Thursday, August 22, 2013

Game Design Kit


German boardgames are naturally a favorite gift I’ve enjoyed giving to friends and family back in the United States. In addition to that, I used to design an original boardgame for my two nieces as a Christmas present every year.  It’s not easy to shop for them when we live an ocean away from each other, and this was a way I could give them something personal. I also did try to theme many of the games around activities they enjoyed.

When my designs began to get published, I gave them those as gifts. Now that they are older—and very creative—I thought I would instead give them the materials to be game designers themselves.

A year and one-half ago I sent them a “game design kit” with materials ordered from Spielmaterial.  They included a blank game box, a deck of blank cards, a blank fold-out game board, a 6-color die, one large pawn, 6 normal dice in 6 colors, and large and small wooden discs and “meeples” (human-shaped figures) in 6 colors.