In its latest episode aired Sunday night, Dragon’s Den UK funded a second board game. Peter Jones put up £45,000 for 40 percent of Accentuate, a party game of mimicking and guessing accents. In contrast to the dragons’ usual harsh attitude towards games, even those who didn’t offer to invest were generally complementary.
But the episode wasn’t without its awkward moments, ones which I think will particularly resonate with game designers. Before deciding to invest, Peter Jones initial reaction was:
You’ve invented a game that can be played without the game.
And following that, Nick Jenkins having barely played one round, offered his opinion on how the game could be improved.
26 Aug
Posted by David Miller as Modern Board Games
In its sixth episode this season, Dragon’s Den UK funded its first ever board game. Watch the underwhelming pitch (below), though, and you’ll wonder why.
Dragons Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne agreed to put up £50,000 for 40 percent of Pants on Fire Games despite the company being severely in debt and a game demo that fell flat.
Off-screen events, however, may have been the trigger. According to an article in the Daily Mail, the owners of Pants of Fire Games were in the process of acquiring a license to produce two Marmite board games [yes, I do mean that weird yeast-derived spread] but at the time of recording had not yet received approval to name the product on-air. They were, though, able to show the dragons some documentation off-screen, after which Duncan said, “I’m being driven by the excitement, and not by my wallet.”
[via ToyNews]