I’m Jake Frondorf. My goal here is to mostly write about board game strategy.
I’m from Kansas, but I’m currently living in Brooklyn, NY. I work as a software developer by day, and by night I mostly play games with my boyfriend while talking about the social events we’re skipping to play games.
I have a degree in linguistics that I’ve only used to produce fun facts in conversations. I came into board gaming back in 2010, when I was still a baby in high school. Then I accidentally got into (read: addicted to) Magic: the Gathering, a game which I still relapse into on occasion.
Strategy is my jam. After spending so long trying to figure out exactly how games work, tinkering with their strategy and tactics, I think I’d like to share some of my conclusions with the world. Not necessarily because I think people should play board games with more cutthroat strategy—I don’t necessarily think that’s true (many games even fall apart when you learn them too well)—but because games are more fun when both players are at similar levels.
When one player always wins, that’s no good. When a game is frustratingly obtuse and you can’t figure out the strategy, that’s no good. When you feel railroaded by a single strategy and can’t figure out your other strategic options, that’s no good. Game strategy is
Hopefully, there is something here at Cardboard Mountain that piques your interest.