Features

We asked industry figures for their thoughts on the success of Wordle and find out if its popularity could impact the board game space.

We’ve asked the industry to sum up their predictions, hopes and fears around what the next 12 months has up its sleeve in just 22 words…

Big Monster Toys’ Sam Unsicker, Ulco’s Don Ullman, Fuse’s Oliver Morris and Creating Unique Toys’ Adam Borton share their insights into the perfect ‘wow’ moment.

In this month’s Talking Games feature, Spin Master’s Dougal Grimes, Peggy Brown Creative Consulting’s Peggy Brown, Open 2 Design’s Matt Burtonwood and Galactic Sneeze’s Sara Farber discuss creating great games based on brands.

Exploring the differences between the two sectors are games designers Scott Rogers and Brett J Gilbert, as well as PlayMonster’s Adam Hocherman and Heayes Design’s Richard Heayes.

PowerStation Studio US’ Sharon Weisman, The Toy Guy’s Chris Byrne and Alsop Design’s Joe Alsop give us their verdict on the brands ripe for a pre-school collab.

Exactly fifty years ago to the day – April 13, 1970 – Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell and John L. Swigert both said these words to NASA Mission Control. Usually misquoted in the present tense, the sentence marks the start of one of the most extraordinary stories of creativity on or off the face of the planet…

“The aim of this event is always to encourage new designers to think about toy and game design as a future career, and it was great to see so many students enthusiastically getting stuck into the challenge and expressing excitement about our industry,” said Mojo Nation’s Billy Langsworthy.

We asked the toy and game design community for their thoughts on the issue of copycats (products that attempt to convince the consumer it’s a cheaper version of an existing popular product) and how retailers support them.

With shoppers becoming more environmentally conscious and the industry boasting the potential to become more eco-friendly, we asked toy and game creators what the design community can do to help make the toy space greener.