I had never invented a game. I had never created a product. But my grandfather had spent a lifetime encouraging me to make something.

He was a woodworker, machinist, handyman, and lifelong do-it-yourselfer. He couldn’t understand how anyone could go through life without making something with their hands. He challenged me to build something that could improve someone else’s life.

He lived those values in everyday ways. He made time to plant his garden, look over a stranger’s engine, and sit on the porch with a neighbor. And he always made time for cribbage.

Our family has played cribbage for more than 70 years. I learned in elementary school, and the game has been at the center of our family reunions and multigenerational visits ever since. My grandfather played with friends, family, and anyone he could persuade to join him. He kept playing until he passed away at 93.

After he passed, I spent time thinking about his example and what I might create that would carry those values forward. One idea stayed with me: everything has value, and nothing needs to go to waste. Even a familiar family pastime might hold possibilities I hadn’t considered.

I began looking at cribbage differently. Broken down, it has players, rules, a board, and cards. But those familiar parts work together like an engine. And just as a motor can be put to work in a different machine, perhaps cribbage could power a different kind of game.

Other traditional games, like dominoes, have inspired generations of new ways to play. What could happen if I approached cribbage with that same imagination?

That question became ImagiCrib - a place to explore what familiar games could become with a little imagination.

For our first game, Tug of War, we brought together the scoring traditions of cribbage and the back-and-forth contest of tug of war. It’s the first of more games to come, each inspired by the same willingness to look at something familiar and ask, “What else could this become?”

For me, creating ImagiCrib is a way to answer my grandfather’s challenge: make something of value, work with your hands, and contribute to other people’s lives.

My hope is that these boards give people what his cribbage board gave us - a reason to sit down together, laugh, compete, and stay a little longer.

—Thomas Peterson, Founder