My daughter (that’s her buried under her over-affectionate brother) is something of a creative whirlwind. We’d been playing Sleeping Queens when she decided she wanted to create a card game of her very own.

At the time she was somewhat obsessed with babies and motherhood, so the theme was decided. The ruleset, which evolved over weeks as we playtested over and over, evolved into quite a sweet game.

From the start we adopted the principle that the game should be light on competition and high on fun; navigating the challenges of having a new baby while emphasising responsible parenting decisions, friendship and compassion for those facing extra challenges like triplets, or paediatric allergies.

It’s not as preachy as it sounds!

As the game matured we started thinking about all the early primary school kids who would get just as much fun out of it as we did, and I dug into the realities of manufacturing and distribution.

The biggest factor in the game’s success, now that we had the gameplay down solid, was the quality of the cards. We knew that for a commercial product, cutesy clipart wasn’t going to cut it and we wanted each card to be a work of art as well as a game piece. A good thing then that we know an outrageously talented artist, Lucy Prior.

So now we’re working on a Kickstarter to raise the initial funds to commission the art (up to 54 unique pieces depending on stretch goals!) and get Cry Baby into the hands of as many parents and young kids as we can. If you’d like updates on progress and to be informed when the Kickstarter goes live, you can subscribe to our newsletter, and if you’d like more details drop us a line or leave a comment below.