Our current projects

Here are the playable and “coming soon” Drayer Ink projects, as at June the 3rd, 2022.

Playable prototypes:

These are all physical prototypes at various stages of testing.

Once they are ready, we plan to crowd-fund their production, but we are also waiting in the hope that the shipping situation will improve. We are open to working with a publisher, too. 

We design and develop our games together, although Cat does more of the design end, and George does most of the development. Cat has done the illustration and graphic design for most of the games so far.

Any Other Name

A simple, educational, family-friendly game, AON is a combination of guessing games and BINGO. Every time someone guesses a flower, everyone who has it on their board flips it (that’s the BINGO part) and the person who guesses gets a Rose. The trick is to give your clues without using any of the words on the Flower Cards, plus any active Forbidden Words, which change throughout the game.  Give good clues or make good guesses to collect Rose tokens, then be the first to fill your garden to win!

Brambleton

This is a mid-weight, tile-laying game in which you play as baby rabbits trying to map and explore your Known World, grow, dig a burrow, find a mate, and build kudos, in your quest to become the leader of the newly-established Brambleton Warren. Compete with your littermates to gather resources and find the best litter location. Impress other rabbits with your daring Road Runs and morale-boosting binkies, while making choices between faster growth, greater knowledge, or working on your Kudos score.

Ladybird Logic: Mushroom Maze

Navigate the Mushroom Maze, rotating Flowers until they match, and moving your Ladybird from petal to petal – but avoid getting eaten by the Bad Bugs who lurk on the Mushroom platforms between the Flowers! Snack on Aphids and get as many of your Ladybirds safely to the end of their Mushroom Mission alive with the best score of Aphids to win! Dexterity, strategy, and tactics combine for a quick, light, family-friendly game with great table presence.

One Person’s Trash

This quick and portable card game will be familiar in a lot of ways to card game players – collect sets and runs, and be the first to empty your hand to win. 

You regularly end up picking up your neighbour’s discard pile, plus you are also trying to take over their hoard of tabled cards – unless they get yours first! Whenever someone changes the direction of play with the Arrow card, everyone passes their discard pile in the new direction of play. Now, can you make treasure out of your neighbour’s trash?

The Valley

Forage, craft, sell – the Valley is a worker placement game where you move your tokens around a modular board, harvesting and trading for the ingredients for your customer orders. As you create recipes, you could also meet your secret goals. 

A cool thing about the gameplay is that you can use some completed recipes to make more complicated ones!

The Valley is populated with an inclusive cast of characters who are all modelled on BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ humans. There are no cis-male characters. We challenge you to avoid using he/him pronouns for anything in the game – it’s harder than you think!

And we also have Wordy Laundry, in collaboration with Small Furry Games, described in more detail here.

Coming soon:

The Way Out Is Through

A solo game about solving a Conundrum while avoiding the creeping Dread, The Way Out Is Through is an exploration of coping mechanisms. You must lay connected tiles to match your puzzle map, or Conundrum, then move through the maze you have created, trying to stay ahead of the Dread that dogs your steps. Get all the way through your maze and back to the start, and you have made it out.

Exhibit at the Daffodil

A set-collection and engine-building game where you play as an art student, balancing the need to pass your course, keep your online store stocked, and hang the best combination of works in your first exhibition at the prestigious Daffodil Gallery.

Long Lankin

A long time ago, the Lord of this domain made a deal with Long Lankin, the Faerie Mason – but he broke his word. Now, Lankin is coming to take his payment in blood while the Lord has been called away to court. Can you, the loyal servants, protect the Lady and the Heir until the dawn breaks and the Lord returns? Not only are you battling Lankin and his fey powers, but also the false Nurse, who has been glamoured by Lankin into working against the household. As a loyal servant, lay traps and warding spells to delay Lankin and give away his position, or give him access by opening doors and windows, and placing a trail of bluffs, as the Nurse.

Intertidal

The tide has gone out, and there’s almost no water left in your rocky seaside pool. The inhabitants of the Intertidal zone are built for this, though – playing as a fish, a crab, or another rockpool creature, you must negotiate the changes as the tide comes back in, choosing shelter, food, and of course, ways to stay moist until the water returns. Layers of transparent cards represent the incoming water, with threats and benefits that apply to one or more of the players. Each player also has a set pattern of movement. Solve the puzzle to stay in the right environment and avoid becoming someone’s snack for another tide cycle!

The Plot Quickens

The local authority has given your group a patch of wasteland to develop into a Community Garden – choose-your-own-path in the booklet and play out your decisions on the tiles that represent your plots. Clear obstacles, plant seeds, and add improvements while deciding which plots to water, feed, or ignore.