Kardtects is entering its new wave of card design and opportunities to build, and after several months of design, we have finally reached the testing stage, with the sample tests being given to the ultimate testers and scrutineers of any toys – children.
We are so pleased they liked them, and as ever, they showed us just how diverse the Kardtects card building system is, by creating structures and devising games we hadn’t even began to imagine with our new designs. Our intent was to simply add more diversity to the cards, for children to build more captivating and recognizable buildings, but the children took these to new heights – quite literally.
The first set to be tested was the Grisroc Castle set. Originally this set was simply a collection of wall, door, window, and tower top cards – but now Kardtects offers a greater selection, dividing designs into rare and uncommon versions of cards, giving more door and window designs, defenses, wooden slats, flags, spires and much more.
Each design was chosen by reviewing real architecture to provide a builder more chance to replicate, in this case, Castle buildings. Yet, as said, the children took the designs and took the idea even further. For example, we had added wooden slat cards, to replicate such things as the familiar drawbridges of a castle, but the children proved through their imagination that they could be so much more! They proved they could easily be used as roofs or platforms.
Then, with the addition of new unique windows designs and separate spire cards, we assumed they would be used by those who may want to build a more ‘fantasy’ style of castle, but, the children showed us how they could be used to create other card houses such as churches and out-houses.
Yet still, although the enjoyment of card house building appeared to have been enhanced, the part that the children really seemed to engage with was how they knocked the buildings down. It was fascinating and extremely rewarding to observe how they instantly used their own imagination to devise their own games to destroy the card houses, using the unique destroyer disks.
Although the new card designs encourage a collecting aspect to the Kardtects range, it was exciting to see the children equally passionate about the disks included in the packs. These children stopped of their own accord to discuss their preferences, not just for a particular design, but also expressing which size they preferred in demolishing the houses.
They tried the different sizes and chose their own disk– it seems the Castle Grisroc set is a hit! Just as we thought we had it sorted, we got another great idea from them, as we got a request for a ‘cannonball’ disk. They thought it would be ‘cool to use that to knock down my castle’. – Nice idea!
.
.