This Is Not A Game has been a long time in the making.

I am writing this "About" page on 13 August 2024, though I originally incorporated the business way back when, on 29 August 2023. Almost a year!

Back then, I was 22 years old, living with friends, and I had an simple idea for a vegan card game that made us smile.

Sat by myself on my bed with a spreadsheet open, I started writing down silly vegan jokes.

Over the next two months, I researched as much as I could into the art and science of designing and manufacturing card games.

I wrote out my jokes on paper and played Plants Against Veganity for the first time with my mum and sister in our broken-down campervan in a motorway service station. A holiday gone wrong, you might say... but the game was great, and we laughed like drains.

Reinvigorated by this, I polished up the grammar, cut some bad jokes and added in a few new good ones, and got a sample deck made and shipped to me a few weeks later. No designs, still - I couldn't afford a designer. It was a blank, white box.

I played with more friends and more family, going through yet another iteration, before I was finally happy with it.

Even this wasn't the end - because I had to take my silly idea to the bank to get a loan of a few thousand pounds to hire a designer and secure the first print-run in time for the UK's biggest vegan festival, Vegan Camp Out. It was a tight turnaround!

Meanwhile, we opened up preorders, on a hope and a prayer that everything would be done on time. This Is Not A Game sold its first deck on May 30th to (ahem) the Founder's mother. The Founder's brother ordered deck #2... and since then, we've gone and sold at least 450 more.

Thankfully, we did get them all made in time for VCO, and the launch was extraordinary. In just one weekend, 227 games flew out the doors, despite not even having a proper stall! I walked miles, barefoot, with a shelf slung around my shoulders, piled high with card games of my own making. And people just loved it.

I'll remember that weekend for the rest of my life.

Being a now-23-year-old entrepreneur has been an interesting journey. I haven't been around that long, and I certainly don't have many resources, financial or otherwise, behind this business.

But I've got an idea, and I've been willing to put in the effort to turn a vision into reality - and I've never done anything more rewarding.

As a vegan of 4.5 years, and having worked in charities, grassroots organisations, and businesses across the vegan world, running my own little brand like this is an absolute dream come true.

Thank you to everyone who has bought, shared, and supported so far. It has been an absolute pleasure to bring smiles to your faces & I look very much forwards to launching my next games!

Lots more in the works - I promise ;)

- Rory Cockshaw (Founder & Big Sheeze @ This Is Not A Game Ltd.)