hobby grew and naturally led me to design. And so, inspired by games from my childhood, I set out to create a tower building game. While I was googling "how to design a board game," I came across the Game Artisans of New Zealand (GANZ) community on Facebook. I went to the first meet-up that month and have been going to them regularly for 6 years now.

What started off as a 3D concept...

On and off over the next several years, I trialed countless concepts and core mechanics for the game at those meet ups. In 2021, I came across a post on the GANZ Facebook page about a design contest - the Otto Awards held at Fastaval, Denmark's largest role-playing and board game convention. At that point, High Rise Hustle was just a concept. Two weeks later, to my surprise, the pitch was accepted and so our journey began.

Over the next 6 months, there was a lot of trial and error, but also many lessons learned. Throughout the process, I was incredibly grateful for the support Fastaval provided us. They assigned each designer with a mentor and also built an amazing community among the contestants to share and connect.

One of many trial and error playtest sessions in the lead up to Fastaval.

Fast foward to April, Fastaval kicks off. On the last day of Fastaval, I woke up in the morning to a congratulatory message from my mentor - the game had been nominated for Best Innovation. I was speechless. While the game still had a long way to go in terms of development, the nomination gave me hope, drive and determination to see this through.

Behold our latest prototype!

Over the next year, I took the game to local conventions and participated in (a little too many) contests, while continuously learning from the feedback and striving to improve as a designer. In 2023, the game was a Finalist for the Ion Awards. It was also a Finalist for the 2022 Boston FIG Best Hobby Game and a Semi-finalist for the 2022 Board Game Workshop Design Contest.

We've learned so much on this journey and are so proud of our progress. We look forward to sharing more soon!