Players spellbound by local entrepreneur’s mythical board game

Sunday 06 January 2019

A Jersey board game inventor has played his cards right to get his crowdfunded mythical party game stocked by one of the world's largest retailers.

Alex Farnham, the young entrepreneur whose passion for gaming became a business idea, has now launched his description-based adventure game ‘CastQuest’ on online marketplace Amazon, as well as getting it stocked in game shops in England.

This news comes after the game’s successful Kickstarter campaign reached a grand total of £4,250 – exceeding the initial target of £3,500 – allowing for Alex to officially launch ‘CastQuest’ online and in-store.

Alex said that the lead up to Christmas was very busy negotiating with manufacturers and finalising the look of the game, but he managed to get the ‘CastQuest’ games out to everyone who pledged money on the Kickstarter. 

Video: A video explaining how to play Alex Farnham's game 'CastQuest'. (Youtube/Alex Farnham)

He told Express: “I believe everyone’s received them now and people got playing it and gave us some really good feedback and reviews so everyone really seemed to enjoy it, which is great."

“It’s just such a relief to finally have it available and the last few months of the year were really quite stressful”, Alex added. 

Discussing some of the feedback he’s received about the game, Alex said: “The main feedback we got was that it’s very clear to pick up and understand and it got all of the family involved… People were praising the fact that it had a little something for everyone.”

The game launched on Amazon on 27 December and, thanks to the extra funds raised from crowd-funding, Alex managed to commission more time from CastQuest illustrator and graphic designer Livvi White in order to hone its aesthetic details. 

Pictured: Alex says that the extra money raised on Kickstarter allowed him to perfect the game's look. (CastQuest/Alex Farnham)

According to Alex, the extra money raised in the campaign’s final week meant that he was “able to fund much more detailed illustrations of certain cards which makes the whole thing just look a bit more complete. We had a really talented graphic designer working on the illustrations and everything and it just really came together…

“It’s very much the same game, just very much more streamlined… we’re really happy with how it looks… it looks really vibrant and stands out which is what we’re going for.”

Now that ‘CastQuest’ is stocking shops in Chichester – where Alex is currently based – Winchester and Bath, the Jersey-born entrepreneur is hoping to get it onto Jersey’s shelves as soon as he can because the island is such “an important part of [his] life”.

Looking ahead to 2019, Alex says he hopes that the game proves successful enough that he can start developing expansion packs. 

Pictured: Board game entrepreneur Alex here completing an arduous CatQuest.

“The ideal situation would be to have enough of an interest to be able to order more copies, get more copies in shops for sale around the country and then have the funding and time to work on some expansion ideas that I’ve got as well.

“It’s such an exciting thing to think about. I just really hope that people enjoy it enough for us to do it some more.”