Take a drive through the Highlands of Scotland, up the A9, and you’ll find the small town of Aviemore nestled in the Cairngorms National Park. Famous for its outdoorsy attitude, breathtaking scenery, and Britain’s only free-ranging herd of reindeer, Aviemore is a nature-lovers paradise.
As a place where the wilds of Scotland seep into the daily life of the town, it only feels appropriate that Aviemore is also home to Zara Reid and Matt Brown, conservationists and designers of Kavango, a nature conservation game that has been taking the board gaming world by storm since its release in 2024. And guess what? There’s an expansion out soon with a campaign currently live on Kickstarter.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Zara to learn a little more about their journey, their plans for the future, and the beautiful synergy between conservation and play.
I hope you enjoy.
First off, thank you for having me Zara. I really appreciate it. I should probably start by saying congratulations! The Kickstarter for your Kavango Lodges expansion was fully funded in four minutes!
Thank you. I know, it was crazy. It was a really special week actually because we launched on our way to Essen and then we got to Essen and had a great time there. So it’s been really amazing. Yeah, we funded the original Kavango in 7 minutes and we thought there’s no way you can get any faster. But we did which was amazing. Our returning fans have just shown up. They’re so wonderful.
It must be such a great feeling. When did you know that Kavango as a whole was such a success?
Well I think it’s only recently that we’ve seen as a success to be honest. I think it takes a long time to sink in. I’ve been able to take a year out of work to work on Kavango full time which I think for us was a real indication that something had gone really well. But it’s hard because we just work on it ourselves. And even in Botswana it was just this project that we developed ourselves. Yes some of our friends came around and would play it during testing but overall we were quite alone in the journey, just the two of us making this thing. So for a long time even though we kind of knew online that it’s doing well, we didn’t really have that real sense. It’s only recently when we started hearing about it in retail and then we’ve actually seen it in the wild then we really understand that it’s done well.
I like the phrase seen it in the wild. It seems appropriate. Now, talk to me a little about the journey of this game. You’re a conservationist and you were both in Botswana for your work. When did you first think hey, this could be a game. What was that process like?
Yeah, so it was during COVID and we are both massive environmentalists. And at the time we had a lot of climate anxiety and there was just this sense of doom surrounding us. It felt like there was so much energy spent on anxiety and despair. And at the same time we were both in Botswana and I was visiting sites where people were turning old farms into nature reserves and people were dedicating their lives to protecting animals, which was working. So at the same time as I was hearing all this doom in the public sphere, in my daily life with Matt we were seeing hope all around us and cases for optimism. So I think we just decided to channel this energy into something, to try and allow other people to feel that same hope and optimism too.
Matt’s an engineer and is always designing games, it’s been his hobby and his passion as long as I’ve known him. So I said, ‘why don’t you try and make a game about this.’ That way we can share the story with other people, try and create these joyful moments of nature and joyful fun interactions around the theme of nature restoration.
So I think it’s trying to really channel that feeling for us, like a major reset with climate anxiety and then turn it into something that would give people hope and allow people to engage with the theme in a positive way. I think a lot of the narrative is very negative and if we don’t have hope and if we’re not motivated by the idea that change is possible I think we’re all pretty doomed. So I think we all have to be inspired to change things in the right way and that was kind of what we wanted to do with Kavango.
I suppose there’s a big sense of agency there, of taking control. And the game is so heavily linked with your lived experience. For board game loving conservationists it’s just the next step.
It is, yeah. The only power we have is over our own lives. But with that we can do so much. We’re constantly told there’s no point but of course we can do something. That’s all we can do is something.
And that’s also what we’re trying to do with Kavango is capture real life. Rewilding is what people are actually doing now in real time. And it’s being successful. That’s why it’s important that we emphasize this is based on real life.
Also I think play can open people’s minds in a way that conversations can’t. Even beyond Kavango we want to create nature games around different themes which will create moments of thought around the topic of nature.
And what’s amazing about Kavango, because it’s been so successful, we’ve been able to donate profits to conservation charities that I was working with in Botswana. Which is huge. The whole thing is just a case of okay, how can we help. That was really what triggered it. How can we help. What can we do.
And it’s not just the feel of the game and donating profits – which is amazing enough in itself – but it’s everything about the game, all the way down to the packaging.
Well for us it was never even a consideration to not be environmentally conscious with packaging. So we followed the Green Game Guide and Matt had to design things like a paper package that is tamperproof, as well as make sure everything in the box is designed to be incredibly space efficient. All the components are made out of FSC certified wood or recycled materials where possible. There is no plastic in the game, just biodegradable bags, so the card trays are all flat packed and then assembled once you open the game. That was all designed by Matt. His engineering mind is amazing at designing everything.
So there’s all these ways you can do it, you just need to have the time and space to think. That’s the pressure that people are under. We were lucky with crowdfunding that it gave us a bit more time to figure it out. But it’s hard because board games aren’t that profitable and if you’re business you do need to make them and get the money and that’s also very important to the sustainability of a business.
Any advice for creators looking to go more eco-friendly?
Matt’s really the brainchild behind this but I think from the very beginning of the design phase of the game you have to be thinking about it, the mechanics, the art, how it works, everything. So you’re not designing components which are incompatible with reusable materials or recycled materials. You also have to have belief in your own design to be able to push the dial with manufacturers. Our manufacturer Panda is fantastic but I can’t speak to others.
That makes sense. And when you pick up and play Kavango you really do get a sense of the design. Everything about it feels deliberate. Now, I want to transition a little to the future. You mentioned other games. What’s next for you both?
We’ve got so many games. We’re designing two at the moment and we’re trying to decide which ones to launch next year. So our backers on Kickstarter, some of them will be asked some questions to see which they prefer. So yeah, we’ve got many ideas. There’s so much to do and we’re always so inspired by so many different things. We’ve got ideas for the next like 5 years of games and it’s a case of how can we get them out fast enough? Because of course Matt does all the artwork as well.
How much will be Kavango or is it other games?
I don’t know how much I can say. Well we’re definitely looking at games in the UK to capture different issues. We’re working on a game about Beavers which we’re really excited about, about the theme of Beaver reintroduction and highlighting the role of Beavers as ecosystem engineers and also the benefit that they can have for people.
And we won’t expand Kavango anymore. It’s complete now. But we do have an idea for a Kavango trilogy of games set in the same region. Kavango is a big drafting experience you can bring to the table with lots of different people. And it covers the theme of rewilding. But we want to cover other themes too. Ooh, I don’t know how much I can say. Okay, I suppose I can tell you about the lion game. This is very exciting. It will be the second in the trilogy. It’s set in the same region and you’ll be playing as a pride of lions competing to be the dominant pride in the region. And you’ll be cycling through the seasons of wet and dry and the different challenges that it brings. So it’s a similar game in theme but with very different mechanics.
But we have so many ideas, so many games. I think nature is a system that is just phenomenal and works so brilliantly. And I think all the things we love about games exists already in nature so it’s about trying to see that. So we start with nature and then we can build the game.
I love that model. And you can count me in for any future games. These sound incredible. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. Anybody who’s reading who hasn’t already pledged on their Kickstarter, go now! It ends on the 21st of November. You can get the base game – profits of which fund wildlife conservation in the region – and you can also get the Lodges expansion as well as a couple of other expansion packs. The Brilliant Birds pack supports a vulture conservation charity and the Captivating Cats pack honours the memory of the Zara and Matt’s cat who passed away in May and was adopted in Botswana. The more they raise, the more they can give away. It really is the power of Kickstarter with a game like this. So make sure and head on over to their page. I’ll post the link below.
