Creating Search for Poseidon's Gold

Here is a picture of me, Doug Borresen, several months before creating Search for Poseidon's Gold. Click here for another picture of me (age-progression sponsored by time).

In February 2001, during a routine gaming session with friends, we were discussing the board games we enjoyed most. Off-hand, I remarked that we should try to make a game and that it could be about anything, even submarines.

From that one statement sprang the entire game, with help from friends providing constant feedback. The result is Search for Poseidon's Gold.

The Prototype

The first version of the game was cut from foamcore with pieces of paper pasted on top of them. It had the subs (3/8" square dowel) and divers (1/2" round plug) cut from birchwood and painted carefully by hand and then written on with permanent gold and black ink. The treasure and player cards were printed on my DeskJet, glued carefully to heavy cardstock and then cut out. The monster triangles (called Storms then) were formed accidentally when I cut out two of the hexagons and had the triangle left over.

We played it with everyone that would take the time and found the darned thing was actually kind of fun! I called it Sub-Surface, and also toyed with the name Sub-Standard but found that Sub-Surface sounded better.

My brother-in-law played it, liked it, and promptly suggested a more colorful title. "Why not call it Poseidon's Gold?" My wife suggested that we make it Search for Poseidon's Gold, which was more descriptive. We were on our way.

We playtested an early version of the game at a local game store (Rainy Day Games) and the game was declared to be very unique and fun.

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