Back when I was in Primary School, I had a friend who introduced me to the wonderful world of Trading Card Games. Back then, we played Yu-Gi-Oh! and the school grounds were pretty much the only place we can play these games. However, my school was pretty darn strict about playing cards. And they banned cards.

Being the obsessed young kids we were, my friend and I made our own TCG out of paper. We used to tell the teachers that playing it should be okay because they were not cards, but paper featuring our hand-drawn monsters. The loop hole actually worked.

Since then, the two of us always tried to invent a new game for the year. I found my love of creating games then.

My real love for Tabletop Games bloomed further when I move to Singapore and was introduced to this mythical game called Magic: the Gathering. Living in a foreign country alone at such a young age, I didn’t really have much friend. Magic changed that. And it opened my eyes on how powerful sharing a game over a table could be.

~ Joshua Dharmawan, 21 November 2025