IQ-Magazine-Issue-15

IQ business profile
IT’S A BUSINESS
TAKING FLIGHT
IQ Magazine meets board game entrepreneur, Adrian Ward, of Fifth Wing Games
Preparing to launch his first board game into the market place next Summer,
Adrian Ward gives us an insight into the process of taking an idea from pen and paper
to manufacturing the product, using classic principles and modern technologies.
How did Fifth Wing begin?
I’ve been working in learning and development
for most of my career, but the board game thing
happened by accident really. I went to Normandy
in 2004 with my godson during the anniversary
of the D-Day landings. We were all staying in a
caravan and I thought “If it rains, we’ll be a bit
bored,” so I took something for us to play.
When I was a teenager I was a war games
player, so I drew a map of France on
the back of an old bed-sheet, cut out
some counters from cereal boxes
and when it did rain, we got a
couple of children from the
caravan opposite involved
and we replayed the invasion
of France. They were really
gripped by this, so much so that
when it was sunny the next day they wanted to
play the game rather than go onto the beach!
So I thought if they were that into something
made from a bed-sheet and a couple of Cornflake
packets, then there might be some commercial
appeal. I put a prototype together, put together
some rules, and things snowballed from there and
it became more sophisticated.
How many games has Fifth Wing created?
I’ve now got six product lines and 15 games in
total, some of which are ready to come to market.
I’m going to launch the first one, DeskTop Grand
Prix, that’s based on Formula One, in July 2016.
We’re going to make it interactive with our website
so once you’ve got the game, you can go online
and get an update pack with new cars each season.
We’ll then release a new track or two each year
based on the real life Grand Prix tracks. Most of
our games work at a number of levels because
we want to be known for depth of play. So, once
you’re familiar with the game, you can download
the upgrades to suit your skill sets. With the Grand
Prix game, there will be five different types of
weather, rather than two.
Where do you manufacture your games?
Finding a manufacturer was difficult. I’m using a
company based in London that has been going for
over a century. They started out producing playing
cards and they’ve done some big titles including
Trivial Pursuit, so are well known in the industry,
issue 15 | page 42