By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
For Nick Pellegrino, the getting is good.
Over this past summer, the 2018 graduate of Fayetteville-Manlius High School started a business currently centered around a card game he created, entitled “As Good As It Gets.”
Through Game Quill LLC, Pellegrino sells this game, which he has worked to concoct since his high school days taking a graphic design class with teacher Brittney Culican.
Pellegrino later set up a test version of “As Good As It Gets” at his graduation party and after that the first prototypes were shipped in from China.
Upon Pellegrino’s entrance into Binghamton University, entrepreneurship lecturer Tony Frontera began mentoring him, eventually encouraging him to enter a state-wide business pitch competition.
In the southern tier region, Pellegrino won first place in the consumer products category for his plan revolving around his card game business.
According to Pellegrino’s set of rules, “As Good As It Gets” can be played by three to eight people at a time, with one participant assuming the role of judge while the other players start by drawing four green “get” cards and four red “but” cards each.
One “get” card and one “but” card, when put together, create hypothetical scenarios.
The “get” cards feature desirable occurrences like becoming a successful artist, while the “but” cards feature a downside such as the bank repossessing your house.
Players lay their “get” cards face down and rotate them around the table until the judge says “stop.”
Once everyone receives an opponent’s card, each player attempts to sabotage the “get” card that lands in front of them with one of their own “but” cards.
The judge collects these combinations and decides on the best-case scenario out of those offered.
The chosen “get” card returns to the player who drew it from the deck and that person earns a point.
The rest of the cards taken out get discarded, each player draws four “get” cards and four “but” cards again, and the person to the left of the previous judge replaces them in their duty.
The cycle continues until a player reaches five points and thus wins.
These rules have been written on the game’s box instead of a sheet of paper that can be easily misplaced, Pellegrino said.
Pellegrino said he compares “As Good As It Gets” to other impress-the-judge games such as Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity.
He also said that people can join the game or drop out while it’s in progress, adding that the appeal lies in its potential for humor and its uncomplicated rules.
“In complicated games, sometimes you’re so focused on the rules and figuring out if you’re doing it right that you don’t actually talk to the people you’re just trying to spend time with, which is kind of the point of board games, at least for the average person,” Pellegrino said.
The single game set and its junior version tailored toward younger players both contain 100 “get” cards and 100 “but” cards.
Two expansions are available as well—one comprised of an additional 25 “get” cards and 25 “but” cards and one containing a pack of blank cards on which players can write customized “get” or “but” clauses.
Now a sophomore double major in computer science and mathematical science at Binghamton University, Pellegrino will be taking pre-orders for “As Good As It Gets” until Nov. 4 through gamequill.com, the website he designed.
After that date, he said he will put in a bulk order online to be shipped back from Wisconsin by January or February.
