Author: MJ Palmer

Helllllooooo and welcome to Lucky Gnome Empire. My name is MJ and I’ll be your guide today. I am one of the three founders of this little entertainment business. Our first product will be this blog which will specifically be focused on games.

One of my inspirations is the games that I played as a child. One that stands out, in particular, is a computer game called The Oregon Trail. Anyone who has played this game can attest that it’s truly a game of life and death when it comes to choices. It was always a shock when you pack your wagon full of supplies and then decide to try and cross a river on your own just to lose it all. It was always a fun time trying to figure out different ways to make it to the end, what to put in your wagon, and what career was the most likely to help make it to the end. While the goal is to cross the plains in a covered wagon, the real goal was to not randomly die of dysentery.

Honestly, I feel like it was a weird game to play as a kid. The game taught me to only hunt as much as I can carry and to watch out for rattlesnakes. It’s always interesting to look back at things surrounding childhood with an adult lens. America’s westward expansion was always taught as destiny and in a positive light. Looking back at it through an adult lens shows how it was land theft and many other problematic things. There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance when I look at this fun little game in that context.

It still gives me a strong sense of nostalgia when I think back on the pixilated graphics of the game though. There was also a version of it that had better graphics that I also played, but it is the black and green pixels are imprinted on my brain when it comes to The Oregon Trail game. The old graphics mixed with a game of choice is part of the inspiration for an upcoming secret project of mine that will be available here at Lucky Gnome Empire in due time. So keep a look out for that in the future!

Villain Origin Story

On a fateful Christmas Eve, three 30-something year olds argued over a pirate card game they were rewriting the rules to. All gathered around a bed with the cards laid out haphazardly, they had no idea they were a few minutes away from the birth of an empire. This is where we could say it all started for us but we were playing and creating games long before this and will do so long after it. 

Although playing games on Christmas Eve has always been part of our sibling tradition, what wasn’t part of the tradition was the new idea forming during the course of this particular evening. Somewhere during the gameplay or after, we found ourselves discussing our hopes for the future. Turns out there’s a lot of overlap. From that overlap, we created the vision of this business.

Lucky Gnome Empire.

The name partially originated from a joking comment Mirna made earlier that evening about Melody’s ever-growing gnome collection. “How’s your gnome empire coming along?” 

So when we were brainstorming names during the discussion, ‘Gnome Empire’ resurfaced as a potential option. We felt it needed a little something more though. That’s when we added Lucky, named after MJ’s dog. What solidified that addition was discovering that gnomes are traditionally a symbol of good luck. Lucky for us!

Though we have plenty of room for our vision to change as we explore what we want to create together, here’s where we’re starting:

Lucky Gnome Empire is an online hub for fresh ideas, downloadables, and collectibles to give new life to games, gifts, and galore. With an initial focus on online content and tabletop games, our empire hopes to expand even beyond that to more realms. The development of the specific products and content is still in progress. But as we build this empire, we’re eager for people to come and download an adventure.