When a guest walked into a Pennsylvania hotel breakfast room looking bewildered and asked, "Is that your van outside?", Liz Peak knew her rolling billboard had done its job.
"We sold him a $99 game right there in the breakfast area," she said.
The vehicle that caught his eye was not an ordinary commercial van.
Decaled as the "Gaming Apocalypse Mobile Emergency Response Vehicle" (or G.A.M.E. R.1), the 2025 Ford Transit serves as the mobile engine for Bad Goblin Games, a Florida-based tabletop miniature gaming business owned by Peak, her husband Brian, and a few friends.
It turns out this wasn't a one-off.
The van has a habit of stopping people in their tracks. On a personal trip to Key West, Peak pulled into a brewery and, after seeing the van, the brewery's bartender, who runs game nights there, told Peak he was going to buy one of Bad Goblin's games. She figured he was joking.
By the time the group reached the Florida Keys, an order had come in. On the drive back, they swung by the brewery to hand-deliver it.
Even parked on a side street a few blocks from a friend's Halloween party, the van drew a knock on the door from a stranger wanting to know whose van it was and what the business did.
"It really is a moving billboard," Peak said.
Why Bad Goblin Games Chose a Ford Transit
Before launching Bad Goblin Games — creator of quirky miniature skirmish games like Trailer Park Warlords of the Apocalypse — Peak spent more than two decades working in mobility-on-demand services.
"Mobility-on-demand provides public transit in areas big, fixed-route buses can't access, either because of the terrain or the nature of the community," she said. " Ford Transits can do it, but large buses can't."
That professional background gave her a front-row seat to how Ford Transits performed in the field, and it made the choice easy when it came time to choose a vehicle for her own business.
She needed a van spacious enough to carry set ups for conventions, including display terrain and stacks of delicate 3D-printed miniatures, yet nimble enough for long, cross-country hauls.
She purchased a 2025 Ford Transit passenger van from Duval Ford in Jacksonville, Florida, removing the rear seats to maximize cargo space.
Inside a Homegrown Tabletop Gaming Business
Bad Goblin Games is a true homegrown operation.
The company's team designs, develops, and produces their games out of Peak's house.
One spare bedroom has been converted into a 3D print farm where the team prints, bags, and tags components for their three original titles: Trailer Park Warlords of the Apocalypse; the large-scale battle game Ages of Conflict; and Fire and Bronze, a miniature skirmish game that just wrapped a Kickstarter campaign.
Putting the Transit to the Test: A 3,000-Mile Road Trip
The Peaks put the capability of their Transit to the test during a recent multi-state trip that combined business, transit-industry consulting work, and a bit of personal time — covering an estimated 2,600 to 3,000 miles round trip.
The route took the crew from Florida to a gaming convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, then on to Ohio and Kentucky (with scenic detours to Mammoth Cave and Ruby Falls) before heading back through Ohio to Florida.
The Transit handled everything from eight-hour interstate stretches to winding two-lane back roads to serving as an essential rolling office.
"One of the most important features is that I can do conference calls from the passenger seat while we're on the road," Peak said. "The cabin is so quiet that people on the call don't even know we're driving."
Compared to their previous vehicle, the Transit offers noticeably more legroom and comfort across long drives to conventions.
What's Next for Bad Goblin Games and Its Transit Fleet
For Peak, the van has become more than transport — it's a grassroots marketing engine that keeps introducing new players to the tabletop hobby, one curious passerby at a time.
Peak hopes to expand this fleet in the future.
"Right now, with one Transit, we can't be in two different places at the same time," Peak said.
"We're working one at a time. There are a lot of conventions out there — in October alone, we're doing three weekends in a row of different conventions."
With G.A.M.E. R.1 leading the way, Bad Goblin Games hopes to eventually grow its fleet so the team can cover more ground and more shows at once.
For now, the one Transit van is enough to give this homegrown business a multi-state footprint, maximizing every mile along the way.
Nick Bennett is Transit Brand Manager at Ford Motor Company.
