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Decipher, Inc.
Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, US. The company began with three puzzles marketed as "Decipher," subsequently marketing party games and Pente sets. After 1994, Decipher produced collectible card and role-playing games — including their longest-running product, How to Host a Murder Mystery series. Other popular works have included many different card games. Since 2002, Decipher has released two licensed role-playing games: Star Trek RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
Decipher was founded by Warren Holland in 1983 designing and marketing games. Their first project was the Decipher contest puzzle, a "contest" jigsaw puzzle that challenged buyers to solve four cryptograms printed on the jigsaw puzzle and enter to win a prize. This was followed by Decipher II, of which all four embedded puzzles were solved, though the solution to the last puzzle has since been lost; and Decipher III, which remains unsolved.
The Decipher puzzles led to the launch of the successful How to Host a Murder line of party games. Subsequently, they purchased the license for Pente from Parker Brothers, which they began marketing, maintaining a position in the games market.
Ten years later, after Decipher noticed the advent of collectible card games (CCGs), and game designers Tom Braunlich and Rollie Tesh (both former Pente world champions) conceptualized a media license-based CCG, and in November 1993 approached Decipher with a marketing idea. The following month, Decipher acquired the license from Paramount to create a CCG based on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In August 1994, the new game was previewed for the first time at Gen Con, and in November 1994 it was officially released.
Following the early success of the Star Trek: TNG CCG, Decipher sought another popular media license as a suitable game premise, and in December 1995, after acquiring the rights from Lucasfilm, Decipher released the Star Wars Customizable Card Game in 1995. Both games became extremely popular and were ranked among the top five CCGs for the majority of their production (Star Wars often placing second behind only Magic: The Gathering). Despite an initial planned three-year run for the Star Trek:TNG game, in November 1996 Decipher announced they had renegotiated with Paramount to continue producing the game and expand the license agreement to include not only Star Trek:TNG, but also all of the other live-action Star Trek licenses (including Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and all of the Star Trek films).
In 1999, with the release of the Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace, Decipher made the decision to expand its market towards a younger generation. Other games like Pokémon were successfully drawing younger kids into card gaming, but Decipher's existing two games were seen as requiring too much thinking and planning for a younger child to properly understand and enjoy. So in response, Decipher created the Young Jedi Collectible Card Game to target this audience. This game used images exclusively from the new movies, while the original Star Wars CCG continued to use images only from the original trilogy until 2001.
In 1999, Decipher made an attempt to merge their previous successes by creating a licensed card game designed to target the party game audience. They acquired the license for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and created the Austin Powers Collectible Card Game. However, because the company was better known as a card-gaming company than a party-game company, by that point the game was seen as a poor attempt at a card game and ultimately failed, with production being put indefinitely on hold after the initial release.
In 2001, Decipher attempted to capitalize further on their successful Star Wars games by creating a third game called Jedi Knights Trading Card Game. This game was distinct from the others because all of the card images were entirely computer-generated. This enabled them to create scenes not seen in the movies, or from new angles. They also increased the breadth of licenses by acquiring the card game license for the new Lord of the Rings series of films being produced by New Line Cinemas beginning that year. This acquisition became even more important at the end of the year when it was announced that Decipher lost the Star Wars license, which ended production on all three Star Wars games.
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Decipher, Inc.
Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, US. The company began with three puzzles marketed as "Decipher," subsequently marketing party games and Pente sets. After 1994, Decipher produced collectible card and role-playing games — including their longest-running product, How to Host a Murder Mystery series. Other popular works have included many different card games. Since 2002, Decipher has released two licensed role-playing games: Star Trek RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
Decipher was founded by Warren Holland in 1983 designing and marketing games. Their first project was the Decipher contest puzzle, a "contest" jigsaw puzzle that challenged buyers to solve four cryptograms printed on the jigsaw puzzle and enter to win a prize. This was followed by Decipher II, of which all four embedded puzzles were solved, though the solution to the last puzzle has since been lost; and Decipher III, which remains unsolved.
The Decipher puzzles led to the launch of the successful How to Host a Murder line of party games. Subsequently, they purchased the license for Pente from Parker Brothers, which they began marketing, maintaining a position in the games market.
Ten years later, after Decipher noticed the advent of collectible card games (CCGs), and game designers Tom Braunlich and Rollie Tesh (both former Pente world champions) conceptualized a media license-based CCG, and in November 1993 approached Decipher with a marketing idea. The following month, Decipher acquired the license from Paramount to create a CCG based on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In August 1994, the new game was previewed for the first time at Gen Con, and in November 1994 it was officially released.
Following the early success of the Star Trek: TNG CCG, Decipher sought another popular media license as a suitable game premise, and in December 1995, after acquiring the rights from Lucasfilm, Decipher released the Star Wars Customizable Card Game in 1995. Both games became extremely popular and were ranked among the top five CCGs for the majority of their production (Star Wars often placing second behind only Magic: The Gathering). Despite an initial planned three-year run for the Star Trek:TNG game, in November 1996 Decipher announced they had renegotiated with Paramount to continue producing the game and expand the license agreement to include not only Star Trek:TNG, but also all of the other live-action Star Trek licenses (including Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and all of the Star Trek films).
In 1999, with the release of the Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace, Decipher made the decision to expand its market towards a younger generation. Other games like Pokémon were successfully drawing younger kids into card gaming, but Decipher's existing two games were seen as requiring too much thinking and planning for a younger child to properly understand and enjoy. So in response, Decipher created the Young Jedi Collectible Card Game to target this audience. This game used images exclusively from the new movies, while the original Star Wars CCG continued to use images only from the original trilogy until 2001.
In 1999, Decipher made an attempt to merge their previous successes by creating a licensed card game designed to target the party game audience. They acquired the license for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and created the Austin Powers Collectible Card Game. However, because the company was better known as a card-gaming company than a party-game company, by that point the game was seen as a poor attempt at a card game and ultimately failed, with production being put indefinitely on hold after the initial release.
In 2001, Decipher attempted to capitalize further on their successful Star Wars games by creating a third game called Jedi Knights Trading Card Game. This game was distinct from the others because all of the card images were entirely computer-generated. This enabled them to create scenes not seen in the movies, or from new angles. They also increased the breadth of licenses by acquiring the card game license for the new Lord of the Rings series of films being produced by New Line Cinemas beginning that year. This acquisition became even more important at the end of the year when it was announced that Decipher lost the Star Wars license, which ended production on all three Star Wars games.