We are delighted to welcome Nicky Thomas-Davies, Board Game Sales and Marketing Manager for Kosmos Games for a special blog looking at the production of The Lost Words card game adapted from the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal winning book by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris. The game makes an ideal activity for reading and shadowing groups.

The Lost Words is a book that is instantly recognisable to thousands of people. It has touched the hearts and minds of a generation, being a staple of library groups, schools and coffee tables around the globe.

Having seen the amazing artwork by Jackie Morris and read the magical spells of Robert Macfarlane, we at Kosmos Games UK knew that this would make an amazing card game and were thrilled when Robert Hyde of Sophisticated Games, who is also the author of the game, approached us with a prototype.

Even though Kosmos have published hundreds of games over the years, every now and again a really special one stands out, and for me this was one of those games. 

Lots of our games are visually very appealing but The Lost Words looks very different to any of our other games. Whilst we are not all about dragons and castles, we do have a lot of fantasy in our board game world!

Our shelves are actually lined with everything from a 90s Pop Art game (Out of this World) to Astronauts (The Crew) to a game about Silkworm farmers (Silk)! The Lost Words is our first game about British flora and fauna. It has brambles and kingfishers and otters and, perhaps because Kosmos Games UK is based deep in the countryside of the Weald of Kent, these images speak to us on a very personal level.

So how does the game work?   It is what we call a Gateway Game as it is easy to learn and appealing to both gamers and non-gamers alike. It can be played with 2 – 4 players from around the age of 8. In a 4-player game, each player is given 4 nature cards (picture cards) and is dealt 3 cards from the centre pile.  This pile contains a mix of spell cards and action cards.

The aim of the game is to pair all of your nature cards with spell (poem) cards. You may be thwarted in your quest by action cards played by your opponents -they may steal one of your sets or send them to the discard pile. Luckily you may be dealt the ‘Wall’ or the ‘Wild One’ card to protect your card pairs from the opponents thieving magpies or card dipping kingfishers! It is a game that is equally educational, beautiful and fun to play.

When artist Jackie Morris was awarded the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal in 2019, she said “At the heart of our book was a desire to refocus the minds, eyes, hearts of children on the awesome, glorious beauty of the natural world of which humans are but a tiny part.”

Our hope is that the card game will help to spread the joy of our native wildlife to an audience that may not have seen the book before. While the game is easy enough for non-gaming families to learn, it is strategic enough to entice the gaming community to want to play. The game was also designed with special large size playing cards to full do justice to the artwork. It was printed on very high quality ‘linen finish’ card stock by one of the oldest and most prestigious card game manufacturers in Europe, in Altenburg, Germany. Amazingly they have been printing cards there since 1872.

Rob Macfarlane once said “We want this book to conjure back the common words and species that are steadily disappearing from everyday life - and especially from children’s stories and dreams”.   Both Rob and Jackie are delighted with the card game, which they feel is completely true to the spirit of the book. The graphic design of the game was mastered by the hugely talented Alison O’Toole - who designed both The Lost Words and The Lost Spells books.

Distributing a game that can bring these magical lost words and images into the world of play, where children learn best, can only be a good thing as far as we at Kosmos are concerned.

Sophisticated Games and Kosmos hope that the card game will provide many hours of discovery and fun for families all over the country.

A huge thank you to Nicky Thomas-Davies for providing this creative insight into The Lost Words card games, we look forward to playing!