Kevin Kelley has an educational background in architecture, business administration, and international affairs, and has studied at one of the best schools in the south. He is also a amateur musician, artist, hobbyist inventor, and last but not least, board game enthusiast. Once limited to creating variations, or "house rules," with his friends, Kevin had decided to take his love for board games one step further and create one from scratch.
Kevin has actually had a long history in developing games. His first board game he created was a Monopoly clone called "Can-opoly" back in the eighties. While the reasoning behind the name is now lost to time, the origins of the game were quite simple - Kevin had an empty clothing box that he felt would make a perfect board game box. He just needed a board game to put in it and with access to the family board games, Kevin drew up a game board on two pieces of paper taped together. Kevin's later efforts in board game design never really advanced beyond the conceptual stage. During the nineties, Kevin drew up plans for an interactive three-dimensional space game involving a game board with explode-able plastic star bases and catapults for little plastic spaceships (think of the old Crash Test Dummies action figures, Crossfire, and the new Angry Birds board games) and a Civil War-era military game similar to Axis and Allies. He had also experimented in war gaming designing and building miniature buildings and landscaping.
Kevin abandoned board game design for video game design creating several basic programming games, including one Chess-like game and a variety of text adventures. It was also during this period that Kevin created the Bag Boy video game series (still under development) for antiquated consoles and smart phones.
Finding his knowledge of computer programming limited, hindering his ability to design games, Kevin moved back to analog gaming in the mid-2000s, first toying with a game idea to explore bureaucratic nightmares but dropped that for a game to explore human nature in a disaster by rewarding both cooperation and competition. This was the birth of Fire Escape!
In Fire Escape!, players controlled people in the top of a towering inferno trying to escape the blaze, but with one twist - the game rewards the player who can escape first and with the most valuables acquired along the way. Each escapee possessed different attributes that could help or hinder their trip to the lobby. Players also had the option of picking up items that could modify their escapees or provide points that could help them win the game.
Fire Escape! is still under development, given a lower priority to Kevin's newest game, The Association, which has probably seen the greatest progress of all of Kevin's board game projects (apart from Can-opoly). With double-sided hexagon tiles, plastic and wooden counters, paper money, and printed cards, The Association is currently being play-tested and is one step away from a final release for the entire world to enjoy!.
Also on the horizon is Procedure, a fun game taking you through the legislative process with an emphasis on parliamentary procedure!
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