According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, to Jack Degnan, everything is a game. An insult – someone told him he was talking drivel – became a board game of nonsense words.
The word “trash” stuck in Degnan’s head, and he began wondering what one might find in a celebrity’s garbage. He turned that idea into a trivia game named, you guessed it, Trash.
“I’ve kind of trained my mind so that everything that happens to me in a day can be an inspiration for a game,” he said.
Although he only started designing games five years ago, Degnan has had three games published and has another three scheduled for release this year.
Still, it’s not as if Degnan, 48, can quit his day job – he works in AIDS research at the University of California San Diego – anytime soon.
The game market is a fragmented one where iconic games like Scrabble or Monopoly or even recent successes like Bananagrams are rare. Most games are the domain of small game shops, all but invisible to the general public.
Degnan isn’t sure he has come up with the next Trivial Pursuit, but it would be nice. “All it takes is one game like that. It’s a nice fantasy,” he said.
Photo by San Diego Union-Tribune.