Cudo Plays hosted its ninth annual Board Game Design Grand Exhibition

Cudo Plays hosted its ninth annual Board Game Design Grand Exhibition in Urbana in early April at Broadway Food Hall.

Those whose games made it to the final round had their games set up on tables around the room where people were able to try them out.

Throughout the competition, Cudo Plays are there to help those who entered back in the beginning stages, create their games and work with them throughout the process if they need any help.

Members of the Cudo Plays organization are all volunteers who enjoy playing games. Many of the current volunteers have competed in this competition in the past, including Kaity Bequette; she has been a volunteer with Cudo Plays for roughly six years.

“We’re excited to have the community see them.” said Bequette, regarding the games that make it to the final stage in the competition.

The 12 games featured in the event; Purrfect Match, EverGreen, Spacewalk, Sabotage, Memento Mori, CGCG, Deliveration: Chicago, Lucky Streak, Posted, Trick or Treat, Nightmare High School, and Increase

Purrfect Match is one of four of the family-friendly games featured at the event, and its creators- Rose St. Clair and Nadja Robot- were inspired to create the game for a variety of reasons.

St. Clair grew up playing board games and grew to love them.

“I have come to these competitions for the past 10 years just to [like] play.” said St. Clair.

The premise of the game is that players are adoption-shelter volunteers with the goal to get cats adopted by dressing them up in various cute outfit combinations.

Both St. Clair and Robot were motivated to create their game because they believe there are not enough dress-up board games in the world. That, combined with their mutual love of cats, sparked an idea.

“We wanted to see this game and no one had made it yet so we were like ‘Why don’t we make it?’.” said St. Clair.

Completely new to designing board games, Purrfect Match is the first game that both St. Clair and Robot have created.

“We want to take it to a bigger game convention.” said Robot, when asked about the success they’ve had so far in the convention with just their first game.

Neither being originally from the Champaign-Urbana area, the two met at an exercise studio, Defy Gravity, and quickly hit it off.

Another one of the family-friendly board games featured was EverGreen. This game is a fun, environment-friendly learning opportunity for the whole family.

Originally created as a way to teach young kids about trees and invasive species, Taffy DeJarnette made all of the parts of the board game with either repurposed or recyclable materials.

To play the game first you have to decide whether or not you want to play as a villain or good-guy. A villain’s job is to try and destroy as many of a tree’s population as possible.

Throughout the game, you learn which bugs are harmful to which type of tree and have to use that knowledge (along with the given rules of the game) to complete your mission. The same goes for those who decide to play as a good guy.

Different start-up scenarios are included with the game play, allowing it to be a unique scenario each time.

“My degree’s in Agriculture, with a particular interest in entomology and arboriculture and botany and environmental science; those are some of the fields I studied.” said DeJarnette.

Her board game is based on the work she has spent her life studying. It’s a game that she is passionate about and extremely proud of.

“Children like to listen.” said DeJarnette.

In addition to the hard work she put into making the game, DeJarnette has also created a Facebook page where players can go for more information on the species featured in the game. Those who visit can also share how their scenarios played out and hear others’ as well.

The game currently is not for sale and DeJarnette has just been giving copies to those who want them.

While many of the designers in the final exhibition had no prior experience creating board games, Jefferey Chin is not one of them.

One of two founders of the game-design company Road to Infamy Games, or R2i, Chin already has games on the market and plans to get Spacewalk- the one entered in the contest- out there for people to buy as well.

“I’m probably gonna get this wrong, but this is, I think, my eighth published game.” said Chin.

It hasn’t all been an easy road for Chin when working on games in recent years. Due to the pandemic, playtesting the games in person with other people wasn’t an option.

Instead, Chin had to turn to the digital world of game making in order to workshop his game.

“Since then I’m really glad I’m able to [like] play it in person because it is a very cooperative, in-person experience. So that was really hard to do through a digital space.” said Chin.

Even though Chin has some experience designing board games, this is only his second year entering one of his games in a competition like this.

He entered a game in the previous season that did well. Right now, his game Globetrotting is in the final developing stages and, according to Chin, should be available to the public this summer.

For one family, designing and entering board games is becoming something of a tradition.

Andy Kelts and his three children entered two games in this year’s competition. One he designed with his older daughter Charley Kelts and son Matthew Kelts; the other he designed with his youngest daughter Jolie Kelts.

While Charley did the artwork and character designs for their game Sabotage, both she and Matthew worked with their father to come up with the idea and gameplay.

Sabotage is a cooperative game in which players have to work together to stop an evil villain from blowing up the moon.

The game he created with his youngest daughter, Jolie, came after she felt that Sabotage wasn’t as kid friendly as she would’ve liked it to be. That, combined with her love of rainbows, led to the creation of their second entry, Lucky Streak.

Another push-your-luck game, Lucky Streak is an easy-to-understand game in which players roll dice trying to fill the spaces of the rainbow on their game card by rolling a number they don’t have. But it isn’t that easy.

Rolling a repeat number gives you a black-cat token, and three black cat tokens means you’re out of the game.

Jolie and Andy Kelts weren’t the only father-child duo entered in the competition.

Bryan Buckley and his son also entered a game. Their game, however, was a memory-matching game tied to Egyptian mythology, where players are supposed to carry souls across the river Styx.

When asked about the creation of their game, the younger Buckley took charge in answering the questions and the dad confirmed that his son was the boss of their two-man crew.

“I usually pitch ideas to him and he’s like ‘That’s a crazy idea’.” Buckley said when asked about possibly making another board game for next year.

“I usually try to just give ideas that are gonna make him laugh or annoy him, and he sort of sorts through them,” said Buckley.

The first five hours of the event were spent with people from the community going from table to table and learning about the games as well as being able to sit down and actively try them out.

Everyone who attended the event was given a raffle ticket, and at 5 p.m the raffle winners were drawn. During the next hour was given from the Cudo Plays volunteers to grab food and also give those who had been tied to their own board games the chance to wander and also get something to eat.

Three different food stalls, are set up in Broadway Food Hall; A Taste of Both Worlds, Les Gourmets Cuisine, and The Poke Shack.

Between the three stalls, Broadway Food Hall has a lot to offer, including delicious desserts such as a warm, sweet nutella filled empanada.

Winners of the Season 9 Grand Exhibition were announced at 6 p.m. There were seven different award categories, each with a grand winner who received a Cudo Plays trophy. Then two runners-up that would receive medals.

Each category was sponsored by a different gaming company; including but not limited to board-gaming organizations and escape-room companies.

To find out who the big winners were from the night and more information about Cudo Plays and future events it will host, can be found at the Cudo Plays website at Cudo Plays. Follow them on social media, or email them directly at cudoplaysofficial@gmail.com.

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Facebook: @CUDO Plays