Game app evolves from dad’s grief

    There's a new app waiting to be played by Jackson County and around the world, Tik Tak Roll, a game thought up by Edna's Manuel Palacios.         For him, the idea would not have gotten as far as it has if it hadn’t have been for his son, Sgt. Matthew Travis Palacios, known to family and friends as Matt, who was in his early twenties when the game started to blossom.
    "My daughter Madyson was born on Aug. 18, 2012 and had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit," Palacios said. "I was in the waiting room with her half sister Clarissa, who'd just turned five, and I decided to teach her how to play tic-tac-toe."
    Clarissa was having a hard time understanding the concept of the game, so Palacios made his own rules.
    "I got some printer paper to draw the nine-square grid and I had a dice app in my phone. We used a 12-sided die so I numbered each square in the grid. She had X and I had O and I told her whatever number she rolled she would put an X in the matching square," he said. "If she rolled a 10 she lost her turn, and 11 meant she could roll again and 12 was a wild card. If it was up to her we'd still be playing that game," he smiled.
    So began his journey to Tik Tak Roll. He told Matt about the idea over the phone, who was in the Marines at the time. Matt thought it was a great concept and urged his dad to make it into a real game. Palacios thought about it over the next year, but that was as far as it went.
    On Nov. 6, 2013, Palacios and his family lost Matt in a car accident in Quanah, Texas after a trip to Colorado.
    In his grief, Palacios found his mind wandering back to the game. To this day, he knows it was Matt that was reminding him of his idea.
    "I'm keeping a promise to my son, that's how I see it," he said.
    Palacios ran across the notes, rules and drawings he'd made a couple of years back. He made a prototype in less than two hours, a feat that surprises him still.
    "Matt was pushing me to finish this idea. He knew I wasn't motivated about it so he kept calling me and pushing me," he said. "Even when I didn't want to be thinking about it I was thinking about it. When I don't have a clue what I'm doing, things pop into my head that get me to the next step and the next."
    He contacted Hasbro, but they told him he needed an agent to get his game considered. He was then connected with an agent and worked with her for a year, to no avail. At that point he was still trying to get his game made in a tangible form, one that came in the form of a box with a die.
    Palacios then got the idea from a friend to try and manufacture an app for the game. A website, freelancer.com, connected him with the right software programmers to do the work Palacios didn't know how to do. The game continued evolving with added grids and colors instead of numbers.
    Tik Tak Roll was completed only months ago. It is under the company name, Mattsgame, and is available right now on Google Playstore and Android. Palacios is currently in the process of getting the game out to IOS devices.
    "I promised Matt I would see it through and now I can say I have. It's about getting the word out there now," he said.
    "I still feel Matt is here with me with everything that's happened. I've put my faith in God and trust in Him that He will show me the path,” he said. “I have no doubt Matt has helped put people in my path, like friends and family as well people I haven’t met before. I know he’s with me because he had an entrepreneurial spirit himself. He was a real go-getter and he was going to make sure I wasn’t going to give up.”