Grand plans for an old game

A year or two ago, I found an old Avalon Hill game at a Goodwill called Outdoor Survival. It had a large hex board depicting a large expanse of wilderness from which the objective was to find your way out before you succumbed to dehydration and starvation (Note: this is the first time I think I've encountered a game where you play against the board as opposed to against other players).

It wasn't the greatest game, nor was it something you'd end up pulling out to play on a regular basis, but I saw something else in the game.

As a diamond in the rough, I thought that it wouldn't take much to turn this game into a fantasy RPG board game. A grin crossed my face as this concept sank in and I decided that I would create this new game from the pieces of the old game. I wanted something that was akin to a Role Playing experience, but could also be played solo.

Unfortunately, I found myself spending so much time debating the different mechanics of the game (movement, combat, character & monster stats, etc.) that in the end nothing got done.

Eventually, I ran across an ad in a Dragon Magazine for a new game called Runebound. As soon as I saw the picture of the game's board I new that someone else had had pretty much the same idea, but had realized it while I had been trying to work on my own game.

Of course I eventually bought a copy of Runebound and found that it was indeed pretty much the same thing I was trying to create for the past year-and-a-half. I still laugh at the coincidence, and think that it could have been mine...

I do, on occasion, look back and wonder if it wouldn't be worth trying to finish what I started.