Joanne Williams
Editor

(Joanne Williams/TCJ – Mike LaFountain has imagined, built and packaged a game of skill with local history, “Frontier: The Old Northwest.”)

Who says you don’t learn from playing games?

Game developer Mike LaFountain would beg to differ.

He has spent the better part of a year and a half developing “Frontier: The Old Northwest,” and loading it with researched history of Eaton and Barry counties as well as life in the greater Northwest territory, including Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois in the 1800s-1840.

“It was a good way to spend my couch time,” he said .

Originally from Coldwater, his family moved to the Charlotte area to run a cattle farm. It was Mike and his father Gary who started LaFountain’s All Natural Beef, focusing on pasture-raised, naturally fed beef with a herd of about two dozen cattle. Mike built the infrastructure.

That was in 2018-2024, tough times for all. So, how does  a farmer become a board gamer?

Well, there’s another piece to this puzzle. Mike is a U.S. Navy Seabee veteran. Seabees (Construction Battalion = CB) are combat-troops with construction and repair trade skills.

He has “an analytical mind and I like history,” so, an “informative resource management game” was right up his alley and his skill set.

Mike is proud to say he “did it all himself,” from the concept to the building and design, the packaging to the marketing, which he will do at area festivals and farmer’s markets.

Mike said there are a lot of resources on the Internet to get you up and running. “It came out better than I imagined,” he said. And this was after hours and hours of testing with family and friends, mainly his wife, Chrissy and family.

Mike was especially engaged with the research for the game, which asks players to establish themselves as part of a new town in the wilderness. The game is for two to six players, ages 14 and older. 

“I did research on how much work the settlers had to do to survive,” Mike said. There was a lot to deal with, from food spoilage and illnesses to the weather to animal predators and neighbors, including the Native Americans.

“It’s unique in that it is not a mainstream game,” it’s real, Mike said, which is what resource management games are all about (remember The Oregon Trail?).

Players start out building their budding pioneer lives with negotiating for land, seed for crops and lumber to build. 

The game has its own Facebook site: Frontier: The Old Northwest. Mike plans to be at the Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival and area farmer’s markets, this time, not selling meat but gaming adventure.