Ben, Matteo, Quentin and Audrey with the new game they invented, the Fly Funky Fly.
Ben, Matteo, Quentin and Audrey with the new game they invented, the Fly Funky Fly.
As a rule, flies aren’t the most inspiring thing in the world.
But for one French family from Whakamarama — flies were the catalyst for a funky card game they created together. They call it the Fly Funky Fly (FFF) card game.
It all started back in France when Audrey, Ben, Quentin and Matteo Dubois lived rurally next door to a lot of goats, sheep, alpacas and rheas as well as a habitat for zoo animals such as lions, tigers and moneys.
“We’d wake up in the morning and see a tiger next to your fence in cages ... we didn’t really need to go to the zoo anymore,’’ Ben says.
While that was neat for their boys Quentin, 12, and Matteo, 9, to see the animals outside their door — animals bring flies. And the flies were relentless.
“We had a pegola and put shutters on it. We tried putting a fan outside with water and ice because they don’t like the cold and wind.
“I tried painting my outside furniture yellow and in fact flies love yellow, they were all stuck to the outdoor table. We bought carnivorous plant as well ... they don’t work.’’
“It might have caught about five flies a week,’’ Ben says.
Their funny stories about attempts to hinder the fly situation are now part of their new card game.
One day when Audrey was sick with Covid-19, she watched her “serial fly catcher’' husband catching flies with his bare hands.
“He can catch 50 flies with his hand in few minutes ... and I thought we should create a game with catching flies. The next day I said to the boys we can create a game as a surprise for Daddy.’’
Over the next few weeks they came up with a prototype.
Fly Funky Fly card game is a quick, strategic game where the idea is to have the least amount of flies.
Matteo had always wanted to create a board game and had experimented with his own creations. He decided they should create a card game, with strategy and some luck involved.
Quentin used his drawing skills and made the game unique by designing each quirky fly with its own personality. His favourite fly is the FFF mascot which is a cheeky fly donning heart underwear. He drew up all of Audrey’s ideas of flies based on all sorts of scenarios and situations.
The aim of the fast-paced card game is to have the least amount of flies as you can and offload your flies on to someone else.
All the flies have names (starting with F) and personalities such as funky fly, funny fly, frightened fly, fart fly, flat fly, fishing fly and more. The “serial fly catcher’' is inspired by Ben.
The family has been in New Zealand for four years and further developed the FFF concept last year. They created a Kickstarter account and have sold their first 100 games.
“The best thing about FFF is the stories behind it are funny, the drawings are funny, and when you play it with your friends and family ... you laugh. You can’t help it,’’ Quentin says.
