We have Lift Off
“Everything just started slowly moving from there, one game at a time in a linear path of development to release for the next few years, until I shifted into parallel models of development to help expand the game catalog into more than a release or two a year,” explains Elkins.
This modest launching pad helped 25th Century grow organically, including staying true to Elkins’ sci-fi roots as the company began to take off. “The 25th century as a timestamp in the distant future was used regularly in old shows and movies,” reminisces Elkins, “so I kept to my science fiction fandom and love of all things space and space travel to go with a science retro-futuristic approach to the company name.”
One wonders how serendipitous Elkins’ choice was, considering the game that helped people take notice of the quiet but powerful trajectory of 25th Century Games was born from Elkins’ love of sci-fi and board games. “I was cruising BGG [Boardgamegeek] looking for new space games to purchase...just to add to my collection and play. I stumbled across Space Explorers and immediately upon looking at it, knew I wanted to find a copy,” Elkins enthuses.
“Being only available in Russia, I reached out to the publisher contact to see if I could purchase a copy and have them ship it to me. We ended up chatting and the topic of helping publish the game in English surfaced. Now this was right before Gen Con, which they were going to attend, and asked if we could meet up in person to discuss and finalize details. I wasn’t going, but I knew this was important. So, I booked a flight to Indianapolis and was on a plane a few days later, [and] didn’t even have a ticket to the show!”
However, Elkins understood the assignment and took the chance on not only a game he enjoyed, but one that would help solidify the mission statement of 25th Century Games as a publisher. “I flew in the night before, Uber’d into town to meet up that morning at the JW [Marriott], then hopped on an afternoon flight back to Atlanta. For a super small publisher like me, it did quite well and got folks to start taking notice of 25th [Century].”