March 8, 2021 Johnni Medina

Spotlight March 2021 | International Women's Day

Written by Johnni Medina

Each year, International Women’s Day invites us to reflect on a year of change, progress, and continued female strength. This year, we are celebrating with our Top 5 new(ish) games created by female and non-binary designers!

Sunny Atema | Animal Medicine Cards

Modern witchcraft, astrology, and tarot have been reclaimed by women in recent years, used as a means to explore ourselves and the world around us. Sunny Atema is an artist and musician who poured her talents into developing an oracle deck based on nature and Animal Wisdom. Each card features a hand-painted image of a different animal and the knowledge we can learn from them. If you find yourself in need of more mindfulness and guidance, the Animal Medicine Deck will help empower you.

Dive further into self-understanding with other female-inspired tarot decks, such as Women in Science, Literary Witches, Tarot of the Divine, and the Jane Austen deck.

Alex Roberts | Star Crossed

Two-player games have been indispensable during the Covid-19 pandemic, as many of us are stuck at home in much smaller groups. Plenty of board games are well suited for one-on-one play, but finding roleplaying games for two is a much harder task - enter Star Crossed.

Star Crossed is a two-player storytelling game where you and a friend play two people who are in love but just cannot be together because of their circumstances. To further highlight the angst and tension, the game is accompanied by a Tower of Blocks (Jenga) tower as a means of resolving actions. As your characters find their desire for each other increasing, you pull more and more blocks, anticipating the moment when it all comes crashing down.

Designer Alex Roberts has been creating amazing storytelling games for some time, including the game For the Queen which was designed as an easy entry point for narrative games. Alex has also expressed her desire to offer representation for the LGBTQ community, demonstrating how we can give a voice and offer “solidarity with other marginalized people" even through games.

Nomids, Ice Duo, Martian Chess & Home Worlds

Kristin Looney | Looney Pyramids

We have happily carried Looney Labs products for years, so when we had the chance to demo their new Pyramids line at a game convention (one of the last before COVID) we were thrilled to find it was another hit!

Each Pyramids title falls somewhere in the 'abstract strategy' category of game, all featuring the Looney pyramid pieces (or ‘mids as they call them) as the main component. Each games varies in objective and difficulty, with Nomids as the easy-to-learn introduction, all the way to Homeworlds, a complex game of exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating! The Pyramids games are deceptively small, coming in travel-sized boxes that introduce a few ways to play - but even more rulesets can be found online, and the more pyramids you acquire, the more games you can play!

Kristin Looney is the CEO, founder, and “driving force” of Looney Labs! With a background in the aerospace and tech industries, Kristin now focuses on bringing great games to her fans - of which she, most deservingly, has many! (Most of the team at Looney Labs are female, so support them and check out their other titles, such as Fluxx!)

Daniela Gilsanz | The Period Game

Periods have long been treated as taboo - slowly but surely, however, that is changing. Periods are a perfectly normal and natural part of life, but a shocking number of people who menstruate have felt embarrassed about their periods and nearly half have felt period shamed.

This is, scientifically speaking, super lame. Daniel Gilsanz and her co-designer Ryan Murphy identified the need for education on female reproductive health without shame and set out to turn the experience into a fun one.

Designed initially with young people in mind, your objective during The Period Game is to become a period expert as you make your way around the board, experiencing periods, PMS, and everything in between!

Daniela has shown her passion for educating and empowering young people about sexual health through other projects. Check out The Period Game and arm yourself with knowledge!

Amanda Brinkman | Nasty Woman

Amanda Brinkman is a shining example of a woman who sees the opportunity for change and chases it. After hearing Donald Trump call Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during a presidential debate, Amanda rushed to adopt the phrase as one of power. Within a matter of weeks, her Nasty Woman T-Shirt sold in the tens of thousands, drumming up over $130k for charity.

With that success in mind, she took it a step further, wanting to engage in these hard conversations about feminism in a way that was fun as well as fulfilling. And so Nasty Woman was born.

(You can read more about this amazing game’s journey here and more about Amanda Brinkman here.)

Nasty Woman The Card Game functions similarly to Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens. One deck proposes statements such as “An all female Ghostbusters? The next all female remake is ____" and "Beyonce for Prez! Her first executive ban is _____.” Shout out the best answers and begin collecting Nasty Women cards - you need as many Nasty Women as you can get to win the game. The other cards are random action cards that can make you win or lose cards - including the vile You’re Trumped card that kicks you out of the game!

The designer said it best. In this game, “just as in real life, the more amazing women you have on your side, the greater your chances of winning.”