Boulder Creek Resident Creates a New Card Game
Frontiers: Whelming the West
By Mary Andersen
Boulder Creek resident Pat Lahey has developed a card game with two cofounders — Greg Finkelstein and Wade Green. In Frontiers: Whelming the West (WTW) players lead a settlement to battle and prosper on an exciting western frontier. Two to four players play 30-60 minute games rich with fun cards, cool combos, and strategic competition.
“We all enjoy strategy card games and have played them together: Magic the Gathering, Dominion, and Star Realms, mainly,” Pat said. “We had played those games amongst ourselves for a long time, and we started making custom rules to keep them interesting. After customizing the rules a lot, we figured it would be simpler to make the game we wanted to play rather than adjust the other games.”
The trio pooled their collective talents to develop the game. “Wade has a background in tech and used those skills to produce the digital assets and media. He did all the coding and graphic design. He was the software wizard and the art director that brought the physical game into existence through our collective vision,” Pat said. “Greg had a careful eye for detail and spent hours reviewing and refining the cards in the early days, and we all had to be very thorough when reviewing the materials and making things just right”
Pat, with a schedule that made him less able to work simultaneously with Greg and Wade, worked the most asynchronously, reviewing cards, mechanics, and the rules independently. He focused on quality control; he proofread, edited, and organized discussions about design, intent, and playability that lead to refinements.
Game Creation
Pat described the development of Frontiers as a parallel process of crafting a thematic world and designing engaging gameplay. The team chose a Wild West setting, creating character groups (called “cohorts”) and cards to bring the theme to life. They also defined Frontiers as a deckbuilder card game, where players refine their starting decks to match their strategies. “We made it a deckbuilder card game. That means each player starts with the same cards in their own respective decks, and then adds and subtracts cards to hone their deck to suit their strategy to win,” Pat explained.
Frontiers: Whelming the West, a new card game co-created by Boulder Creek resident Pat Lahey
The process involved iterative balancing to ensure the game was fun and well-paced, though it wasn’t always straightforward. “Sometimes, the process wasn’t linear. We removed a whole card type that isn’t in the game that may show up in expansions but just wasn’t working for our goals,” Pat said. By merging theme and mechanics, the team created a strategic and immersive experience for players.
Challenges
The five-year development of Frontiers was marked by logistical and personal challenges. Pat and Wade became parents, with Wade expecting his second child and Pat his third, while Pat also faced military deployment. Greg balanced caregiving and advocacy work, and all three juggled full-time jobs. “We had to trust each other’s work and rely on collaborative tools like Google Docs,” Pat said, noting that their shared passion and friendship sustained the project through periods of slow progress.
Team dynamics also required growth. The group honed their ability to give constructive feedback and reach consensus. “Designing a game as one person doesn’t require those skills, but the work was more fun and more gratifying to have done it together,” Pat reflected, emphasizing how teamwork enriched the process and the final game.
Frontiers: Whelming the West is available for purchase online at thegamecrafter.com. Visit playfrontiers.today to learn more. Follow on Instagram @frontiers.wtw.thegame
Photos contributed by Pat Lahey
Mary Andersen is a journalist and Publisher of the San Lorenzo Valley Post, an independent publication dedicated to the people, politics, environment, and cultures of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Contact mary@slvpost.com
