TRi-ARMi – Local Creator

TRi-ARMi- Local Creator Colin Cliffe

We are pleased to announce that after being 34 years in development, the wait is finally over, and the exciting new board game that was created right here in Audlem, TRi-ARMi is ready to be played.

Please join us at the Bridge Inn on Sunday the 8th Nov, between 12 and 4pm and have some fun.

We will also feature at the ADCA Xmas fair on Saturday 14th Nov, at the Public Hall, or simply visit:-

the Amazing Games Company

WARNING – TRi-ARMi can be very addictive,

That quick game you were going to have before you go to bed will be the best 20 games you have ever played

IT’S TAKEN HOW LONG? (part 2)

Having previously written about a project that had been 34 years in the making, I can now finally reveal more details about it and just why it has taken so long.

It all started in 1992 whilst I was holidaying in Greece, one day whilst laying by the pool, having played a 4 in a row (Connect 4) type game the previous night, I began to ponder whether or not I could improve upon the game, my ponderings however soon became a quest with endless days of sketches an ideas, the end result was that I couldn’t find a way to improve the game in any way at all. But my work had given me the seeds of an idea for a completely different game, this one used triangles instead of counters and it had a flat hexagonal shaped board instead of an upright frame and over the course of the holiday I continued to develop it, after a week or so I had bodged a crude prototype and it even had a name, TRi-ARMi. My wife Berni and I played it, and whilst it was fun to play, there was an issue with it, 50% of the games were drawn. It was an issue I couldn’t resolve, so eventually it came home with us, where for many months I failed to resolve its issue, so eventually I gave up on it and it was filed away under a bed.

Fast forward 8 years, and now with 2 young daughters we found ourselves moving house; it was only then that I rediscovered TRi-ARMi, still under the bed after all this time. Once we were settled into our new home, I would frequently revisit it, convinced that one day I would resolve its issue, but I couldn’t, and yet again it was put away.

It didn’t then reappear until many years later, when the girls, who were now old enough to play board games, wanted to see it, they played it, and enjoyed it, but still for my liking too many games were drawn. However it was during one of these sessions that I had another idea. Could it be played, almost it in reverse and you won in a completely different way? We tried it and it was better, now only about 30% of the games were drawn, but still for me, that was too many.

In the following years we would play it off and on, until one day I had my EURIKA moment, what would happen if we played it in the 2 different ways, but at the same time, 1 simple game, 2 ways to win. We tried it and it worked, it was quicker to play and there was a winner every time, it may have taken me over 20 years but I had finally cracked it, surely now nothing could stop us.

But I was wrong; something did stop us, in our tracks. My beautiful wife had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and despite her incredibly brave fight against it for almost 2 years, she sadly passed on Remembrance Day 2015, I was a wreck and sadly over the following few years I would lose several more members of my immediate family, so my game understandingly had now been long forgotten.

It would take until 2019 before I finally brought it out again and at that point I was determined to get out there and do something with it, but then Covid struck and I would lose yet another 2 years.

So 2021 was finally the year that I started seriously looking to see if I could find a UK manufacturer/s that could make the game, this turned out to be a seemingly impossible task, because the few that I found that could do it, would want a king’s ransom for doing so, (another year + gone), so I reluctantly turned to China and India for prices and after several months of negotiations I finally discovered that it would be the shipping costs that would make it an unviable option, so once again I returned to scouring the UK manufacturers and I eventually managed to find one, who could do everything at an acceptable price. It was now 2024 and we started to do all the design work for the game and all its packaging when BAM, overnight the company went into liquidation, I couldn’t believe it.

It would then be another year before I could find another printer who could make the boxes and a manufacturer who could make the games, both at a viable price. Both in the UK, and strangely both very local , and both completely solvent. Again all the design work started, prototypes were made and everything regarding it regulations were put into place. The Amazing Games Company had been formed and production has just begun, 34 years after that silly idea I had, whilst laying by that pool in Greece, on our Honeymoon.

TRi-ARMi 1 simple game, with 2 ways to win

Colin Cliffe

In memory of

Bernadette Cliffe 1964 -2015