Rise Gaming

About the person behind "HYDRA - The Card Game"

Marco Löhrer is a passionate card player and game developer from Zurich. His enthusiasm for strategic trick-taking games began many years ago at the game table with friends, where classic games were regularly played and rules, tactics, and new ideas were discussed.

In his private life, Marco has a regular office job. In his free time, he enjoys sports and spends a lot of time on his hobbies, including snowboarding, cycling, playing guitar, traveling, cooking, and video games.

His path almost took a completely different turn: In earlier years, he played guitar in a band called Like My Fear (metalcore/hardcore) and performed regularly on stage. Even though things ultimately turned out differently, his passion for music has remained to this day.

Marco describes the creation of HYDRA as follows:

We were four boys who regularly played TICHU.

Eventually we discovered Chimera, basically a TICHU for three players. Over time, we actually grew to like it a bit more, or rather, it was simply a nice change of pace.

Eventually, the idea came up: Why not develop a Chimera for four players?

The first attempt was, to be honest, a pure copy for four players – and, to be quite frank: bad and rather boring.

But over many weeks, months and countless adjustments, it increasingly developed into an independent game that, while clearly inspired by TICHU and CHIMERA, now has its own unique identity.

At some point, we found the game so good that the next step was clear: it had to be released.

After weeks of searching for a publisher, disappointment followed. The games market is completely saturated – and unfortunately, nobody wanted a “TICHU 2.0 from Zurich”.

So I decided to self-publish HYDRA, at my own expense and risk. Rise Gaming, the publisher, and the release of Hydra - The Card Game were the next step!