Deirdre Cross discusses Menagerie – the new game from Moose Toys – and tells of its fantastic origins…

It’s been a while since your last Mojo interview, Deirdre. I’ll pop in a link to an opinion piece here… How long have you been at Moose now?
Just over a year; about fifteen months. And it’s awesome because Moose is really exciting as a company – both in terms of making games and accelerating growth in the category. So it’s an exciting time to be at Moose and specifically, at Moose Games.

And am I right in saying you’ve already had a few games out under your stewardship?
Yes. As you know, it takes a long time to develop a game and get it to market but there are a lot of titles coming out in the next few weeks that I’ve had the great pleasure of working on. Some other products came out late last year, but the one we’re here to talk about today – Menagerie – is coming soon and that has an interesting origin story.

Well, let’s get to that! How did Menagerie come about?
When I was Head of Funko Games and Prospero Hall, we started this project in the summer of 2022; a light strategy game called Menagerie. The game-design lead was a woman named Fertessa Scott. She’s fabulous! At that time, she was on our in-house team, but she’s also an independent inventor and is now working at Pokémon. We’d fully completed Menagerie as a project in early 2024 when the Prospero Hall studio closed…

Goliath acquired this game along with the whole catalogue of creative – many hundreds of games… that catalogue now sits with their company, 3JN Creative. I kept thinking about Menagerie and started to wonder if it would be possible to license it with Moose Games. I reached out to Jael Golad at 3JN Creative to see if the game was available from the collection. Amazingly, it was still available – and they loved the idea of licensing Menagerie to Moose Games to give it a home.

And why were you so interested in Menagerie, Deirdre? Why did this particular title stay in your mind all this time?
Menagerie stayed in my mind all this time because – first and foremost – it was just too good to just leave in the closet! But it’s also unusual to have a chance to license a game for which more or less everything was already completed… The art was already there, the playtesting had been done, the retailer interest was there – so it made sense to go back and see if we could bring it to market.

Amazing. Tell me about the game, then; what’s the general idea?
Here it is: The tagline says ‘Unlock the wonders of a miniature world…’ Now, I don’t know if this lighting does the box justice, but it’s printed with this beautiful copper foil – absolutely gorgeous! In fact, the whole thing’s really beautiful: it has over 70 pieces of original art, including these stunning illustrations of insects. The idea is that each of you must fill these terrariums with insects that you collect from this central playing board.

As an insect curator, you must decide which of these amazing creatures you want to display! So you’re collecting them and putting them in your terrarium. You expand your collection on every turn by looking at the insect traits and abilities printed at the bottom of each card, filling your exhibits to intrigue visitors! At the end of the game, the player that nets the most points is the winner.

And what are the little tokens there, Deirdre?
Ah! They’re little wooden magnifying glasses! There’s no glass in them, of course, but they’re really tactile; they’re the currency in the game. We call them discovery tokens. On your turn, you always earn two discovery tokens. After that, you might take one insect from out in the field and place it in this terrarium because of its special traits. There’s a little cheat sheet here to show you how the traits work. So here, I’m going to select this ground mantis – it’s fierce and small, and it doesn’t share anything with the morpho butterfly that’s already in there.

So it’s a set-collection game – but each insect’s qualities determine what you can put where?
Exactly right. So, still on my turn, I could also spend discovery tokens to take another insect from the field. Maybe I want to buy this arrow poison beetle! I’d look at his traits and see how compatible he is with the other insects that are already in my terrarium.

Got it. I like that… I hope the pictures do it justice: the artwork’s stunning.
Thank you! The artist that did most of this was Vicent Gisbert Cardona, but even the borders are special… They’re designed by a man named Daniel Gelon, who was on the Wizards of the Coast Magic team back in the day. And as I say, the whole thing’s very straightforward – but you can add complexity with variable options. There are also instructions for a solitaire game which is so peaceful and lovely.

Odd you should say that; I was just thinking people would be quite happy to sit there and play it alone. And in terms of the game’s tone, this would seem to be a big step in a more tabletop direction for Moose – would that be fair to say?
You know, we had a really sweet game invented by Peggy Brown in 2024 – Wild Flowers. That’s a great game with a lovely theme. We also have some other interesting things coming this summer that are more in a tabletop direction, so Moose has already started down the pathway for this ‘family plus’ type of game – and Menagerie feels like the next step. But because of the adjustable variables, you can play Menagerie as a light- or middleweight strategy game.

I’m really excited to see it because I like the variety. I’ve enjoyed making games all the way up and down the aisle: from pre-school and party games to horror themed and heavier strategy. And I’ve worked on a wide range like that because I’m just so interested in making great games that people want to play! I don’t want to be limited to only party games, or only preschool, or only kids’ games. I want to make games for everybody. And that’s the ambition of Moose Games – we’re not content just to be in one section of the aisle. We want to be making great games in every part of it.

Fabulous! Well, I must say: Menagerie looks fantastic and I’m really excited to see it come to life after all these years! To wrap things up, Deirdre, I’m going to ask you a question that I didn’t ask last time we did an interview…
Oh?

Well, as I recall, the last time we did an interview, it was about Funko’s new Star Trek game… But we met at Star Wars: A Celebration.
Oh! That’s right! We had to keep our voices down! Ha!

Ha! We did! I thought we were going to get kicked out. Ha! As a result, I never asked you this… What’s the most interesting thing in your office or on your desk?
Oh, my gosh! The most interesting thing… There are so many! Okay. Here we go! I think this is the most interesting thing. This is a Mondo Godzilla figure! Urban Aztec is the designer. I was at Mondo when they sold this as a limited-edition drop. It was only on sale for ten days, I think. I just love Godzilla and this one is in my favourite colour so I just had to buy him. Since then, it’s become a special reminder of my time with the Mondo team and their incredible creativity.

Great answer! There were other colours as well, though, weren’t there? Is he on his own?
He is on his own! But you’re right, we made it in a whole bunch of different colours. I was going to collect all of them, but then it arrived and it was so huge! Ha! My husband was like, “You already collect games, and now you’re going to buy a pink Godzilla, and a blue one, and a gold one, AND a black one?!” I thought better of it! Ha!

Ha! Well, yes; to be fair – it’s nearly life-size!
Right?! One’s enough!

One’s enough! Thanks, Deirdre. Hey, this was fun! Come back soon.

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