CoraQuest: Girl's board game is home-schooling hit

Cora Hughes and her dad Dan created the game in between home school lessons

A board game created by a "bored" eight-year-old during lockdown has become a surprise hit.

Cora Hughes and her dad Dan, from Huddersfield, created CoraQuest between home school lessons.

The schoolgirl said the response had been "crazy", with the project hitting its £12,060 fundraising target within 40 minutes.

It has now raised more than £80,000 via Kickstarter and almost 2,700 people have pre-ordered a copy.

"We just did it because we were bored", Cora said. "Then we started to realise it was actually quite a good board game, so we wanted to share it with other people."

The game sees players work together to fight their way through a dungeon, with different adventures along the way.

"It's crazy that a lot of people want to buy it", she said.

The game sees heroes fight their way through quests, which includes the rescue of a gnome called Kevin

The idea came during school work with her dad, who runs a local board game group, incorporating maths and creative writing in the game creation.

'Eureka moment'

Mr Hughes said an artistic friend created a cover for the game "as a joke". "It was really awesome and we looked it and thought: 'Hang on a minute, this could be a board game'", he said.

"That was the eureka moment.

"Now, it's just gone bananas", the NHS nurse added.

The duo, who front their own board game review channel on YouTube, appealed to fans on social media for help to finance the idea.

Cora drew some of the artwork for the game, with children from across the world also submitting ideas

"There's a lovely piece of feedback from somebody who's played it with their seven-year-old son with ADHD and they said it was the only game they'd played to completion because he gets bored or angry, and he didn't get either of those", Mr Hughes said.

Cora said lockdown learning had been tough, with projects like CoraQuest helping to pass the time.

"I wanted to see my friends. When I wasn't doing my work, there wasn't much to do", she said.

Mr Hughes hopes CoraQuest could be sold in shops if a publisher picks up the game but there were no plans to make board games full-time.

"Cora and I are focusing on doing a lockdown Lego movie next, but I don't think that will do as well as this", he added.