Coronaopoly™
board game design
Intro:
As the lockdown began in Spring 2020, my family began a quarantine tradition of playing a game of Monopoly. As I continued virtual classes and design studio, I thought to myself why not make my own version. I worked with my younger sister to brainstorm ideas. We gathered information about the pandemic and pinned it up in a similar manner to a studio setting. We researched everything from when the pandemic started to important events that occurred during the pandemic. I got to work on constructing a full-scale prototype by hand.
Piece Design:
As the summer began, I continued to work on piece design for the game. The finished pieces are seen to the right although they have yet to be distributed with the game.
Final Design:
Below displays the final Coronaopoly™ board game design. There are also some Risk and Grocery Cards to the right of the main board.
Production:
Throughout the summer I continued to change the design, create pieces, and eventually I posted the idea on the social media app, Tik Tok. The game was an instant success on the app. One of my first videos reached 1.3 million views. I also gained more than 60,000 followers on Tik Tok through Coronaopoly and had different brands reaching out to me about possible deals.
At this moment I realized I should begin to market the game. I worked with my sister to reach out to a board game manufacturing company. We started out by ordering around 6 boards, then 50, then 100 and so on. We also started out by cutting cards by hand but quickly switched to order cards in bulk. The game’s demand caught up with us quickly as we approached Christmas.
Branding and Giving Back:
Through Etsy alone we have now sold more than 300 boards and made a revenue of around $14K. As well as designing, marketing, and selling a product, we wanted to give back. From both Coronaopoly™ and other branding design work, a portion of our profit was donated to local PPE makers to help with the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Trade Mark:
During the winter, I successfully filed a trademark for the game, Coronaopoly™. I followed a set of rules as well to make an "Opoly" game safely without copyright infringement.
Moving Forward:
During the quarantine, I designed several other games and plan to continue making them as a hobby. To the left is a limited edition board game I designed for the end of 2020. It featured events from the year.
