Hey, I'm Mike. Artist, game maker, skateboarder, general creative menace. Shinobi is my brand and this is its home.
It started back in 2019 when I was in art college for Graphic Design. I was drawing ninjas constantly while learning to illustrate in a comics style, and one day my painting professor asked if I wanted to paint a skateboard for an upcoming event. With zero hesitation I said absolutely. I painted a ninja on a yellow background and called it "Chosen One." Seeing my art on an actual physical board—something used for performing extraordinary physics—kind of broke my brain in the best way possible. I said to myself
"MORE."
And just like that, Shinobi Skateboards was born.
Since then I've built out a full line of deck graphics available here on shinobi.one through print-on-demand, so you can grab a board in whatever size you skate.
On top of the skate stuff, I make board games. It's been a thing for years—designing games, roping friends into playtesting them, the whole deal. And then one day my brother and I were joking around and accidentally invented one in about 20 minutes. That game is JIBBRRIX.
JIBBRRIX is a party word game with four roles: the Writer, the Weader, the Wuesser, and the Wudience. The Writer comes up with a 6-12 word sentence and passes it to the Weader, who rolls a letter die. Whatever letter lands—every first letter of every word in that sentence gets replaced with it. The Weader reads it out loud in its mangled form and the Wuesser has to decode what the original sentence was.
So if the sentence is "Have you heard of the high elves?" and the letter is L, the Weader reads: "Lave Lou Leard Lof Lhe Ligh Llves?"
If the Wuesser guesses the sentence word for word, they earn a JIBBRRIX meaning they score points equal to the sentence length +2.
The Wudience can also attempt a one-shot steal—guess the whole sentence correctly and you get the JIBBRRIX, guess wrong and you lose points equal to the word count.
Yes, your score can go into the negatives. Yes, someone ended with a score of -42 (my brother).
If you have seen me in the videos on our @JIBBRRIX instagram page—I highly recommend not trying what I do at home. Play JIBBRRIX responsibly and avoid breaking things in the name of getting a JIBBRRIX. 😂
I'm bringing JIBBRRIX to MEPACON 50 from April 17–19 for its grand debut and WI Wannot Wait Wo Watch Whe Whaos Wunfold Win Weal Wime!
The goal with Shinobi.one is simple:
get JIBBRRIX out into the world, keep building the skateboard line, and eventually bring the rest of the games I've been sitting on to people's tables. This is just the beginning.
Welcome to Shinobi!
Let's get it!
- Mike Shinobi.
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