Long before parrots came into my life in the form of my first pet budgie, I discovered what Americans call the sowbug or pillbox bug and Kiwis call the slater. As a little girl I had perhaps an odd affinity for the tiny grey creatures which I used to find under rocks and collect in plastic margarine containers. Growing up in Maryland, I learned about our native Chesapeake Bay blue crab and how you can tell a female from a male by their undersides. The males have a exoskeletal

Designing a great game is one thing, selling it successfully is quite another. We've always stuck by the decision we made when we started Cheeky Parrot in 2014 i.e. not to compete with our retailers by selling directly to customers. This means when we attend events, we can simply share the fun of our g ames with no overt or even subtle obligation on players to buy. As one mother wrote to me earlier this year: " The lack of pressure to purchase something gave us space to le

Lifelong New Zealanders may not appreciate some of the best things about our country. Among them I would number a public health system,...

Whoo, it's an especially busy Q2 this year. I am in the midst of attending events and/or traveling for five weekends in a row. The Cancer...

We have attended a number of events across Aotearoa New Zealand since the decision was taken to stop trying to prevent this Level Three...

It's occurred to me that no one else in New Zealand is doing what I do: publishing small box games, eight to date, most of them designed...

We have been distributing games for other publishers since we got started back in 2014. When we split off from SchilMil Games, we got the...

During the big initial lockdown of 2020, Flaming Pyramids designer Norbert Abel proposed that we put Flaming Pyramids on the Board Game...

Cheeky Parrot Games is often contacted by designers looking to pitch their game so I thought it might be helpful to write about what I...

A lockdown ago, i.e. what seems to be a very long time ago now, back in early June, I had the honor of being the featured guest on the...

Originally published March 9, 2020 For the last few months, we’ve been working with first-time designer Jonathan McGarvey and artist Tim...

Originally published December 24, 2018 I’ve crunched the numbers from our modest Kickstarter campaign for Flaming Pyramids from earlier...

Originally published July 13, 2016 From mid-May to mid-June 2016, Cheeky Parrot ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for Hoard, a card game we will publish in Q4 2016. We raised nearly $25,000 NZ, representing 155% of our target. Before the campaign gets too far removed in time, I wanted to reflect on our success and share some lessons learned. I hope some of this will be of practical help to others thinking of running a Kickstarter, though Cheeky Parrot was in perhaps an un

Originally published August 27, 2015 When I was in Wellington to attend It’s Your Move in July, I delivered an order to the Hobby Stop in...