In case you missed the noise we’ve made about it, Mix Up Fairy Tales is a cooperative card game designed by Warcradle Studios, inspired by stories and artwork from the British Library’s collection. Designed with storytelling at its heart, the British Library was a perfect aesthetic pairing for this project, complemented by rigorous testing to solidify the game's core mechanics.
We’ve spoken with Robin Cruddace, co-designer of Mix Up Fairy Tales, to discuss the development of the game, and specifically any moments that told him the direction the game was developing in was the right choice.
You can pick up your own copy of Mix Up Fairy Tales online at Wayland Games or via the British Library Fairy Tales Exhibition gift shop.
Robin Cruddace, Games Designer
Robin: It was loads of fun co-designing Mix Up Fairy Tales with Ziz Simoens, and we did a ton of research before we got going. We both hauled in bags of games we had at home, and there were trips to board game cafes galore, so we could play a whole variety of games and get into the flow of things (it was a tough job!).
We had lots of ideas, but the place we both started was the gorgeous artwork from the British Library collections. We mocked up a deck of cards made up from iconic moments in several fairy tales, numbered the cards in ‘story order’ and wrote a short bit of text on each: "Red Riding Hood went for a walk…", "They met a big bad Wolf…", that kind of thing. Then we just kind of played around with a few different ideas, experimenting with the type of game we wanted. After several days of playing, we had a dozen ideas, but had yet to settle on a single one.
I took the deck mock-up home with me over a weekend to do some more thinking, during which my daughters (I have a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old) wanted to know what the colourful cards spread out on the dining table were. I said it was a fairy tale game we were making for work, and they immediately set to playing with the cards. Whilst I made a cup of tea, I watched them set out a fairy tale, shuffled the remaining cards and then proceeded to draw them, a few at a time, placing them on top of the cards already in front of them. It was utterly unprompted; they just did what felt natural to them, and what started out as a well-known story grew sillier and sillier as they played. Cinderella was climbing a beanstalk, Goldilocks was blowing a house down, and my kids were laughing their heads off. This ultimately became the heart of the game we went on to make—subverting a well-known fairy tale, bit by bit, and having a funny story emerge through the gameplay.
Development continued apace. Some fairy tales were dropped in favour of others for new funny combinations, and with the wonderful addition of the challenge cards that Ziz designed, we felt it turned the deck into a proper game. Playtesting ramped up, both internal and external to the studio. I even subjected my in-laws to a few rounds after Christmas dinner, and the whole family chuckled along as a parade of villains, from giants to ogres, wore grandmother’s clothes and ate everyone’s porridge inside a gingerbread house.
While the game was certainly designed with families in mind, we also did testing with all-adult groups. These were just as fun, with some of the groups strategising on how to get the highest score by hunting for those extra-valuable gold Challenge cards. After one particularly memorable game, one of the players immediately asked if we could play again, as the game had just run out before they could play their Goldilocks card, and they really wanted to push her into a huge oven… No doubt an ending the Brothers Grimm would have approved of!
As Robin suggests, Mix Up Fairy Tales really balances its varying audiences well. Built on the natural urge for children to play around, it can be played as a silly game of mixing up well known stories, or can be a way to flex your strategic side and fulfil the challenges laid out as effectively as possible.
We hope you enjoyed this little look behind the scenes at how Mix Up Fairy Tale was developed from a concept utilising amazing artwork from the British Library’s collection to a fully fledged card game.
We can’t wait for you to get your hands on Mix Up Fairy Tales and begin crafting your own stories with friends and family! You can now order Mix Up Fairy Tales online or at the British Library.