MILWAUKEE — Monopoly? Old news. Uno? Been there and done that. Two Milwaukee game developers are hoping their new board game makes it big.
The mother-daughter duo of Stacy and Annabelle Tornio created Lucky Bears.
“Lucky Bears is our National Parks board game that we decided to create my senior year of high school," Annabelle Tornio said.
“We love board games. We play them all the time as a family, so let’s do a board game," Stacy Tornio said.
It all started in 2023. Annabelle Tornio could have gotten a job her senior year of high school, but she went the entrepreneurial route and created this game instead.
It was easy to pick the theme they said. The two love visiting National Parks. They combined their passion for board games and nature into what they hope is a big seller.
"I would say my favorite thing is the tokens. I know I love our tokens because each of them has unique artwork that features each of the national parks, and it shows the best features of that park," Annabelle said.
This is the first time either of them have done anything like this. While Stacy did work as a small board game developer for two years, she wasn't making the games. Conceptualizing, designing, and producing the game took about 10 months. They were able to fund it all after raising more than $15,000 through Kickstarter.
Watch the video to see what Lucky Bears game play looks like...
“But the logistics side was like terrifying. So it's like finding a manufacturer, getting it shipped, how much do you charge for it, like are you going to be profitable," Stacy said.
The two had to figure out the box dimensions, box material, color schemes, exact hues of each color, the size of the tokens, picking a manufacturer, how to bring costs down, and everything else you can think of when it comes to manufacturing a game.
Since this is a game about national parks, the duo wanted to make sure the packaging and fabrication process was sustainable.
"We wanted to make sure that we were going with a company that had sustainability practices in place, and we also didn't want to have any plastic or unnecessary materials in our game," Annabelle said.
While they might be independent game developers, Lucky Bears looks like any game you’d see inside Target.
“It doesn't look like it’s any less quality than a Catan on the shelves or anything else and that’s something we're super proud of," Stacy said.
Board games are fun, but learning the rules for a new one is tough. Usually, this happens: someone tells you all the rules a complicated game that you don't fully understand. They assure you that "you'll catch on as you play." But you don't really catch on. The game continues and it's confusing and frustrating. All that can lead you to not even liking the game.
Stacy and Annabelle wanted to ensure their game was actually easy to understand and fun to play.
“The rules of the game are 1 page like that’s it. So we didn’t want it to be complicated," Stacy said.
It takes about two to three minutes to learn. Here is almost the entire description of the game rules from Annabelle: "Take all your tokens and shuffle them face down on the board, or you can just leave them in the bag whatever is your preference, but we recommend putting them face down on the playing surface that you're playing with. And then each player will take 5 tokens and place them diagonally on the (paws) but there in numerical order from top to bottom. And then you're going to play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to pick up a token first. And then you’re going to take turns picking up a token from the pile looking at it and placing it on your board from numerical order from left to right and top to bottom. And the goal is to get your whole board filled before the other player.”
They had about 75 people test the game to make the user experience as easy as possible. I wanted to see just how easy it was, so I played too, and it was easy to pick up and play. It's for ages 8 and up.
The game will be available for shipping at the end of September. Go to the Lucky Bears website to pre-order a copy.
Stacy and Annabelle are already happy with what they accomplished. They took a game from concept to product and overcame all the hurdles along the 10-month process. So if the game sells well, that's great. However, they are just happy with what they accomplished.
“If our game does go farther and people do like it and it sells a bunch, then that’s fantastic, and I’ll be super happy. But if it doesn’t, I feel like we’ve succeeded," Annabelle said.
Every once in a while there's a new game that takes everyone by storm like Codenames or Catan. The creators of Lucky Bears hope the same happens to them.
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