Papa Christmas

Paul Randles was the nicest guy you could ever want to know. Those of us at The Game Mechanics, Inc. knew him from Wizards of the Coast, where he worked on games like The Great Dalmuti and RoboRally. He was the guy who played Santa at the company holiday parties, which the employees' kids loved. He also kept a candy jar at his desk. Whenever someone took a piece, he or she was supposed to say, "Every day is Christmas!" It was Paul's way of bringing some joy to the office and helping everyone around him remember to live life to the fullest. For these reasons and more, most of us knew Paul as Papa Christmas all year 'round.

A couple years ago, Paul left Wizards of the Coast in order to set out on his own. He designed several games of his own, including Pirate's Cove (published by the German company Amigo as Piratenbucht), which took a Deutscher SpielePreis award as one of the top 10 games of 2002. Paul also spent a great deal of time helping others to make and publish their games.

The tragedy is that Paul was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer. In Paul's words: "What that means is that I have the worst form of cancer and sadly, there is no cure. Here are the numbers with the treatment: median life expectancy is 6 months, about 20% live over 1 year, if you are really lucky, you might live two years. If the chemotherapy does not work, life expectancy will be 3 to 6 months. So, let's all hope the chemotherapy works and maybe we can even get a little more than two years out of this run."

Paul took this as well as anyone could. He looked forward to playing games with his friends, and hoped to squeeze in a few more rounds of golf when the weather cooperated. He wrote, "On good days I will be making games and on not so good days I will be playing games." As a game entrepreneur, Paul and his wife Katty didn't really have the resources to cover Paul's treatments.

This is where you helped. For months, all money raised through Helpware from The Game Mechanics, Inc. went to help Paul and Katty cover their medical needs. On February 10, 2003, Paul Randles passed away peacefully in the early morning. Thank you all for your donations which have helped pay for his treatments, pain management, and final arrangements. Brian Lewis, the manager of the fund, told us that he was surprised and pleased by the level of donations from people who didn't even know Paul.

Thanks once again for supporting Paul and Katty.