Liberty Lake-based Mica Game Company LLC grew out of a longtime friendship between two men who as kids enjoyed Risk, the war board game with opponents trying to conquer the world.

As business partners today, these friends become enemies when across a new game board they created in their own battle of fun.

Owners Paul Humphreys and Bob Martin formed Mica Game Company in 2009 after 20 years of developing an idea for a more strategic medieval war board game that has changing elements each time players sit down. By December 2009, they began assembling 100 copies for sale of the game they call Antagonist for warrior battles across a vast landscape with castles, fortresses, and villages.

Antagonist is now sold from the company's website and in Uncle's Games outlets, located inside Auntie's Bookstore, at 404 W. Main downtown, and in the Spokane Valley Mall, at 14700 E. Indiana in Spokane Valley.

The company's flagship Antagonist Deluxe version has more than 800 pieces, including castles, towers, boats, mountains, and chips representing warriors. For each game, seasons and geography change, which puts a spin on strategy played across a 36 inch-by-42 inch vinyl board.

"We wanted something with more strategic elements, and we wanted a game that was different every time you played it," Humphreys says. "What's unique about Antagonist is the geography changes every time you play the game."

Adds Martin, "We wanted something that is intuitive, yet strategic. Once you see someone play, you pretty much understand the mechanics, but the strategic aspects change. It also has to be a game you can burn stuff and take it away from someone—that has to be a part of it."

Mica Game Company now sells two versions of the game, Antagonist Deluxe at about $80 retail, and a more compact Antagonist Battle Royale, at $60 retail. The larger Deluxe is geared for six players and takes two to three hours to play, while Battle Royale has a slightly smaller board for three opponents and requires about 30 minutes to an hour.

For both Antagonist versions, the board has a hexagon grid. Players set up equally divided geography pieces for mountains and lakes that armies will need to cross, along with each opponent's villages, towers, and fortresses.

Warrior pieces move and engage in battle, with dice rolls determining battle results. Fitting for medieval times, players can burn and pillage. Opponents also use gold pieces to pay taxes and buy more warriors and boats. The game ends when one player controls the world.

"The seasons and geography affect the warrior movement and strategy," Humphreys adds, as players set up different clusters of three-dimensional mountain ranges—and smaller or larger lakes—around the board. The changing seasons also are significant because, for example, warriors can only cross mountains in the summer.

Humphreys and Martin manage the for-profit business from their Liberty Lake homes in their spare time along with help from family. Both of them also work as full-time hydrogeologists at the Spokane office of Denver-based CH2M Hill Inc.

Humphreys says that Mica Game has sold about 60 Antagonist sets since late 2009, including in several states and internationally. The company hasn't yet turned a profit, he says, adding that, "We're in the development stage."

This spring, Humphreys and Martin also plan to begin selling a new game they've developed, called Antagonist Coliseum, which will offer a Roman gladiator battleground. Mica Game Company also sells Antagonist expansion sets with different geographies, such as a map of Britain.

The owners say that a long-term strategy for the business is to seek a licensing agreement with a large game company that does manufacturing and distribution.

"We'd like to get it into the hands of a company that could dedicate the time and resources to increase exposure and distribution," Humphreys says. "We intend to continue to create and market war games."

Antagonist, which has many three-dimensional pieces, is too large to fit in a standard board game box, the owners say, so each game is packaged in a large canvas bag. The various game pieces are manufactured and bought from different companies, Martin adds, and then the owners assemble them into bags. The owners handle shipments for online orders from their homes.

Both also attend regional game conventions during the year to promote Antagonist.

Humphreys and Martin were 12 years old when they met and became friends in their Liberty Lake neighborhood. Growing up, they also enjoyed hiking the foothills of Mica Peak, which inspired their company's name, and they still trek through that area today, Humphreys says.

After college, both friends ended up working in Los Angeles around 1989, and that's where they first started developing Antagonist. By 1998, both had returned to live in Liberty Lake and continued trying out the game with their spouses and friends, doing revisions, until Antagonist was ready for manufacturing in 2009.

"I think we realized we had a good idea every time we played with prototypes in the early 1990s, so we just refined it and made it better," Martin says. "It was a huge leap to decide to go to production."

They worked with a graphic artist on such features as playing cards for the game and a rule book, as well as with an acquaintance of Martin's, Dale Ames, who owns an assembly and fabricating business in Otis Orchards called Lakoda Inc.

"He (Dale Ames) helped us find different suppliers, and it took about a year," Martin says. "There were some redesigns, proofs, decisions on final pieces."

He adds, "There were a lot of decisions to make, and we had over 800 game pieces—many of them three-dimensional. There were some things we wouldn't compromise on because it just adds to the game plan, like real-looking mountains."

When asked if the two friends are competitive with each other, they say it's mainly while playing across the board from each other.

"It's fun to imagine you're hacking up your enemies without causing actual harm," Humphreys says.