With COVID-19
lockdown reigniting our lost craze for board games, the four German sisters
came up with a unique idea of inventing a coronavirus-themed board game to take
best advantage of this soaring trend and the game is now making heavy profits, news agency Reuters reported.

“We
developed the Corona game while sitting at home under lockdown. We heard in the
media and saw in supermarkets nearby how everyone was panic-buying. That
shocked us very much and that is why we wanted to deal with the whole situation
and then invented a board game for it.” Reuters quoted Sarah Schwaderlapp,
one of the game creators as saying.

It all started when father Benedikt Schwaderlapp, highly impressed by his daughter’s innovation took the plunge to commercialise the game and immediately hired an artist to design cards, board and box to get the ball rolling.

According to Reuters, he had so far sold 2,000 copies
and signed up a toy store as a secondary distributor.

As
far the invention and ideation is concerned, the sisters worked on the game
most evenings during the spring lockdown, and majority of elements of the games have been incorporated using  information from TV news.

Discussing the challenges in getting the game to market Benedikt said, “Because the game has been so popular it’s been quite a challenge for our family-based operation- packing and posting 500 games within a very short period. Demand has been massive from across Germany.”

Here is how the game works

The board game named ‘Corona’ can be played by up to four players, who compete to buy all the groceries on a shopping list for an old neighbour, who is shielding against the virus.

The
players have to beat all the hurdles that include encountering the virus, which
leads you to quarantine, or finding the hoarders who have already all the
listed items.

Whosoever deliver all the items first is declared winner. Players have to collect and swap cards in order to keep the game going.