Television and Sony Award-nominated radio presenter Matt Edmondson established his bona fides as a board game inventor when he created the hilarious party game, Obama Llama. Last year, he followed it up with the sold-out-success, Ansagrams, which he published independently.
During lockdown, rather than learning Ancient Greek or hoarding loo roll, Matt used his creative energy and previous experience of designing games to come up with new ideas. Along the way, he also taught himself graphic and packaging design, copywriting and learnt about the games’ manufacturing process – everything needed to bring the games to market independently. Partnering with his brother-in-law, businessman Laurence Emmett, the pair founded Format Games and launch two brand new games this year: colour-mixing card game, Egg Slam, and the immensely replayable trivia game, So Wrong It’s Right.
Format Games’ credibility as an indie games label has been given the ultimate seal of approval by Asmodee, who first signed them up for UK distribution in February 2021. Seeing the potential of Matt’s designs and recognising the worldwide appeal of the game formats, August 2021 saw Asmodee swiftly follow up with an exclusive global distribution deal covering the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
In the UK, word game Ansagrams is now distributed by Asmodee to a number of major and indie retailers including John Lewis and Waterstones, while Egg Slam and So Wrong It’s Right make their High Street debut exclusively at John Lewis for Autumn/Winter 2021. All three games will launch in other global territories through Asmodee in Spring/Summer 2022, along with a fourth new game called Noggin, which will also be available in the UK next year.
“We’ve likened the experience to a couple of guys taking up busking on Monday, then being signed by a major label for a five-record deal by Friday,†comments Laurence Emmett, Co-Founder of Format Games, “Matt came out of lockdown with a raft of game ideas, ready to bring to market and – thanks to last year’s success with Ansagrams – Asmodee could see the potential of our whole portfolio. We know we’re in great hands with such a stellar distribution partner globally and can’t wait to see all our titles becoming firm favourites with families and friends all over the world.â€
Commenting on his new career as a games’ designer, Matt Edmondson adds, “Lockdown gave me the perfect opportunity to explore my potential even further as a games designer – I was finding inspiration everywhere, but particularly during the extra quality play-time I had with my young daughter, Ivy. In fact, it was her fascination with colour-mixing that led to Egg Slam. My own love of social gaming also played a part too, with So Wrong It’s Right being born out of a need to create a game that can be played repeatedly but is never, ever the same. I’m excited to see people of all ages discover the wealth of different play experiences that Format Games has on offer and am thrilled that Asmodee has picked us up at such an early stage of our life!â€
All Format Games titles are distributed in the UK by Asmodee – contact info@asmodee.co.uk, 01420 593 593 for further information. UK online retailers interested in selling Format Games titles should contact hello@format-games.com
