Hello!
I'm Josiah. I'm a guy from Michigan who loves people, storytelling, and Jesus. And frankly, that's why I created Hoodwinked Games.
The world is a big, scary place full of beautiful people eager to connect with others over fantastic stories and shared experiences. Hoodwink Game's mission is to connect those people together all around the world into healthy communities.
Ultimately that's my goal: to create communities that honor people the way God intended and give anyone lost a place where they feel found.
My Story
In 2013, I asked my parents if I could play Dungeons & Dragons.
They said no.
See, I loved telling stories (and Mom and Dad). My first book scrolled out in mechanical pencil in a page-battered spiral-bound notebook. Story ideas filled my head - ideas of magical creatures, cunning enemies, glorious heroes, and beautiful girls.
Dungeons & Dragons was a way to tell those stories alongside friends who I knew played. In time, though, I read my friends' rulebooks and realized I didn't have the time or the money to learn Dungeons & Dragons. Over 600 pages of rules across three, $50 textbooks? Nah...
So instead, I set out to make my own. It would be a game anyone could play - a game for high schoolers trying to make friends or one college dorms could use to adventure together. It had to be inexpensive with one manual, under $25. It had to be easy to learn but satisfyingly complex. And it had to have rules that worked for any genre so people could share their own stories.
The result? The Basic and Generic (BaG) Role-playing System.
After playtesting for four years, I launched BaG on Kickstarter in 2020 as a freshman in college. Apparently over 250 people in 10 countries were looking for the same things - and the result is Hoodwink Games.
Poke around, and, if you like what you see, join us by subscribing or grabbing a game!
Our Vision
Hoodwink Games creates meaningful, in-person friendships by creating board games that honor God and people.
Our Mission
Hoodwink Games uses the shared joy of games to create God-honoring friendships by circumventing distractions and crossing bearers through the shared joy of games. To create communities where people who feel lost can feel found.
Our Values
Fun; Hoodwink creates games people are drawn to out of innocent fun. Respect; we respect other's beliefs and expect ours to be respected as well.
Holiness; we acknowledge some behavior is conducive to fun, healthy interactions and other behavior is not. Using the Bible as our standard, we moderate our content and clearly communicate what we will a) support, b) tolerate, and c) oppose in order to create spaces that lead to the most fulfilling interactions and relationships.