At the end of 2023, three friends launched an online appeal to raise money for ‘Ezra and Nehemiah’, one of only a handful of Christian strategy board games to exist. Their target was £11,000 – but they raised nearly £259,000.
‘Ezra and Nehemiah’ is the latest in a series of board games created by Shem Phillips at Garphill Games. When the Kickstarter appeal first launched in October, he expected around 2,000 people to give to the game – but 4,000 pledged their support. ‘It was a great result,’ Phillips commented to en. ‘It means we can print more copies, which brings the unit cost down slightly. But we are mostly excited that more people will get to enjoy the game.’
The idea to create a board game around the story of Ezra and Nehemiah first came to Phillips, a committed Christian, in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2020 that he and co-creator Sam Macdonald began working on it.
