Boderton Tales: A Curious Inheritance

Grampappy’s Shack in Good Old Boderton. This image was partially generated with the help of AI creative tools and later intervened and modified by our team.

Act. 1: Grampappy is Dead

One rainy morning, the Welldiggers were doing what they love best: playing board games. The name of the game was Dopple: a high-speed game of matching doubles. Wendy loved how the game challenged her focus and reaction speed. Willa, her mom, loved the cute illustrations and story. And Bill, her dad, loved how it had kept his family entertained for years for only fifteen dollars.

They were interrupted by the sound of bad news crashing through their window. Literally. Timmy, the paperboy — with his glass-shattering aim — had thrown their paper clean through the window. The Welldggers gathered around where the paper had landed. It had flopped open to the relevant page of the obituaries, revealing tragic news: Grampappy Welldigger was dead.

The newspaper with Grampappy’s death news. This image was partially generated with the help of AI creative tools and later intervened and modified by our team.

Willa was sad to see the news about her distant relative, but she wasn’t too banged up about it. After all, it was only her third cousin (twice removed); not that anyone bothered to ask!

“Ugh! Does this mean we have to go to a funeral?” complained Wendy immediately.

“Do we really have to go all the way to Boderton?” added Bill.

“Funerals are boring, and boring is bad for my cognitive development!”

“Yeah, and also… please don’t make us go back to Boderton!”

Willa’s nostrils flared at their incessant and insensitive whining, but she took a deep breath and calmed down. She had no desire to go to Boderton either.

“Relax. He was a very distant relative. We hadn’t even spoken in over a decade.” she said calmly before — “And I’m FINE, by the way!” — slightly losing it.

Everyone was relaxing back into the game, naively thinking they had dodged adventure’s call, and that’s when adventure came knocking. Two ominous figures appeared behind the front door adorned by flashes of lightning and roaring thunder. The men in suits held out a summons:

YOU’VE BEEN NAMED IN THE WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ONE G.P. WELLDIGGER

Willa read dramatically as Bill and Wendy grimaced at her, absolutely dismayed. It seemed the Welldiggers had no choice but to heed the call and see through the adventure that they were being offered so insistently.

Act. 2: The Funeral

Grampappy’s Shack front door with a sign welcoming mourners for the funeral. This image was partially generated with the help of AI creative tools and later intervened and modified by our team.

The Welldiggers each had their reasons for staying out of Boderton. Wendy was distraught at being dragged away from her comfort zone: her bedroom, her experiments, her colorful library of engaging board games. Willa had been running from boredom her whole life. She left Boderton hoping to escape it but still had always felt like she was waiting for her life to start. Going back to her little town now seemed like giving up. Lastly, Bill was probably the least excited to go back.

Boderton had expected a lot from him. His grandfather was the most powerful businessman in town, and the main street had little sympathy for the old man. On the one hand, his family had wanted him to take up their mantle of industry and conquest. On the other hand, the townspeople of Boderton wanted Bill to stand against his family’s legacy and abolish the strict and severe culture they had fostered. Both sides resented him for eloping from town, abandoning all the responsibility of his position.

There were few people in attendance at the funeral. The townspeople viewed Grampappy as a crazy hermit with dangerous ideas, and the few mourners who shared condolences with Willa did little to hide their scorn towards Bill. While the mourners gathered around a dull, closed casket, Wendy explored.

Act. 3: [Not] Bored Games

Grampappy’s old toy chest. This image was partially generated with the help of AI creative tools and later intervened and modified by our team.

The funeral was being held in Grampappy’s ridiculously named board game shop, [Not] Bored Games. Wendy tried finding something to amuse herself, but something was very off. The puzzles had missing pieces, the sides of the Rubik’s cubes were all the same color, and the board games had no instructions. It’s no wonder the townspeople thought he was crazy. Nothing about this store made sense, but that only made Wendy… curious.

She placed a quarter in a dusty gumball machine. Its insides cracked and clanked, and to her surprise, something dropped into the prize slot. It was a puzzle box! Excited for the first time since her arrival, Wendy started fidgeting with it, trying to feel for a secret panel, a latch, anything! The first five minutes were fun, but with no reward for her effort in sight, Wendy gave up. While her parents were trapped in a boring conversation, she found a hammer and bludgeoned the frustrating puzzle box to pieces. There ARE games here, she thought; they’re just unnecessarily hard to play.

Satisfied with her revenge on the puzzle box, Wendy was on her way to pressure her parents to say their good riddance and go, but she caught something in the corner of her eye. Among the debris of the shattered puzzle box, she spotted a conspicuous jigsaw piece. It didn’t seem to belong to any of the puzzles, but on its back was written the letter “B.”

Bill and Willa, we’re caught in a rather tedious conversation with Grampappy’s lawyer, Wilfred N. Testament. The matters they were discussing had them too absorbed to notice Wendy turning Grampappy’s store inside out as she looked for jigsaw pieces. Apparently, Grampappy had bequeathed all of his umm… “precious” belongings to them: his shop, the apartment built precariously on top, an old toy chest, boxes upon boxes of files and videos, and prototypes of his proprietary yet inscrutable tabletop games.

Meanwhile, Wendy was already deep into putting together this mysterious puzzle. It didn’t even take her gathering all the jigsaw pieces to realize that when assembled, they spelled out “BASEMENT.” She wasted no time making her way down the creaking steps of the dingy basement, past aisles of rusted tools, tattered trading cards, and plush toys that may have had some value 20 years ago. A streak of light fell upon a suspicious toy chest, which was thoroughly locked and quite hammer-proof. Upon closer inspection, Wendy noticed that the keyhole was shaped like a jigsaw piece. Her eyes widened with excitement.

Upstairs, Bill and Willa were arguing over what to do with Grampappy’s inheritance. Willa wanted to stay in Boderton to at least sort through Grampappy’s belongings and rescue what they could. Maybe they could find something valuable and exciting. Bill didn’t want to stay in this town any longer than he had to. Wendy came upstairs, and after quickly assessing the situation, she interrupted her parents with an interjectory: Ahem! Bill and Willa stopped and looked at Wendy, confused. With everyone’s attention, she resolutely declared, “We’re staying in Boderton!”

Stay tuned for more captivating chapters of the Boderton Tales as you join us on this enchanting journey within [Not] Bored Games. Don’t forget to follow us to uncover all the mysteries that await and the surprises to come.