About | The House Game

Large 4x3 custom gaming table filled with highly detailed Maladum and Battlesystems terrain, painted miniatures, cards, and gaming accessories. A massive, immersive fantasy battlefield setup.

About Nathan – The House Game


Nathan is the creator of The House Game and the ongoing solo hex-crawl journal The Land of Time.

His lifelong passion for gaming began in 1984 on the family Commodore 64 when he first played Ultima IV. With only a copied version and almost no understanding of what he was doing, he fell completely in love with the world. Years later he finally got the official boxed edition with the cloth map and manuals. From there he devoured everything Origin Systems made.

Original boxed edition of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for the Commodore 64. Classic fantasy cover art showing the Avatar holding a glowing ankh against a dramatic sunset.
My first real CRPG love – Ultima IV.

Growing up, his parents wouldn’t allow him to play Dungeons & Dragons due to the stigma of the time. Still, he found his own path. His first real board game purchase was the original Battletech. He later fell in love with Shadowrun, and as a kid he spent countless hours dreaming over the Warhammer catalog. In 1994 he discovered MUDs. Three years later, in 1997, he signed into Achaea on its official launch day. He still maintains one of the oldest active characters on the server – Rip Cobra, the 5th oldest. Rip is 846 years old, a member of the Serpent class, a mentor to others, and carries the simple motto: “I remember nothing…”

Large 18-inch tall hand-sculpted clay figure of a dark winged hooded warrior with detailed armor and weapons. A small RIP tombstone sits beside it. Part of Nathan’s personal collection.
One of my favorite hand-sculpted pieces. 18 inches tall, made of clay. Survived the fire.

Nathan has always been a hands-on gamer. He started building his own tabletop experiences with Jenga blocks and original Hero Quest miniatures.

Early homemade gaming setup using painted Jenga blocks to create dungeon rooms and terrain on a wooden table. A simple, creative DIY battlefield from Nathan’s early days of solo RPGs.
Early Jenga block dungeon setups – my first attempts at building my own worlds.

Last year he discovered Maladum and Battlesystems, built a full 4×3 gaming table, and invested heavily in terrain kits and expansions. Painting miniatures and running solo RPGs became one of his favorite creative outlets — his personal “adult fidget spinners.”

Top-down view of Nathan’s custom 4x3 gaming table filled with highly detailed Maladum and Battlesystems terrain, including buildings, rivers, ruins, and painted miniatures. An immersive fantasy battlefield setup before the house fire.
Top-down view of my 4×3 gaming table. This is where I spent countless hours building and painting worlds.

In early 2026, Nathan began his sobriety journey. A few months later, in April 2026, his house burned down. While dealing with the loss, insurance claims, and temporary living situations, he needed something that was truly his – a creative project he could control when everything else felt chaotic. That’s when The House Game and The Land of Time were born. He started writing a solo hex-crawl journal in real time, letting the dice guide the story with no pre-planned plot.

Close-up of a painted original Hero Quest Chaos Warrior miniature. A classic black-armored warrior with axe and shield, standing on a textured base. One of Nathan’s early gaming miniatures.
An original Hero Quest Chaos Warrior – one of the first miniatures I ever painted.

Through decades of gaming and now this journal, Nathan continues to build worlds – even after his own was reduced to ash. The Land of Time is his way of rebuilding, one hex, one session, and one sober day at a time.


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