JAMESTOWN, N.D. -- Paul Lunde combined a childhood habit of inventing games with a passion for hunting and came up with the Hunting Fever series of board games.

As a child, whenever he and his brother, Brian, couldn't be outside, Lunde said, they would invent games to play inside.

About two years ago, he and his wife, Kim, were helping a friend's boy learn to read. The boy loved hunting, so they made him a hunting-themed word association game.

"I started thinking about a game then, and everything that happens to hunters," Lunde said. "I had no idea what it would be like."

Out of that and nine months of playing around with ideas and layout came the first game "Buck Fever."

Lunde used poster board, made up cards and got friends and relatives to test-play the game. They made suggestions, which he added. He came up with six different hunts, which include shotgun, rifle and crossbow.

A roll of the dice tells the player which hunt he'll be doing and what trail he'll be taking. Then there are dice rolls and cards to get to 100 points and that big buck.

It's a game of chance, which, Lunde said, is just as frustrating as the real experience.

"It's tough to get a deer in the real world," he said.

Once Lunde finished "Buck Fever" he moved on to create "Duck Fever" and "Pheasant Fever." He wanted to offer some variety.

The duck and pheasant games come with small replicas of the birds. Both "get away" from the hunter and are moved over the board as a turn is taken. The object is to get your limit.

"I think the duck game is probably the most fun," he said. "The cards tell you where the ducks fly off to."

As ducks do when shot at, the flock will go from a lake, slough or ditch to a wheat field. On the other hand, pheasants don't fly much, but they can disappear into corn fields, cattail sloughs and CRP. In the pheasant game there's a bird dog bonus card to help the "hunter" out.

"I've lost a lot of pheasants. That's reality," Lunde said.

Unlike the deer game, which tends to be more adult, the two bird games are suitable and fun for just about any age.

With a lifetime of board games behind him, Lunde hopes his games bring families and friends together in the old-fashioned way. Instead of interacting with the television or computer monitor, he said, people can interact with each other over the game board.

"Success to me with this is twofold. It's making money, of course, but it's also people playing games together with kids," he said. "They're having fun together. I love to hear the stories of fathers playing with their sons or daughters."

Inventing the games turned out to be the easy part for Lunde. For a man who's been in manufacturing for 20 years and a hunter most of his life, the biggest difficulty in launching the games was getting a game board designer to understand the nuances of hunting.

The designer also had to understand the game — the board itself, the pieces and box cover — had to be realistic.

"Hunters are serious. I didn't want a cartoon look," Lunde said. "At the same time, I wanted to keep it affordable and high quality."

Although he didn't find a fellow hunter as a designer, Lunde said, he eventually got what he wanted and a partnership that worked. So the look and the games themselves are true to the experience of hunting, without slogging through mud, snow or rain.

"I almost enjoy playing the games more than the hunting," he said.

But not quite. Lunde has already bagged his deer this season and has been planning to go pheasant hunting.

It's been suggested that Lunde should do a goose game next and maybe an elk game. Fishing was another suggestion.

"I think I'm done inventing, but we'll see," he said. "I'm kind of burned out on it and these three (deer, pheasants and ducks) are my passions."