Tabletop Gaming at KingsIsle

We have lots of fun making cool games for kids of all ages at KingsIsle Entertainment, but we also make sure to spend time playing games of all types. Card games may inspire a new card spell in Wizard101, while new tactics in a land conquest board game can be the seed for units in Pirate101. Plus, games are a great way to let off steam when you are feeling stressed out.

We have several break rooms at the KingsIsle offices, and most of the time these are filled to the brim with people playing games on their lunch hour. We even have several games set up to be played over many weeks, one hour at a time. A recent favorite board game is a cool one called Krosmaster: Arena. This plays almost like a board game version of Pirate101. You command a team of characters who must battle in an arena against other players. The plastic figurines have a great anime look to them and are very colorful. The strategy is nice and light for a lunch game, but there are enough tactical layers to make for an interesting challenge for everyone.

Another game that we have been playing a lot of is VERY old school. Riichi Mahjong, or Japanese Mahjong, has been in heavy rotation at the office for several months now, and there is even a tournament going on as we speak! Every day I swing by the break room to see a great looking set of Mahjong tiles on several custom boards. These gamers take their games seriously!

What do gamers do when they are outside of work making games? Why, they play MORE games! We have a regular Blood Bowl (PC) tournament outside of work that consumes the office like March Madness. It gets pretty intense and you’ll hear colorful stories of wild victories and tragic defeats throughout the halls, the conference rooms, the break rooms, the bathrooms, at Starbucks, etc. If you don’t know Blood Bowl, think of it as fantasy sports (full contact football and/or rugby) played by elves, dwarves and orcs with a tremendous amount of mayhem. You never know who is going to come out on top or whose top player might be killed by an unlucky roll! We even have a bracket tournament system of wins and losses that culminates in a finale that is fought out live between the two finalists while spectators watch and cheer (and also eat a lot of BBQ)!

So we take games very seriously here at KingsIsle Entertainment…. we won’t even mention the round-robin style ping pong that gets played at the close of business almost every day! There is nothing wrong with a little gaming at work, after all! Who knows? Maybe it will inspire people with a new creature, ability, story, or interesting technique for what we do in Wizard101, Pirate101 and everything that is still to come.

Game on!

Jeff Toney
Principal Artist