“We were bored and today we create happiness”: these Bordeaux residents create board games

Twice a month, members of the Bordeaux-based Orbe collective meet to test board games developed by each other. For some, this is a springboard into publishing.

Do you know the Occultes récréateurs of Bordeaux and the surrounding area (Orbe)? If the answer is no, it's because they are part of a rather discreet world, that of board game enthusiasts. Like the Créateteurs ludophages , this Bordeaux collective, which has existed for a dozen years, brings together game creators and testers. Two Wednesday evenings a month, four to five members meet in small groups to present their latest creations at Jeux Barjo .

Jean-Charles Ravasset, who runs the games bar on Rue Saint-James and the shop on Rue des Ayres, has been welcoming them since the beginning. "Board games have been on the rise for fifteen years now," he notes. "But the number of creators is increasing, and with it, the desire to self-publish or raise crowdfunding to put their games on sale since Covid."

They are five representatives of this new generation, seated around a Kraken Cup game in early June. They are between 20 and 35 years old and they tease each other over the card game that Antoine Sauliere designed, then reworked, to come and present to his colleagues, who have become his friends. "I'm not chasing publishing," confides the salesman at the Bordeaux store Jeux Descartes. "My uncles gave me a taste for the hard-to-find game, and since then, I've started inventing games for my friends." However, he signed his first publishing contract barely a year ago. The game's mechanics were inspired by an independent video game created by Angoumois residents. This case is not uncommon and even illustrates the recurring comings and goings between the two worlds over the past twenty years.

“My uncles gave me a taste for the unobtainable game and since then, I started inventing games for my friends.”

"Publishing constraints are significant if you hope to see your board game published," warns Rémi Colletta, an active member of Orbe. "The trend is toward short-term games for an informed family audience." As board games have become more accessible, Jean-Charles Ravasset confirms a general decline in their difficulty. To reduce costs, publishing houses are also requesting fewer materials and fewer dice.

Moreover, some publishers prowl proto-nights looking for the goose that lays the golden eggs. "That's how I got noticed," says Rémi Colletta. Since then, he's been hoping to establish a network between amateur creators and publishers through these meetings. But the important thing remains the pleasure of coming to test his baby "like a cooking recipe," jokes the young man. And everything is good, from the newly invented combination of ingredients to the dish that has been worked on and reworked. Because that's the constraint of board games: you have to get together to improve them. This doesn't seem to be a problem for Rémi Colletta, nor for Antoine Sauliere and his colleague Alexandre, who have rediscovered a passion for board games after aborted careers in engineering, at EDF, or in marketing techniques. "We were bored, and today, we're creating happiness."