In March of 2020, the three of us were sitting on a discord call reenacting our Tuesday ritual on a Thursday since we were displaced due to the pandemic. During that call Christian Barry would say that “Now was the perfect time to start a game company”. Michael Shaddock, and Zachary Barton would then show him earliest drafts of a game they had been working on for a few months … Masters of Myth! The “game” at that time was comprised of a single word document with two functional decks and bare bones rules. After a few hours, we decided that we could do something with this and founded a game company.

Why’s it called You’re Close! Gaming?

Coming up for a name for your company isn’t easy, it must be unique enough to stand out but not so unique that someone would have difficulty remembering it. We tossed around a few different ideas but ended up settling on You’re Close! Gaming based on a catch phrase we came up with in college. Now, I will regale you with the tale of how that phrase came to be.

One night while we were in college, the three of us had taken over one of the study rooms to play our favorite wargame at the time. We had all of our models set up, terrain laid out and all but Christian’s dice were rolling poorly (per usual). The study room was connected to some of the on-campus housing, some of our more eccentric classmates decided to throw a party in their room. So many, many intoxicated partygoers were walking by our study room. This had been going on for a few hours when one enterprising individual decided to open the door and walk in.

This gentleman, clearly intoxicated, unsteadily stood at the end of our game table. We greeted him, but he gave no response, however he seemed very interested in our game. He started walking around to take a closer look at our models, so we asked him a few more questions, had he ever played before? Did he need anything? Still no response. Eventually he made his way over to Christian’s models. Unsettled by his lack of response, Christian approached the gentleman, asking him if he needed anything. To which, the gentleman took a stumbling step back and raised finger defiantly stating the only two words he would ever speak to us. He slurred out, “You’re Close!” moments later he would stumble out of the room leaving us with endless questions and a new catch phrase, “You’re Close!”

So random stranger, if you too have this memory, thank you for providing an everlasting lasting meme.