Since setting up a Kickstarter to create their own card game, a Canberra couple has sold out the first run – and welcomed a baby into the world.

In 2022, CD reported that Ana Andreska and Darko Andreski set up a Kickstarter to get their game idea, Panda Party, off the ground.

Now, the couple has sold out the first run, which means there are 1000 households worldwide that have Panda Party in their hot little hands.

“One thousand sales might not seem like a lot but when I did the stacking of the next 1500, I was thinking for every one of these games there’s a household that has it on their shelf and takes it out at Christmas to have some fun,” Ana said.

“An idea a few years ago has turned it into something real.”

Panda Party is described as “a pick-up-and-play card game in an alternate reality where adorable pandas eat pizza and party hard”.

Players compete to be the first to collect five pandas at their party, inviting special guests and pooping on other players’ parties.

Ana said they had about six months from December 2022 to pull everything together, from scraps of paper and handwritten cards to production. The cards were completed by June 2023.

She said they had backers from around the world, with one of the options for those who donated money to have themselves ‘pandafied’

“I entered the people into the pandaverse and into the imaginary,” Ana said.

“We gave the game with their personalised card they could play with.

“That was a fun part of the process.”

Ana said that when the game was first released, it was stocked in two stores in Canberra. That number has now increased to 13 across Canberra, Sydney, and Melbourne.

She said the Canberra community has supported the game well. The couple even had someone ask them to autograph their pack!

Ana is an analytics consultant by day and illustrator by night, and Darko is a graphic designer. Throw in the card game and looking after a baby, it makes for a very packed schedule.

The couple has expanded the game with two boosters – Halloween, and beach party. They have also released t-shirts and a mug.

Darko said in the future they would continue to create booster packs and hoped to also release expansion packs.

“In terms of Panda Party and our growth this year, it’s about teaming up with a distributor so we can get a larger reach throughout Australia,” he said

“… we want to see more households because we know what fun it can bring to family and friends.”

Beach party booster will be launched at Good Games Canberra City on 18 January between 9am-5pm.

You can check out the card game and the pandaverse at pandaparty.com.au/

A portion of each one pack sold goes to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Test run:
The colourful packaging makes the game stand out – it was the first thing that struck my attention when I had a pack in my hands.

Staff at the CD office took a deck for a test run and there were a lot of laughs.

One person was the clear winner until someone else got a card which meant each player had to give their panda deck to the person on their left.

The person who was essentially coming last had a few trick cards up their sleeve, stopping the other two from filling their deck of five and ultimately winning the game.

It took us about 30 minutes to finish the game and we all found it very easy to learn the rules.

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