What WIKIMEDIA has to say about SOPA and the Anti-SOPA Blackout: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

BoingBoing Going Dark on Jan 18th: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/14/boing-boing-will-go-dark-on-ja.html

What the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has to say about PIPA and SOPA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

WordPress’ Call to Action: http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/help-stop-sopa-pipa/

 

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Show Your Support:

http://publicknowledge.org/e-parasite-stop-online-piracy-act#pipa

http://americancensorship.org/ 

http://www.blackoutsopa.org/

Maybe.  The Biblical Magi, or Three Kings, were said to have visited Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh shortly after the reign of “King” Herod the Great, who ruled from 37-4 BC.  They are said to have come “from the east” and it’s disputed whether that means that they were Babylonians, Persians or from Yemen, but that’s all basically the same general area when we’re talking about games at that time.

So regardless of your religious believes and if the Magi were kings, astronomers, astrologers, sorcerers or just plain wise men, games had already been in existence for centuries and there’s a decent chance Melchior, Casper, Balthasar played them.

A recent article on the Discovery News site (see HERE) based on another article published in the journal Antiquity, sums up gaming history in the following way:  board games most likely originated in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent at around 3500 BC and spread to other regions in the Mediterranean and then Europe via the Roman Empire who had that area under it’s control at the time.  India and China also had board games very early on, but their creation dates are unknown.

The article points to two very early examples of board games, one being The Royal Game of Ur (sometimes called “The Game of Twenty Squares” see right) which was unearthed in the Royal Tombs of Ur in Iraq which date back to the First dynasty of Ur, approximately 26th century BC.  The other game is Senet, which is from predynastic Egypt and has 30 squares (versus 20 in Ur) and is dated to approximately 3100 BC.

Now, by the time the Magi were to have lived, Augustus (Octavious) was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which had spread to include Gaul (France) and the majority of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including Judea and the city of Jerusalem.  And games had followed “on the coattails of the Roman conquest.”

Games started as a pastime for the elite and wealthy, which makes sense, as they were the ones who had the leisure time to spare.  But as years passed, games were played by men of many castes and, as I mentioned earlier, we don’t know if the Magi were kings, astronomers or something else entirely, but they definitely weren’t apart of the lowest caste of society as they were trekking around with gifts of gold, frankincense (a perfume/incense) and myrrh (an anointing or embalming oil).

So if the Magi were playing games, what kind of games were they playing?  According to Bruce Whitehill, founder of the Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors, many early games are race games or games of conquest “required the strategic capture or entrapment of an opponent’s pieces, or the positioning of your own.”  While that may sound a bit like checkers or chess, they weren’t “invented” for a couple more centuries.

Games at that time were passed from generation to generation and city to city and during their journeys got changed or modified to appeal to the new users.  Which makes it surprising that there are games still played today in a form almost identical to how they were played at the time of the Magi.  What are they?  Mancala and Backgammon

So this hectic holiday season, regardless of what you’re celebrating, sit back and enjoy some games with friends and family.  It’s what mankind’s been doing for centuries!  Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/kim-vandenbroucke-game-inventor 

Okay, I’m tooting my horn right now and I think the article is pretty bad-ass.  BUT what I really want all of you to know that they contacted me via twitter (although I have no idea how they picked me) and a strong — or at least decent — social media presence can really help your brand (personal or products).  Food for thought on this Thanksgiving weekend.

I can’t tell you how often it’s happened in my career that I show a concept to one company’s inventor relations representative and they give me less than glowing feedback, but the I show it to another company’s inventor relations representative and they can’t wait to bring it in.  This always blows my mind – how one person can react like I showed them something that smelled foul and the next is as giddy as a child on Christmas morning.  You’d think it doesn’t make sense that two people who are experts in the same industry and see thousands of games every year can react so differently, but they can — and do.

Rejections happen a lot in the toy and game invention industry, but there are some steps you can take to minimize the number of rejections you get.  I’ve always said that being an inventor requires some matchmaking skills and showing products is like setting up first dates.  You do a little research and show concepts to companies who have been known to “dance” with similar products in the past.  This seems obvious, but over the years I’ve had to explain to plenty of new inventors that big mass-market companies like Hasbro and Mattel are probably not going to be interested in an educational math game or a game that only appeals to small niche markets like train collectors.  As an inventor you should strive to license your toy or game to a company who knows and excels in the market your concept is in.  So that game for train collectors?  I wouldn’t advise licensing it, or even attempting to license it to a company who knows nothing about train collecting.  Realistically, you probably would never get a company who doesn’t have experience with train collecting interested in it, but you also shouldn’t be showing it to them either.

Showing companies concepts that in no way, shape or form fit into their current product line is a bad idea.  For example, a game company that only does party games is probably not going to be interested in infant toys.  It’s okay to ask if they are looking for products in an area they aren’t currently in; but jumping straight into a pitch without asking is a big no-no.  Not only does it indicate that you haven’t done your homework and researched what they do and what products of theirs are doing well, but you are wasting their time.  And as most professional inventors will tell you, time is precious when you are meeting with an inventor relations representative.  They probably have a bunch of meetings tightly crammed into their day and the last thing you want is to be the meeting that they think back on and say “what a waste of time.”

Back to my initial remark that “one inventor relations representative’s trash is another rep’s treasure.”  Many games I create could find a happy home with a variety of manufacturers and if a rep gives me negative feedback, I listen to what they say (because they might be saying something I needed to hear) but I also may just make a mental note and show it to someone else and hope they see it in a better light.  Overall, it’s not just matching the right concept with the right company – it could also be timing, trends and a variety of other factors that may make one inventor relations representative giggle while another groans.   Just don’t let it get you down.  It’s time to worry about a concept if you’ve shown it to a couple strategically selected companies and you’re still hearing lots of negative feedback, then maybe it’s time to revisit the drawing board.

Side note: Since T&GCon is coming up, I want to reiterate that “making a mental note” does NOT include arguing your point with an inventor relations rep.  If they say “no, it’s not for us” that is not a jumping off point to start negotiating how it can fit in their line.  Instead if you get a “PASS” ask why.  Ask if there’s something they like about the idea — or conversely what they don’t like.  Ask if they can think of a company your product might be a better fit for.  At the end of the meeting, you want to walk out a little more educated about their company and why they are or are not interested in your concept.

This article was written for Global Toy News (July 22, 2011) and can be viewed with comments HERE. I’m adding it now to keep all of my game development advice articles all on my site under the same tag to make it easy for any aspiring or new inventors to access them.  Click the HERE to see them all.

While I was writing my last article on boxes that last, I did a very informal poll on The Game Aisle’s Facebook page and Twitter account to see what everyone’s pet peeves were regarding packaging.  Here are my less-than scientific results in no particular order:

1. Boxes that fail!

So I don’t rehash, read my last article: Boxed To Last: Yes, the game box matters  But tape and rubber bands can only do so much to repair a faulty box – having a nice sturdy one to begin with is so much better!

2. Odd shaped boxes & oversized boxes that don’t play nice on shelves!

We often talk about how retailers like certain box sizes and a rectangular or square shape.  And yes, you need to the buyer on including your game in their game aisle but you might also want to think about the consumer at home.  I’m sure there are some cursing right now the “stupid people at X company for creating an impossible to stack box.”

ALL of the participants in my informal poll kept their games on shelves.  Obviously that means that there’s going to be some stacking involved – and not the kind of stacking you see at a store where the same game is stacked on top of or in front of the same game which means the box should play nice with other boxes.  Is your game box “game shelf friendly?”

3. I bought a game, not a puzzle!

User assembly is no big deal, but it would be great if the parts would fit nicely back into the box without a ton of effort.  Renee posted on The Game Aisle’s Facebook page, “What irritates me the most are kid games that require a degree in engineering to carefully place all the odd shaped pieces in the box in just the right way or it won’t all fit / box won’t close. I’d rather have a bigger box than a cleanup nightmare.” I doubt that there are many who disagree with Renee!  And this point ties in to the next pet peeve:

4. The top should fit on the box!Even I’ve complained about this one in the past with my favorite example being the old non-electronic Boggle.  You couldn’t put the plastic lid on the Boggle game if you wanted the box top to slide down all the way.  So your options were a lopsided box or dice floating around freely.  Now, the wonderful folks at Hasbro have since fixed that annoyance, but there are plenty of other games that have a similar problem.  One Twitter user mentioned how they disliked when they had to punch out cardboard pieces and then when they were all bagged up the box could no longer close.  Of course the pre-punched cardboard sheets fit nicely, but not post-punching if you wanted to keep the pieces all nice and tidy inside the box.

 

5. Space Hogs!

And by space hogs I mean boxes that are seriously disproportionate in comparison to what is inside.  A game was recently submitted to The Game Aisle that had 48 – 3” x 3” cards inside a box that was 7” x 7” x 1.5.”  That’s a lot of box for a small deck of cards.  Now while I understand that manufacturers need their box to live up to a perceived value, the consumer is looking at this as gross waste of their precious game-shelf space.  Can we find a happy medium here folks?

 

Overall, I think Inventors/Manufacturers/Designers spend so much time focusing on set up time and getting all components into the “right” sized box that we sometimes forget to consider of how nightmarish tear-down can be.

I’ll admit it, when I first joined Twitter I was completely against it.  No really, I had just started TheGameAisle.com and the last thing I needed was another way to waste time on an unpaid hobby.  But I realized that my readers weren’t always going to be checking to see if I had posted something new on my site; I needed another way (other than an RSS feed) to get the word out on new articles.  Of course, I was also hoping to get a couple new readers too.

So I did what everyone who has a new blog does: I created a new Twitter account and then I installed a plugin and had my WordPress site automatically send a tweet when I published a new article.  Sounded like a grand idea to me – I didn’t have to do any extra work and I was still tweeting.  Now I’ve realized that if all you’re doing is sending automatic tweets you’re missing the point of Twitter and your feed kind of stinks.  I may still follow you if you have interesting articles, but if you don’t I’m unfollowing you so I don’t have to see your lifeless auto-tweets in my feed.

Twitter is a conversation.  Sure it’s also like a conversation in a crowded bar with a zillion of your friends, acquaintances, brand spokespeople and loads of random people from around the world – BUT you can talk to anyone!  That’s right you can attempt to start a conversation with anyone who has a Twitter account – whether they answer you is a different story, but I find that there are lots of people out there that are more than happy to have a conversation – especially toy and game people.

I love the toy/game community on Twitter.  Everyone is friendly and often volunteering to help play test new games, offering design advice and helping out other gamers in need.  It’s really a pretty chatty community.  It’s a great way to get the word out on new articles, events and games you love – but it’s also a great place to vent frustration on confusing instructions, cheap parts, overpriced products and just about anything else.

A few things happened over time to change my views on Twitter.  It started when my auto-tweet plugin broke and instead of fighting with it, I disabled it and decided I’d post it to Twitter on my own.  Then I got HootSuite, which allowed me to plan tweets in advance so I could write stuff in the morning and it would tweet later on in the day.  Suddenly, I started seeing more responses.  Now, as many of my loyal readers know (love you guys!) my only co-worker is a dog that is probably part koala because he sleeps 20 hours a day and therefore isn’t much for conversation – but there are many people on Twitter who are.  It was like I suddenly had co-workers again!  Then I realized you could ask them for advice.  As an example, the other day I had an issue with my website’s SPAM filter and I was so irritated/frustrated/annoyed with legit comments ending up in SPAM that I vented on Twitter.  Lo and behold, @TheToySpy came to my rescue and suggested a new service/plug-in. Cool!  Later I had some issues with it’s installation and ended up emailing tech support.  Hours passed and no answer came via email, so I went back to Twitter and posed my question there.  Within minutes I had a tech person from the company answering my questions via Twitter.  It was AMAZING – almost like being able to holler to an entire office full of people to see if anyone could give you some help.  And that is when I realized that I do in fact love Twitter.

Some other great twitter moments:

@hakubak (Corey Young) – Made it his mission to get me a 1,000^th follower

@RichardBliss (aka The Game Whisperer) – Donated $100 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society so I could reach my Light the Night goal

@Board_Games (Mary Couzin) – Nominated me for the 2011 Wonder Women In Toys Award for Social Media (which I won!)

A Fast Company writer contacted me via twitter for an article in their upcoming December/January issue.

The thing to take away from this article is that the key to Twitter is to remember it’s a conversation, not a shouting platform.  Spend the time to interact with your followers, be yourself, and have some fun.  You too may learn to love Twitter. (And be sure to follow me: @TheGameAisle)

**The adorable Twitter icons are from Mirkku and were found in Smashing Magazine.

]]> http://www.thegameaisle.com/why-i-stopped-whining-and-learned-to-love-twitter/feed/ 2 http://www.thegameaisle.com/educational-games-hide-the-education-highlight-the-fun/ http://www.thegameaisle.com/educational-games-hide-the-education-highlight-the-fun/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:08:45 +0000 Kim Vandenbroucke http://www.thegameaisle.com/?p=3216  

If the kids in your neighborhood aren’t back in school yet, they will be soon.  So in honor of the “back to school” theme we see right and left at this time of year, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about “educational” games.  (yawn, I know…but hear me out.)

Many of you know that I wholeheartedly believe EVERY game is educational.  All games teach “soft skills” like playing well with others, taking turns, dealing with defeat, planning ahead, etc.  But then there is a whole segment of games that are what I call “in-your-face educational” and these are the ones I’d like to discuss in this article.

“I’ve created this educational game that teachers are going to love…”

okay… but are the kids?

I get asked a couple times a month if I’d be interested in reviewing an “in-your-face educational” game and I almost always pass on the opportunity.  Why? Because I play games to have fun and a lot of these games make me feel that I’m back sitting in a classroom watching the time tick away until I can do something I enjoy.  Now I’m not saying that all “in your face” educational game stink – but often if “it’s educational” is the major selling point I see that as a big red flag.  I think the best educational games out there are ones where the game is fun and the educational part is a well-hidden bonus.  I mean, isn’t that the point of an educational game – to learn something while having a good time?

Some manufacturers do this very well and here are a few examples of appealing educational games that I’ve reviewed on the site because I really enjoyed them:

Chocolate Fix by ThinkFun – logic puzzle

Rush Hour by ThinkFun – logic puzzle

A-BEE-C Matching Game by Endless Games – learn to spell/letter recognition

10 Days in the Americas by Out of the Box – geography

Another game I’d like to mention is the one that made me want to write this article, and it’s called Scabs ‘N Guts: A “Meducational” Game.  To the astute adults Scabs ‘N Guts seems to be a health class in a box but with a name like that, how can it not be fun?!  Now, I’ll admit that this game’s got a pretty big educational element to it since it’s a trivia game about healthy choices, hygiene and a bunch of gross body facts, and at times some of the questions feel like they fell off a health quiz, but the next 4 questions will be fun and gross so all is forgiven.  Overall, the game’s been done in such an appealing way that I don’t really mind the educational trivia.  The name is great and the box is also a homerun with its super-appealing artwork and adorable organ characters that are featured as the game’s movers!  So really, what kid is going to say no to playing a game that’s A. called Scabs ‘N Guts and B. has a box looks like that?!  None I tell you, even the adults were intrigued!  Imagination Entertainment originally manufactured the game and now Spin Master has it and I hear they’re changing the box to something more “mad scientist-like” but I hope is just as appealing.

The funny thing is I KNEW that Scabs ‘N Guts was a pretty “in-your-face” educational game but I still really wanted to pull it off the shelf and play it.  Which brings me share a valuable lesson with all of you inventors, self-manufacturers and small manufacturers out there.  Despite the fact that I’m less than a fan of “in-your-face” educational games I can be suckered into playing if a game successfully accomplishes the following:

1. Make it look fun. It’s a GAME for Pete’s sake!  And if ThinkFun made logic puzzles into a box of chocolates, anything is possible.

2. It should also BE fun and this should be the selling point of the game.  Again..it’s a game, not a math workbook or a spelling quiz.

3. Give it a great and fun sounding name.  Avoid words that sound like classes…seriously!  But also pick something that makes sense.  See my article on naming HERE.

4. Make the package super appealing.  This is important for every game, but even more so if you’re going to try to dupe consumers into buying a game where they might learn something.  I don’t walk into the game aisle looking for something that’s going to educate me, I walk into it looking for something FUN to buy and play.

5. Keep the content fun and light and not too “in your face.”  One thing Scabs ‘N Guts did well was teaching healthy choices through fun questions – like one where it asked about the number of germs on your body and let me tell you, I wanted to go wash my hands right then and there!  Obviously, asking about the number of germs was better than asking “What times during the day should you wash your hands?” which makes me want to fall asleep….just like in health class.

Remember, kids already sit in school for hours so they don’t want to sit through more problem sets, quizzes or lectures when they come home.  And parents and adults have already “done their time” in the school system and now when they have free time I think they’d rather be doing something fun that’s going to make them laugh versus tackling something that reminds them of their high school or junior high years and how long ago that really was.

I wrote this article for Global Toy News but thought some of my readers would find it interesting too.  Enjoy!

One of my favorite naming stories starts with a physicist’s discovery of a “gravitationally completely collapsed object” and, frankly, no one cared.  It doesn’t sound interesting, it doesn’t sound fun, actually it sounds like something only the scientists in his field are going to geek out about.  However, months later he change the name to “black hole” and public interest exploded and the term has made it’s way into mainstream vocabulary.  Naming is important.  A product’s name should generate excitement, deliver a message and seduce the consumer into buying.

Unfortunately, naming is not easy.  There are far too many pitfalls and obstacles in the naming process waiting to take down a good product.  Yet, there are some key components that will assist you in picking a good name once you’ve generated lots of ideas to choose from.

1. The name should sound fun. (duh!)  Presumably, you are trying to sell a fun toy or game – and if you aren’t well, even a great name won’t save you.  Some good examples are: Hide and Eeek, Elefun, and Stomple.

2. The name should be easy to say. Some of my favorite fun-to-say game names include: Chicken Cha Cha Cha, Sumo Ham Slam, Duck Duck Bruce, Rat-a-Tat Cat, and Gnip Gnop. Every one of these rolls off the tongue easily and produces a smile as it exits.

When a name is difficult to say instead of rolling off the tongue smoothly, it clumsily trips off, like Husker Du? or Carcassonne – even Rummikub (which I’ve heard pronounced “roomy-cube,” “rummy–cub,” “rummy-cube”). When people aren’t comfortable saying name they aren’t comfortable with the product.  If they can’t say it to ask for it, they won’t and if they can’t pronounce it with confidence, they won’t recommend it to their friends.

One of the biggest missteps is actually pretty easy to avoid: don’t choose a foreign-sounding name.  It’s hard for consumers to pronounce, remember and relate to a name they don’t understand.  Bilibo, Mille Bornes, Ligretto, even the pooping dog internet sensation Kackel-Dackel, which I think sounds hilarious, changed it’s name to Doggie Doo for sales here in the United States.

3. The name should NOT be visually confusing. Adding extra letters, changing Cs to Qs or Ss to Zs is one way to create a unique name, but sometimes there are unintended consequences.  First, inventing super-weird spelling names that take a little while to sound out is bad.  It’s annoying to be a literate adult and have to stop and sound out a product’s name.  Second, sometimes newly created words remind us of other standard vocabulary words or phrases.  For example, I have a game in my collection called “Woker” it’s a word-poker game, unfortunately every time someone looks at it they see the word “Worker” which does NOT sound fun and this somewhat clever name has backfired.

4. The name should make sense. I came across a product recently that was called “Squap.”  Despite sounding interesting, I had no idea what the name had to do with the product (shown here at right).  It’s extremely helpful if a name does some explaining.  For example, the game Stomple is a game about stomping marbles, Banagrams is an anagram game that comes in a banana, Sturdy Bird is a bird-themed game about balancing.  Giving context clues in the name helps the consumer quickly understand the product.

5. The name should be easy to remember. Another seemingly obvious point, yet one that is hard to accomplish.  People walk into stores all the time saying “I need the game about _____” or “the game with the _____” because they can’t recall the exact name.  Why is that?  Going back to previously discussed points, it’s hard to remember a name that is totally arbitrary or hard to pronounce.  It’s also difficult to remember names that are too generic like the games What? and Great States.

6. The name shouldn’t get confused with another product. Have you heard of the products Q-Bitz, Kubit2Me and Qubits?  Similar sounding names can cause a great deal of product confusion, especially when you have people saying, “my niece wanted that Qube game.” While this isn’t always something you can control, before you settle on a name check and see what else is already out there that sounds similar.  And then once your product is out there keep an eye out for new products that may cause confusion.

7. The name should be protectable. Now we’re moving into stuff your lawyer is concerned with.  Protecting your name is important.  Hopefully, it will stop anyone from creating a game that causes the confusion mentioned in point 6.  And if you have any doubts about how important protecting a name is, check out the legal battle regarding  “Zobmondo!!: Would You Rather?” and “Justin & Dave’s Would You Rather?”

8. The name should be easily marketable. Can you get the URL?  And if you can’t – or don’t want it, what’s at that URL if one of your consumers is going to go looking?  You also have to think about search engine results.  If you choose a generic name, it may make it extremely difficult (or expensive) for your product to land on the first page of Google results. A great example is the game Husker Du, which is also a rock band.  If I Google “Husker Du” the majority of the results I get are about the band and not the game.

So there it is.  You could have the best idea for a name ever but if it fails to meet any of the 8 points above, you may have an uphill battle ahead of you.  Creating a great name isn’t an easy or quick task, but it’s one of the most important — and these eight points are really just scratching the surface on why a great name is so important.

Rules, instructions, directions – whatever you want to call them, they’re outdated.  No one reads them unless they have to anyway so why bother including them?  That’s exactly what the manufacturers of the new card game UnRuly thought.

Why no rules?

“Right after we created the game we planned on putting rules in the box because that’s what everyone does – but then we asked ourselves, why?  No one reads them.  We thought our game was self-explanatory enough so we decided to skip the rules and avoid the extra paper.  After we made that decision the name just fell into place.”

Really?  One sheet of paper was that much of a problem?

“It definitely provided some savings to skip it but more importantly, think of how it’s impacting the environment.  We feel that omitting the rules from UnRuly helps make it ‘green.’  And we feel that is important.”

So what if the players can’t figure out how to play?

“We don’t feel that is going to happen.  We think it’s pretty obvious, but we’re sure they’ll tweak the game to suit their needs so it may end up being a better game for them than what we had intended.”

So there you have it.  I’d explain how to play the game, but since part of the fun is the players figuring out how to play on their own I guess I’ll skip that part.

UnRuly Stats:

• ~$30 but good luck finding it.
• 2 or more players — all depends on your rules
• ~? min. again it depends on your rules
• Any age you make the game for

** The “UnRuly” image was modified from Kate Konova’s “Art of Wash” project you can see HERE.  Happy April 1!

Here are some of the continuing trends I saw during Toy Fair 2011:

Tile-Placement games

In the last two years we’ve seen a bunch of Blokus-like games such as Callisto by University Games, Cir*Kis by Winning Moves/Hasbro and Blockers by Briarpatch.  New additions this year – both of which I think look pretty fun — include City Square Off by Gamewright and PathWords by ThinkFun.  In City Square Off each player has their own board on which to put their pieces and a card is flipped to direct them which piece to add until they run out of space.  Whoever is the last-person able to add a piece wins.  PathWords is a brainteaser and uses Tetris-like pieces to cover letters on the board.  Different, yes – but still tile placement.

Letter Tile, Dice and Card Games

I think almost everyone has a game centered around letter tiles, cubes or cards by now.  Think about it: Scrabble, Boggle, Bananagrams, UpWords and Scrabble Slam are the big ones.  Some more obscure ones: Lexigo, Amuse Amaze, Scrabble Me, Word Pirates, Zip-It, Tripoley Word, Pick Two, Anagrams, Appletters, My Word, Snatch-It, Stir ’em Up!, Word Shout, Take a Letter, A BEE C Match Game, Spill and Spell, Up For Grabs and so many others.  And now following the trend is Letter Go by Think Fun, the reintroduction of Big Boggle by Winning Moves (can’t wait!), Kabam! by Educational Insights and Spell it! by Blue Orange.  I’m guessing (and hoping) these games are pretty strong since they’ll be going up against a lot of other skus.

Cool Packaging

YAY, I LOVE cool packaging!!  Although we’ve seen it before: the Banagrams fabric banana, the Scrabble Apple fabric apple, the Slamwich lunchbox, Jenga in a tube, tins, tins and more tins – packaging definitely isn’t just a box anymore!  This year I saw more cute fabric zip-up pouches especially at University Games where they have a fabric pigeon for their Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus game and a fabric caterpillar, Very Hungry Caterpillar Match and Munch game.  ThinkFun did a nice long pencil-box looking package with two drawers that open at the same time for their Letter Go game – very satisfying!  Educational Insights also gets a shout out and gold star for their super-cute Sneaky Snacky Squirrel packaging which is in the shape of a tree with some AMAZING art!  I asked Riley Wilkinson from Educational Insights about the packaging and he said:

“I hired Lucia Gaggiotti from Italy to design my package. I bought boxes of butter cookies in Starbucks that she had illustrated and knew she’d be the perfect choice to make my tree-shaped box adorable!  She was so fun to work with and as I designed the game and package, she and I talked about the famous artist Charley Harper—a big influence on her style and in the history of illustration. I wanted the game to feel like some of the storybooks my mom used to read to me in the 1970s.”

LOVE IT!

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