Shana Call often receives calls from her old neighbors about her husband’s new card game.
With cards revolving around neighbors who play loud music or leave their trash out for weeks, they’re concerned they were the inspiration, Call said.
“We just answer, ‘No comment,’” Call said, laughing.
Cul-De-Sac Conquest is the card game in question, and Call’s husband, Chuck, a 46-year-old UF business administration senior, is one of the game’s designers working to fund it.
The developers started a Kickstarter to fund the creation of the game, and it surpassed the initial goal of $10,000 in three days after its Oct. 15 launch. They said they now hope to raise an additional $10,000 by Nov. 14.
Andrew Birkett, a UF marketing junior, is the Cul-De-Sac Conquest creator and CEO of Atheris Games, a card-game company he started in his first year of college.
The purpose of the card game is to annoy the other players in the most creative way, said Barry Congressi, the chief technology officer at Atheris Games and one of the game’s designers.
Each player chooses a neighbor with a rage meter and then deals cards — playing loud music, having a loud dog — to make their opponents’ meters fill up and “annoy” them out of the neighborhood.
“My favorite card (in the game) is the one where someone builds a squirrel playground in their front yard,” Congressi said.
He said this card is based on a true story.
The idea for the game came after Birkett, Cul-De-Sac Conquest creator, participated in the “What’s Your Big Idea?” competition hosted by the UF Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the College of Business.
He asked his old roommate, Congressi, and his friend Chuck Call to help him create a game for the competition.
The team worked on a different game during the competition and left with additional knowledge of the gaming industry and feedback from high-level judges and entrepreneurs. This led to the creation of Cul-De-Sac, said Nola Miyasaki, the executive director for outreach and incubation at the entrepreneurship and innovation center.
“I think they’ve hit all their milestones so far, and they will be very successful,” Miyasaki said.
People can pre-order the games through Kickstarter for exclusive package expansions, such as the Not Safe For Work cards.
“One of our biggest challenges was going up to people we never met before and asking them to try our game,” Chuck Call said. “It seems kind of silly (now) that we were so nervous at first.”
