A Ruddington-based illustrator, whose corporate clients include The Nottingham Hoods basketball club, Wargames Illustrated magazine and McDonald’s, has revealed his latest project.
Earlier this year, RUDDINGTON.info reported how Kev Brett had created a whole series of comic strips documenting “The Adventures of SIMMO” – featuring the antics of Jake Simmons, one of the stars of Ruddington F.C.‘s squad, for whom Kev is also a player. At the time he also told us he was busy creating a new board game – the details of which have now been unveiled. It’s called ‘Bully Boss’ – designed for 2 to 4 players – described as ‘the heroic game of fighting back against that awful boss we’ve all had’ … ‘sticking it to the man (or woman) in charge’.
“I was at a particular workplace, a few years ago, and was astounded by the level of bullying taking place within the company” explains Kev. “On leaving, I decided to put together a short comic book about my experiences and those of some friends around me. After a couple of years someone suggested I put together some sort of card game where you battle against the bully boss and try to bring him to justice.”
Over several months, Kev produced this card game – which he’d also illustrated to get a bit of a ‘fun’ feel to it: “It was a solid game, but something just didn’t quite sit right, as you were battling other players to defeat the boss. It soon became apparent that it would be much more poignant to play ‘with’ the other players to win the game. It escalated to a full on co-operative board game!”
Around 18 months later, the prototype game is now complete! After many play-throughs, making tweaks and changes, Kev has ended up with a product that he thinks is entertaining yet also highlights a very common theme; that of bullying in the workplace. “Everything you see in the game is illustrated by me and with the help of a number of people who have tested it and played it over and over again, we have something we’re all proud of and think is a lot of fun.”
NEXT, Kev’s trying to fund the mass production of his new board game and, to do that, has gone to crowd funding website Kickstarter: “We have an amount of money we need to make the game and people will then try to help us reach that funding goal by, essentially, preordering the game by choosing a ‘Pledge Level’. These levels have different added bonuses that come with the base game and as the campaign goes on (providing we’ve hit our funding goal) more goodies are added free to the pledge levels.”
Kev is looking for funding of £20,000 and the pledge levels are £30, £50 and £100 (these are limited to 5 so you’d best be quick!). The campaign began at 1pm TODAY (Monday 11th October) and runs for 28 days.
“If we hit our goal then we will attempt to find a distributor that will take the game to market, and you may see it in your local toy shop or gaming cafe! But, if we don’t hit our funding goal, we get nothing and it’s back to the drawing board… so to speak!”
He adds: “We really hope that people will enjoy the game and also be conscious of the message behind it all and find a way to help those who are bullied in the workplace or can talk to others if they feel that they are being bullied.”
If you’d like to help Ruddington illustrator Kev Brett to make ‘Bully Boss – The Board Game’ a reality, you can find the link to his Kickstarter page HERE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bully-boss/bully-boss-the-board-game
All pledges must be received by 10pm on Sunday 7th November 2021.
