When Chapel Hill resident Joe Welsh was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, he and his children occupied themselves by helping design a board game called “Making Monsters.” Now, the game has been honored as the 2026 Barnes & Noble Family Game of the Year, and they are preparing to show their creation to the community.
“Making Monsters” will be on display and available to try next Wednesday at Chapel Hill’s new Barnes & Noble location at 201 S. Estes Drive in University Place. A specific time for the event has not been confirmed by the store.
In the game, players become mad scientists, competing to build the best “monster squad.” You complete monsters by trying to find the right monster parts, with players use a Lazy Susan playing board and compete against one another at the same time. The game’s 2025 crowdfunding campaign blew past its initial $9,000 goal, netting over $94,000. It’s the first game from Welsh’s new company Sky Lion Games, and it will be sold in Barnes & Noble stores for $59.
“During my recovery, playing games with my family gave us time to laugh, be creative, and just enjoy being together,” Welsh said in a release. “That’s what I wanted to share with other families through Making Monsters. I’ve always had a passion for strategy and playing games with my daughters and nieces, so it was only right they helped us build it along the way and make it a game the entire family could enjoy. After all this hard work, seeing Barnes & Noble name it Family Game of the Year feels especially meaningful.”
Joe Welsh poses with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck ahead of their Aug. 2025 interview on the game (Image via Aaron Keck/Chapel Hill Media Group).
In an interview with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck from Aug. 2025, Welsh told us about his cancer diagnosis, and how those dark times led to the creation of “Making Monsters.”
“I’m still in my 40s, so I consider myself relatively young,” he said. “And just one day I got diagnosed with cancer. I’d had a lot of joint issues that they were investigating. And long story short, like a lot of people that are diagnosed with cancer, just…boom, total shock. I drove to a parking lot and cried. I was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma called Waldenstrom’s. When I looked it up online, it said [the] median lifespan is three to five years. And so of course I panicked, having young girls. You know, telling my wife all I want to do is watch them grow up and be a dad.”
After getting his diagnosis, Welsh quit his job in robotics and moved with his family from Colorado to Chapel Hill to be closer to his sister and her three daughters. He also moved to spend whatever time he had focused on his true passions, one of which is board games.
“I like to play board games, and I was known as a board game geek as a kid,” Welsh said. “There’s a great community in the Triangle of board game designers. They meet up at the Durham Atomic board game shop. I went there thinking ‘I’ll start designing my own board games.’ And it turns out it’s a little harder to do than you might imagine if you’re a novice.”
(Image via Sky Lion Games).
While Welsh found he might not be able to design a game from the ground up alone, he did have some skills many other prospective game designers don’t.
“Everyone there was complaining that they knew how to design well, but didn’t know how to do the business side. And I thought, ‘I know how to do the business side.’ That’s how we met John Gilmour-Long, [who] is pretty famous. He’s sold millions of his games in the past.”
Gilmour-Long is known for designing games like “Dead of Winter” and “Dinosaur Island.” The team also included designer David Gordon of “Finspan” and “Monkey Palace,” as well as illustrator Brett Bean, who created visual designs for the monsters.
That’s where Welsh’s family came into the design process. His two daughters and his three nieces became his first playtesters, and they became an integral part of making the monsters at the center of “Making Monsters.”
“There’s 72 unique monster art pieces in this, and they all have to have funny names attached to them,” he said. “So there’s a shark named ‘Swim Shady.’ We really leaned into the monster pun dad jokes. We [would] spend a half day where I was rewarding my kids with chocolate for whoever came up with the best name.”
Four of the “punny” monsters featured in the game (Image via Sky Lion Games).
Welsh said it was his family’s way of making the best out of difficult circumstances.
“Unfortunately with chemo and with the treatment for cancers, you’re limited in your mobility,” he said. “You don’t feel well, you have nausea and neuropathy. So this was something I could do with my kids and be stationary and not have to go on a hike or something. It was just a great way to do something that was fun and laughter oriented.”
In the days since, Welsh said he’s responded well to treatment — but he isn’t fully out of the woods yet.
“I’m doing a lot better,” he said. “It’s a journey. I still have neuropathy, which means nerve issues, [which] limit my mobility. But I should be able to have a normal lifespan. It’s the golden age of cancer treatment. They’re coming out with gene-focused treatments. I’m just really lucky that in this day and age, most [slow moving] cancers, especially like I have, can be treated as more chronic conditions.”
The entrepreneur said he credits those around him for getting him through the hardest days of his illness, and Welsh urged people going though similar struggles to focus on their loved ones and their passions.
“Don’t feel like you’re alone,” he said. “Really reach out and try to find the little things in life, especially the little people. If you’re going through something tough, find family or loved ones, nieces, nephews, and kids to make your day brighter. And I think playing games is a great way to do that.”
And “Making Monsters” may just be the beginning of new experiences from Sky Lion Games. Welsh said there are two more games which the company is hoping to launch in the near future. In the meantime, you can try the company’s first game for yourself at Barnes & Noble next week.
Featured image via Sky Lion Games.
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