Our Next Pet Project

FARMily Feud designer DeMi Ernst has the potential to be an incredibly prolific game designer. At any given time, she has dozens of prototypes in development. Last year she showed me one that immediately caught my attention and soon became our next pet project.

Although we often describe Cheeky Parrot games as "no child required", it's true that many of our titles are aimed primarily at children aged eight to twelve. Curiously, our best-selling game, Hoard, appeals to even younger players (ages 5+) because there's no reading required during play. We also recommend Flipology for ages 6+, as children quickly learn the effects of the animal and weather cards without needing to read the short lines on these. Even so, I'd been hoping to add a game designed specifically for children aged four to five.

The prototype DeMi showed me revolved around rescuing cats and dogs from ridiculous apocalyptic disasters. While the gameplay was great fun, we felt the theme could be gentler for our youngest audience. DeMi was immediately on board with reimagining the premise as players "collecting" dogs and puppies for their dog-walking business.

The prototype had its first public outing at last year's Cancer Society Games Fair, where we also asked players to vote on possible titles. We discovered that the word "Puppy" was especially appealing to children, and from there the game evolved into Puppy Biz.

By the time we brought Puppy Biz to Board Games by the Bay Hamilton later in the year, it was enthusiastically received. Since then we've continued refining the design, most recently simplifying the action cards so that pre-literate children have fewer symbols and effects to learn.

Last week DeMi took the prototype to Sugartree Lane Preschool in downtown Auckland to playtest it with several pairs of preschoolers. Watching children play is one of the best ways to discover whether a game is genuinely intuitive, and the sessions helped confirm that the balance of the game and its symbols are working well.

Earlier this year our Going to the Dogs contest supplied nine of the twenty real dogs that will appear in the finished game. Including real pets isn't essential, but we love finding opportunities to involve our community whenever we can. In our August newsletter we'll launch another search for the remaining puppy and dog models we'll need to complete the artwork.

Once the illustrations are finished, we'll invite families with young children to take part in blind playtesting. There's no better way to find out whether a rulebook truly works than to lend out the game and allow testers to learn how to play on their own. .

Earlier this year, after holding the recommended retail price of Granny Wars at NZ$20 for more than a decade, rising production costs finally forced us to increase the price of our cheapest game. Affordability remains one of our core values, so we're planning to package Puppy Biz in a sturdy two-piece box rather than our usual magnetic box. That cost-saving measure should allow us to set

this new game's recommended retail price at NZ$20, making it accessible to as many families as possible.

We'll have more to share as Puppy Biz continues to take shape, and we can't wait to introduce you to the real dogs that will be joining the Cheeky Parrot family.