Ethos
The Seahorse & The Hummingbird intends to be a one-person indie board game publisher, focusing on small- to medium-sized games that challenge the mind and lighten the heart. Some will be my own designs. Others may come from independent creators with fresh ideas worth sharing. Whether it’s a pocket-sized game that travels everywhere or a strategy game that lingers in your thoughts long after playing, the goal is the same: to create and curate games that strengthen and enhance The Magic Circle.
Board games aren’t just entertainment. They’re a way to express, to tell stories and to spark ideas. They’re a way to challenge, to reach, to explore and expand. They offer ways to facilitate connection, comfort, comity, laughter and love.
Let’s all get together, think a little deeper, and play a little lighter.
Why?
Hi there! My name is Jason Katzwinkel, a board game enthusiast from Tampa, Florida, and I love makin’ stuff. Making things has been a constant in my life. Drawing, writing, gardening, 3D modeling—whatever the medium, if there’s something to create, it’s hard for me to sit still. Ideas take shape, hands get to work, and suddenly, there’s something that didn’t exist before.
In 2021, that creative energy turned to board games. Not just playing them, not just admiring the ones that got it right, but actually making them. It has been the most challenging, intricate, frustrating, and deeply satisfying creative pursuit yet. And I detect no signs of stopping.
The Seahorse & The Hummingbird is another version of making things—only this time, it’s designing, producing, and selling board games, all from the ground up. A wildly different kind of challenge, but the kind that scratches the right itch. Maybe it’s a little reckless to take on something this complex, but if it feels right, it’s worth doing. And it does.
Family, friends, and career come first. But this? This is where time well-spent goes next. Every step—win or stumble—is part of the process, and if failure is in the cards, that just means another puzzle to solve, another way to get better.
If you’re here now, you’re part of the journey. Thanks for experiencing it with me.
The Royal “We”
The temptation to use the Royal “We” in writing this website is real. It’s everywhere in marketing—those polished, confident sentences that declare, “We at The Seahorse & The Hummingbird believe…” as if there’s a bustling team behind the scenes. But there isn’t. It’s just me.
At the same time, writing “I believe…” on a homepage feels oddly fragile, too personal, too much like a handwritten note tucked into a board game box rather than the front-facing message of a business. There’s a balance to strike—between honesty and professionalism, between personality and polish.
The Royal “We” is so ingrained in business language that writing any other way feels unnatural. It’s what readers expect, what companies do. But for me, it doesn’t sit right. It implies a team where there isn’t one, turning a solo passion into something corporate and impersonal. And while it’s easy to fall into that pattern, it feels like a small act of honesty to resist.
So, the words here will be chosen carefully—not inflated, not diminished, just real. The work behind The Seahorse & The Hummingbird is mine alone, and the way it’s presented should reflect that. No pretending. No unnecessary grandiosity. Just games, thoughtfully made and thoughtfully shared.