Young Board Game Inventor Sees Her Idea Take Off

A New Jersey teenager is suddenly one of the hottest names in board games, the Wall Street Journal reports. Fourteen-year-old Persy Arcement invented her ice-cream-themed game, Drizzle, when she was all of 8 years old and stuck at home during the pandemic. Until recently, her family's garage was overflowing with unsold boxes, and her dad was fretting about whether his $50,000 investment to have the games professionally designed would ever pay off. Then came a whirlwind week: a Wall Street Journal profile, a trip to a major toy fair in Chicago, and two industry awards, including Young Innovator of the Year.

Now, the Arcements can barely keep up with orders. More than 500 games have sold in the wake of the media attention, and a mail truck was dispatched to haul away more than 400 orders in one go. Persy, who serves as CEO (the "E" stands for entertainment) of the family business—named "Fitz and the PEA" after herself and her cat, Fitzgerald—has found her calendar packed with meetings with game publishers, including reps from Hasbro, Mattel, and Disney, per the Asbury Park Press. Neighbors have pitched in, assembling boxes and packing games while the family was still in Chicago.

"I never would have thought it would happen as a little 8-year-old walking out of my bedroom with a laminated piece of paper and some random dice I found around the house," Persy tells the Journal. As for the game itself, players use a combination of strategy and luck to decorate an ice cream cone. (Persy herself explains the game in this video.) One of the highlights of the Chicago trip: Persy got to play a card game with Doug Reuter, inventor of the board game Sequence. "I beat him," she brags.