How I Accidentally Dreamt Up a Card Game (and Then Made It Real)

A chaotic little origin story for Lab Rats

So here’s a thing that happened: I made a card game.It started as a joke in my brain. It now exists in the real world (almost). And somehow, it works.

I haven’t shared much about it yet, partly because I’ve been busy duct-taping the rules together, and partly because this is the kind of game that’s best experienced, not explained. But I can tell you how it came to life (without spoiling what it actually is).

The First Spark

It started in the most unexpected way, chatting with a friend’s mom. She’s an educator, and we were talking about using games to teach. Somewhere in the conversation, she casually mentioned the periodic table.

And my brain just… clicked.

Suddenly, I was imagining a game where the elements weren’t just academic facts but characters, full of personality, chaotic energy, and destructive powers. They already felt like game pieces. I had no idea what to do with that feeling, but I knew it was something. I wrote it down in my endless list of future projects and then I forgot about it.

And then, months later — I dreamt about it.

No really.

Parts of the game just arrived in a dream like a gift from the chaotic goblin part of my brain. (Work-life balance? Never heard of her.)

Still, I needed a mechanic. The first idea I had wasn’t nearly strong enough to carry the game. I tinkered. I brainstormed. I walked away from it. I came back. And then, in one glorious moment of genius, several weeks of brainstorming later the mechanic fell into place.

Paper, Glue, Cookies

Once the basic system existed, I needed to see it work. So I hand-drew some cards, typed up rules in Google Docs, and bribed a few friends with cookies to test it out. (Pro tip: cookies fix everything, including game balance.)

It was far from perfect. But it showed promise.

From there, the cycle began: feedback, redesign, repeat. I made a Canva prototype and sent it to my parents in India. My mom physically cut out the cards and glued them to chart paper, like some kind of card game saint (thanks Amma!).

She and my dad played Version 2, gave me notes, and once again even through the bugs and chaos, I could see the sparkle of potential.

A few tests later with another friend, I had a card deck I felt good about.Not perfect. But playable. Solid. Mine.

All In

One week, when everything else felt heavy and stuck, I sat down and hand-designed and drew out every single card in the game. Why? Because unlike most things, this gave me energy. This felt like my thing.

Designing the card layout

So — in a moment of impulsive confidence, I sent them to print.

Professionally.

A week later, I was holding the very first physical copy of Lab Rats.

I cannot overstate this: it was a high.

The journey to the final card and design

The Curse of the Rule Sheet

Now that I had a real game in hand, I needed real rules. I whipped up a tiny rule sheet because I thought shorter = better. (Narrator: it was not.)

I bribed friends again (this time with dinner) to test Version... 4? 5? I don’t even know anymore.

I sat out and just watched. I wanted to see:

Does it work if I’m not there?

Do the rules make sense?

Turns out: the game worked. The rules did not.

The rule sheet was vague, hard to read, and weirdly unhelpful. I had trimmed it down so much it had lost all clarity. Lesson learned: good rules > short rules.

One Final Rewrite (Please?)

So I rewrote the whole thing.

And rewrote it again.

And again.

Until it finally felt right.

The rule sheet was, hands down, harder than designing the actual game. But a week of stubborn back-and-forth later, I had something that felt like it could teach the game, even if I wasn’t there.

Now? I’m almost at the finish line with the design.

But I’m just at the starting line of making it real: sharing it, publishing it, getting it into people’s hands.

I’m excited for what’s next.

More to come soon! The lab is almost ready!!

P.S. I now have the grueling task of learning about trademarks, game laws, and all the serious Real Adult™ stuff I once swore I’d never touch.

But hey, here we are.