News
Captain Hogarth to retire
We made the decision to add the Wizard Widdershins to the cast of Hoard for its fourth reprint, which meant one character needed to step aside. Captain Hogarth, as the existing older white male, seemed the most logical swap, although he certainly has his fans. We like to think that by now, through the hundreds, if not thousands of games he's played, that he has more than earned enough to fund his desired retirement, to feature fluffy cushions and comely maidens.
In addition to adding Widdershins, Tim has tweaked the design of all the player pawns so that their feet won't be (as) obscured when they sit in the plastic bases, a little detail that has been niggling at us for some time.
International News
Cheeky Parrot is starting to build more of an international profile.
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In early June we had a roving representative at the UK Games Expo. Tjark Schoenfeld met with other publishers and distributors to seek localisation and distribution arrangements for some of our titles, including Hungry Pyramids, a variation for Flaming Pyramids developed by Tjark.
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It's been a few years since we've had any of our games picked up by an Australian distributor; I think this is because with their affordable prices, there's less room for third parties to clip the ticket. However, Even Toys and Games of Queensland has just received a shipment of our Hoard and Flipology titles.
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German company Happyshops/Funbot has licensed Hoard and we hope to see it hit the market in Germany by the end of the year.
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Directions for Granny Wars are now available in Spanish, thanks to Tirs Abril, and in French, thanks to Stéphane Athimon, plus we had the directions for Hoard translated into Dutch. The Hoard how-to-play video can also be watched with Dutch captions.
Under development
We have been working in fits and starts on Glimstone Grab, a cooperative game for 1-4 set in the Hoard universe, by first-time designer Jono McGarvey of Christchurch.
Trolls have settled into a clearing in the forest of Much Middling and are helping themselves to magical glimstones and the town's children! Esmeralda and the wizard Widdershins to the rescue!
We love testing this sort of game with families who come to board gaming events, and obviously these opportunities have been limited, so we are unlikely to be ready to publish Glimstone Grab before 2023.
In the meantime, we were pitched a card game that had that Cheeky feel. Working title House Proud is by first-time designer Andy Bell of Christchurch.
Structured playtesting begins July 30-31 at Auckland's Games Fair. If it is well-received, we expect to be able to publish it next year, and will be looking for input from testers on the theme and title and also to establish its lower age limit.