BEAR WITH ME
After partying with the sea delicacies of Sushi Go, Phil Walker-Harding is getting cosy with grizzlies in zoologi cal delight Bärenpark
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Your latest project is Bärenpark – where did the idea come from?
I have always wanted to design a game using polyomino tiles. Some of my favourite games in this genre are The Princes of Florence, Arkadia, FITS and Mosaix. More recently, Patchwork has been a real favourite for my wife and I. Seeing this game do so well encouraged me to get to work!
I really wanted the tiles themselves and their diTherent shapes to be the focus of the game. It’s all about fitting them together in fun ways, and the satisfaction that comes from filling up your board completely with them!
This means the game is pretty abstract at its heart, but my original theme was building an amusement park. The diTherent tiles represented the diTherent rides and attractions you could build. The publisher, Lookout, felt a more original theme was needed and so they came up with building a bright and colourful wildlife park for bears!