A Pittsburgh Girl living the California Dream

A Pittsburgh Girl living the California Dream

How does a ‘yinzer’ from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania end up as a marketing intern for a board game company in San Francisco, California? Simple, I was a blonde hair freckle faced girl stuck in the east coast snow and humidity dreaming of California…just like everyone else.

The reality of my California dream came about 7 years ago as I watched my older sister pack her closet, lacrosse stick, and smile as she headed off to play collegiate lacrosse on the West Coast. As the youngest of four, I learned at an early age to follow the footsteps in front of me! Before I knew it, I was 18 years old and signing my life away to play collegiate lacrosse, for my sister’s conference rival, at St. Mary’s College of California.

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And how does playing collegiate lacrosse connect to my 2,593 mile journey away from home? Skip over the hundreds of sprints, hours of practice, and preparing pregame speeches and you have a girl studying for a sports management and communications degree. Graduation was approaching and so was the dreaded post collegiate job search. Saint Mary’s College presented me with many opportunities for growth, but connecting with Blue Orange Games after graduation made that 18 year old’s decision to move to California worth it.

The strong Alumni and networking community of St. Mary’s led me to be able to connect with Martin Marechal, Blue Orange Games VP of Sales & Marketing and former student-athlete of St. Mary’s College of California. From there, the interview process for a marketing internship with Blue Orange began and before I knew it the job search was over!  I packed my little Honda to the brim and head across country with my Dad.

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That brings us to my current destination, Blue Orange Games: a fun and upbeat company that mixes education with fun and creates awesome board games. Board games have always been something that my family used to bring us together, so being able to bring other families the same joy was important to me. But honestly, who wouldn’t love to play board games for a living?! From attending events, to writing text for a game’s box, to managing the company’s Instagram account, I am lucky enough to be working in an environment where I can use my personality, creativity, and writing skills everyday.

Blickenstaff’s – October Store of the Month

Blickenstaff’s – October Store of the Month

Blue Orange Games is lucky to partner with a fantastic bunch of retailers who are passionate about their businesses and supportive of our games. We want to do more to recognize the stores and individuals that make our mission possible. That’s how our monthly spotlight on an outstanding Blue Orange Games retailer came about!

We are pleased to announce that Blickenstaff’s in Provo, Utah is our Store of the Month for October! Yann, our sales manager, nominated the store because of their dedication to their local community and their passion for creating fun times with their customers.

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Walking into Blickenstaff’s, the first thing you notice is a beautiful tree in the center of the store, green leaves and all. Your eyes continue to wander, finding a wall of candy and perhaps some Whirly Pops sticking out of a jar. You can’t help but to notice the train tracks floating just below the ceiling, and perhaps you spot the plane and ship doing just the same.

The atmosphere is as if Willy Wonka, Peter Pan and Geppetto dreamed up the perfect store for kids and those kids that never want to grow up! As if you think Blickenstaff’s has done enough…there is more. Blickenstaff’s has joined with Kickstarter to bring their customers more surprises.

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Blickenstaff’s Traditions brings you a beautiful heirloom tin filled with interactive traditions to help families create memories and have more fun. This project has been backed and they have successfully reached their goal of 15,000 dollars.

The mission of Blickenstaff’s Traditions is to mimic some of their favorite family pastimes and bring that to other families.Traditions-in-a-box is a fairly new idea to most out there, but it is one that will bring your family together. The traditions are not time consuming, nor do they take a lot of effort.

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Like Blickenstaff’sBlue Orange Games understands and appreciates the enhancement of interactions among families and communities. Playing board games is one way to spend time together, while having fun.

The whole team at Blue Orange Games would like to thank the Blickenstaff’s team for believing in our games and for creating rewarding, educational experiences for their community. Congrats!

store of the month certificate

For more information, visit http://www.blickenstaffs.com/

 

Frozen Fever

Frozen Fever

A game worth melting for!
A game worth melting for!

It has been 10 months since the release of Disney Frozen, and the craze has remained strong. The love of Frozen has expanded to tooth brushes, costumes, plush dolls, and Spot it!

All over the world, people, young and old, have been captivated by the story of two sisters, Elsa and Anna. Their story brings a bit of unexpected darkness to the expected Disney Fairy tale.

A relateable theme of two sisters who become estrange and their struggles to find their way back to each other. Elsa had been repressed by her parents and kept from her sister, but eventually emerges into her own after realizing her powers of freezing the objects around her.

The Disney Frozen craze has brought limitations and new ideas to the world of Disney. The demand of retail objects became so high that Disney ran out of merchandise online and inside of their stores. At one point, Disney had to restrict all consumers to two items of purchase for many weeks; that was if there were even 2 Frozen items left to buy.

A recent release by Disney states that ‘Frozen-world” will be the latest feature added to Epcot. The attraction will be opening in 2016 as the construction to the current Norway Pavilion will take place this fall. “Frozen-world” will be a hit with a boat ride, snow play areas, and of course an area to meet and greet Elsa and Anna. As if this is not enough, a short film will be released by Disney in the next year, called ‘Frozen Fever’.

Blue Orange Games has caught the Frozen fever and teamed up with Disney to bring you a new adventure. Spot it! Alphabet Disney Frozen is a matching game that features characters and iconic symbols from the hit movie. Between any two cards there is always one, and only one, match. What could be better than the #1 family card game teaming up with the winner of two Academy Awards®?! This is definitely a game worth melting for.

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The process of creating a Spot it! Alphabet Disney Frozen was a blast for the Blue Orange team. First, the marketing team gathered around and watched Disney’s Frozen together—and yes, Olaf made us laugh. Watching the movie helps to prepare the team to search through the Disney Database to find just the right images from Frozen. Once those symbols are selected, they are then tested by the toughest critics—children. This is to mostly check to see if the chosen images evoke memories from any part of the movie.

Whether you are caught singing ‘Let It Go” in your car or laughing with Olaf, chances are Frozen has warmed your heart. Young and old can relate to this theme of connecting with a loved one, coming into their own, or simply wanting to be loved. Throw in a funny snowman, great songs, and some sparkly dresses and you have a Frozen craze.

Spot it! Alphabet Disney Frozen is a great way to incorporate fun and learning with Elsa and Anna. It is a wonderful birthday gift and stocking stuffer too!

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Timbuk Toys – September Store of the Month

Timbuk Toys – September Store of the Month

Blue Orange Games is lucky to partner with a fantastic bunch of retailers who are passionate about their businesses and supportive of our games. We want to do more to recognize the stores and individuals that make our mission possible. That’s how our monthly spotlight on an outstanding Blue Orange Games retailer came about!

We are pleased to announce that Timbuk Toys in Denver, Colorado is our Store of the Month for September! Florian, our sales manager, nominated the store because of their dedication to their local community and their passion for creating fun times with their customers.

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Timbuk Toys owner, Sallie, studied architecture in college, but had a dream of opening a retail store that could bring people in the community together. What better way to do that than to play games? 22 years ago, Sallie started her business all by herself with her old fashioned cash register in a 600 square foot store. She slowly expanded moving to a 1000 square foot store to 3,500 square feet, to having 4 stores in the Denver area of Colorado.

What is Sallie’s key to success? As she stated, “Be conservative with your dollars, generous with your friendships, and true to your values.” It is important to Sallie to appreciate every single person within Timbuk Toys; how the employees are treated on the inside will directly affect how guests and business partners are treated. Appreciation of those around her business is exactly why Timbuk Toys has been awarded store of the month.

One of Sallie’s most satisfying parts of her job is working with sales people and demoing games. Florian often visits Sallie, “I love at 10 am when the door opens and there is Florian with a bucket of games ready to play.” One of her fondest Blue Orange Games memories was meeting at ASTRA and playing Battle Sheep. As Sallie put it, “I can not remember having such a good belly laugh as I did playing Battle Sheep with Blue Orange at ASTRA.”

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Sallie has always enjoyed the social games that bring people together, such as Battle Sheep. She admits to not being a big gamer, but if the rules are simple, you can count her in! Spot it! is one of those games that are simple to understand and a fun game to play with friends. Sallie stated that Spot it! was her favorite game because “It is simple yet perfect, bringing multiple ages together and you can teach the game in 5 seconds.”

Sallie believes that “America will continue to be excited about the process of play and building intelligence.” Naturally, the infatuation with electronics will continue, but “nothing will extinguish the energy of a group of people gathering around a board game.” Opening a store in a big city, Sallie has worked to value shoppers who appreciate their dollar, while bringing the community together with the best service and games from around the world.

With a female driven company, Sallie believes that this is a unique factor to her business. Not only does she take pride in this aspect, but also in her involvement in the community. Starting a business to serve the local community and beginning by herself, Sallie has brought Timbuk Toys to the top.

The whole team at Blue Orange Games would like to thank Sallie and the rest of the Timbuk Toys staff for believing in our games and for creating rewarding, educational experiences for their community. Congrats!

For more information, visit http://www.timbuktoys.com/timbuk/

TimbukToysSOM

Gen Con 2014

Gen Con 2014

For the first time, I attended the annual Gen Con 2014 convention which is America’s largest “table top” focused convention (with more than 60,000 attendees every year).  “The best 4 days in gaming” is the slogan, and it certainly lives up to the hype.  The halls are flooded with people all gathered together to celebrate gaming culture in all its forms.

Gen Con crowd
Gen Con crowd

It’s not just board games. It is also the larger “table top” community, which includes Role Playing Games (like Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowrun) as well as miniature games (such as Warhammer and War Machine). There is even a costume parade, where people dress up as their favorite characters. Other notable events are “Card Halla” a life size kingdom of towers built entirely out of playing cards. That is then crushed by objects dropped by con attendees from the floor above.

I spent most of my time in the exhibit hall, playing Blue Orange Games with our community of fans in the Family Pavilion. I got to see many of the friends that I have made at New York Toy Fair and Origins Game Fair earlier this year. I also got to meet several internationally acclaimed game designers, Bruno Cathala, Bruno Faidutti, and Charles Chevallier — all of whom have games coming out for Blue Orange next year. Of course many know that Bruno Cathala already released 2 games for us this year (Niya and Longhorn).

Bruno Cathala
Bruno Cathala

I had the pleasure to meet several of the lovely people from our community of reviewers, that prior to Gen Con I had only communicated with on the internet.

Sandy Zimmerman and her 2 “geeklings” from Adventures With My Geeklings.  Always nice to meet our biggest fans, especially when they are 2 lil’ gamer cuties! Their favorite games from the con? Our giant version of Pengoloo and our new 2014 game Aztack. You can check out more of their experience on their blog here.

Forrest Bower is the eccentric YouTube reviewer who helped build up hype for our wildly popular game BraveRats. It was great to meet him, as he is one of my favorite voices in the community. His passion for games shines through all of his videos, and he and his family are huge supporters of our games! He was kind enough to do several videos with me of our new games.  You can check them out here:  Doodle QuestLonghorn and Niya.

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Forest Bower interviewing me

I got to meet Dan (The Game Boy Geek) and Zee Garcia, both from the illustrious Dice Tower network of reviewers, who for many gamers are THE go to source for information on our games.

I had the chance to hang out with my friends in the Dice Hate Me / Geek Allstar collective after hours. They are a rowdy bunch of gamers mostly based in the North Carolina area who have a passion for innovative game design and clean-playing games with dirty tactics. Their podcasts are a great way to keep in touch with the pulse of the gaming scene and their “the state of games” podcast is in my opinion the best on air. Needless to say, it was a pleasure to see what the “cool kids” of board games were playing at the con.

My favorite game of the con, was the Korean smash hit “Coconuts” (distributed in America by Mayday Games). One of the purest fun experiences I’ve had in a while. And since the con, I have played it dozens of times. In Coconuts, players try to shoot rubber coconut pellets into big plastic cups, using adorable plastic spring-loaded monkeys. Pure, simple, chaotic fun.

The highlight of the show for me was getting to meet game inventor Charles Chevallier.  He taught me how to play his new game Wakanda, coming out for Blue Orange in 2015. He also graciously lost a game to me which means I got the joy of beating a man at his own game! Of course I had to capture the moment of triumph:

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Charles Chevallier

Gen Con was also an opportunity for me to play with prototypes from designers (some of whom were friends I made at other cons, other of whom were new). I brought back many great ideas that we will be testing out with our community of family testers in the months to come.

DIY Spot it! Ice Breaker

DIY Spot it! Ice Breaker

Spot it! Ice Breaker

Hosting an event or party in the near future? Worried that conversation will be lacking early in the event? Blue Orange Games will take that worry away by sharing with you our favorite and most successful ice breaker!

Spot it! Ice Breaker Essentials

Your Checklist:

  • Your Favorite Spot it! Cards (Of Course!)
  • 2″ Cork-board DiscSemi Strong Adhesive Glue
  • 1″ Bar Pins
  • Laminating Machine (Optional)
  • Clothespins (Optional)

All of your crafting materials can be found at your local craft & hobby store and purchase Spot it! online or visit your local toy shop.

This simple craft will guarantee that your guests begin mingling from the beginning to the end of your party! Whether you are making Spot it! Ice Breaker tags for a kid or an adult party, your little ones will make great helpers.

Spot it! Ice Breaker Steps:

1. Pick your favorite Spot it! Edition

If you are having a themed event or party, choose from one of our many editions. This is an easy way to incorporate your theme into the event’s details. Spot it! MLB, NHL, and Halloween are just a few of our themed editions. However, you can never go wrong with our classic Spot it!

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          Check out our website to browse all of your options! 

2. Laminate your Spot it! Cards

This step is optional and depends on what type of look you are trying to achieve. If you choose NOT to laminate your Spot it! cards, this will not change your outcome of your Ice Breaker pins, lamination only increases the pin’s durability.

3. Time to Glue!

Blue Orange found that a strong adhesive was best for this project. Any type of rubber cement, Gorilla Glue, or a strong adhesive will work. Apply desired amount of glue to the cork board. Apply the cork board to the red side of the Spot it! card (shown in picture). Make sure you are not gluing to the side of the card with the matching symbols…

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Our next gluing adventure consists of adding the wearable pins to the middle of the g symbols…cork board. Do not worry about the placement of the pin, some images will be upside down and some will be normal.

Press down for a few seconds and move on to the next Spot it! card.

4. Wait! Let your Spot it! Pins dry

5. Party Time!

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Invite your guests to wear your Spot it! pins around your party and find a match on other guests’ cards. Remember this is a great Ice Breaker since every single Spot it! card has a match!

Want to add even more competition to your Spot it! Ice Breaker? Purchase small clothespins of your choice and attach 5 around each guest’s Spot it! card. Whoever is the first to find their match, collects a pin from their opponent. Players can only face each opponent once and whoever has the most pins wins a prize!

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Ice Breakers are always great, but are not limited to the first day of school, birthday party, company event, or a family reunion.

Be on the look out for new and exciting Spot it! editions coming soon!

Did you use Spot it! Ice Breakers at your party or event? If so, let us know on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook! @BlueOrangeGames

New Spot it! Unveiled at Annual SF Giants Event

New Spot it! Unveiled at Annual SF Giants Event

Blue Orange Games hosted its annual Giants Event this past weekend. We invited all of our Bay Area retailers to enjoy a night of games, food, drinks, and baseball…and most importantly—to unveil a new Spot it! game!

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The office slowly turned into a party space with games on every table, lots of snacks, and a rotating hot dog machine. Each table offered seating for guests, as well as many of our favorite Blue Orange Games. Toy store owners and workers were able to enjoy playing new games, such as Battle Sheep, Aztack, and Niya; while enjoying classics, such as Spot it! and Gobblet. The competition became intense when co-workers challenged each other to a game…which always followed with several rematches.

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Guests were also introduced to Blue Orange’s Spot it! San Francisco Giants edition. This Spot it! features images from all of your favorite sites and memories at and around AT&T Park. Each attendee was asked to grab a Spot it! San Francisco Giants edition Ice Breaker pin to get the party started. This ice breaker pin consists of a Spot it! card to wear on your shirt, you then go around to other guests to try and seek your match! To learn more about creating an Ice Breaker pin for your next party, keep your eye out for upcoming posts on our blog, Facebook, & Pinterest.

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Toy store guests walked into the world of Blue Orange and were able to connect with many Blue Orange workers and the atmosphere in which we work. Upon entering, guests checked in and received a ticket to the Giants game, as well as a chance to enter into a drawing. The drawing consisted of many Giants themed prizes—Giants flag, bobble head, hats, & best of all two tickets to the Virgin Mobile Suites. Drawing winners were announced toward the end of the event and headed to the ballpark!

We were excited to feature a photo booth for our Blue Orange team and guests to have some more fun. The photo booth consisted of a fun backdrop and many crazy props to create a fun and creative picture! Stores gathered their whole crew to squeeze into one picture and strike a pose.

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Once 7:15 hit, it was game time. The event moved down to AT&T Park to enjoy a beautiful night of baseball in San Francisco. This annual event is always a great way for Blue Orange to connect with their retailers and to appreciate them. We would like to thank all of those who attended our event, and to those who could not make it—we hope to see you next year!

Look for Spot it! San Francisco Giants edition coming your way soon. Go Giants!