From a Boring CNY Afternoon to Nab In The Dark

I still remember it clearly.

It was a typical CNY afternoon — the TV playing the usual reunion specials, and everyone had pretty much surrendered to the sofa. Full stomachs, low energy, nobody really watching the screen anymore. So I grabbed a normal deck of playing cards and we just started brain bashing — no rules yet, just poking around for something to do.

A few rounds of testing in, the laughter erupted. That noise pulled more people off the sofa — first as an audience, then as players. That’s when we realised we actually had something there.

The part that took months

Turning that into an actual game took a lot longer than the afternoon it was born in. The mechanics came fast, but the theme didn’t. We went back and forth for months trying to land on graphics that fit the gameplay.

At one point we tried borrowing from the old folklore of three blind men touching an elephant. It felt right on paper, but it never quite fit — in our game you can still see the cards at some point, just not always yours. Blind didn’t match what was actually happening at the table.

Then one night, turning off the light before bed, it hit me: we’d been assuming a dark room with no light at all, everyone nabbing around for the switch. That was the game. From there, everything moved fast — a few more punishment card ideas later, and we had a full party card game: Nab In The Dark.

New ideas still pop up occasionally — new cards, new powers, maybe an update down the line. But that’s a story for another day.