Tanuki Talk

Happy Old Year!

Hello everyone,

Last year four friends sat around a living room idea pitching ideas for games to each other. One was a co-op game about escaping a prison, another was about ghosts scaring high school students, yet another was a Indiana Jones inspired story telling game and one game (the best one) was about David Bowie and his friends saving the universe. The evening continued and out of it came the prototypes for the three games Tanuki now publishes. This year, it appears, we have a game company. 

That is not to say that these games are a year old. All of them had existed in some form or another in our classrooms for years before. Taught and played hundreds of times. It is also not to say that they were ready then. Over the next year they were play tested again and again, refined, changed and tweaked. In what seemed like no time the fur of us where around another table. This was at JALT PanSig in May this year and now the table was full of our finished, printed games. 

What we are trying to say is that it has been a very long road to get to where we are. This has been an exciting and intense 18 months but we are glad to say we think it has all been worth it. Now, all we have to do is say thank you to a whole bunch of people. 

First, thanks to all the friends and students who play tested our games. They wouldn’t be what they are without all the thoughtful feedback we got from them. Thanks to those who among them who answered the hundreds of questions that made So Says Japan possible. 

Thanks to Taylor Ruddle at Champ for all of the design work on our games. Thanks to David Millard at Touch of Tensai for putting together our website and store in record time. Thanks to Damian Case for designing the Tanuki Logo. 

Thanks to all the team who put together JALTPanSig in May and JALT National and ETJ Fukuoka in November. They were all such welcoming places to debut our products and we really fed of their enthusiasm for our endeavour. We couldn't have launched our company in the way we did without such great organizations already being there and the army of volunteers that make them happen. 

Finally, a huge thanks to all those who bought our games over the last year. In April we would have been happy to have a dozen copies in the hands of our peers. We are delighted to say that we are over the moon to now have over 200 copies of games being used in classrooms across Japan (and the world). The feedback we have received has really pushed us to keep going and we want to continue to give back to the community that has supported us. See you in the New Year with lots of exciting new resources, games and ideas. Maybe, just maybe, David Bowie Saves the Universe will become a thing. 

Until then we hope you enjoy the rest of your 2018 and that 2019 brings you joy, love, health and happiness. 

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