October 26, 2024 • 10 mins
Halloween is the busiest time of the year in Salem, with people coming from all over the world to take part in Haunted Happenings. You may not have known this, but Salem, for a time, was known as home to the Ouija board. A Danvers-based board game company recently came out with an update to this spooky game which pays tribute to Salem's deep history. Phil Orbanes, Co-Founder of Winning Moves Games, shares details about the game and the company's deep connection to a well-known gaming giant.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend,
where each week right here we talk about all the
topics important to you and the place where you live.
It is great to be back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. While considering it's spooky season, people from
all over the region, the country, the globe say there
is nowhere else they'd rather be than right in the
middle of downtown Salem. Forget driving around there. It's just
(00:30):
not happening right now. But you know what, there is
so much to do. Haunted happenings is in full force now.
Outside the obvious connection to spooky things and Halloween and
all that, the which city is actually teeming with history
and if you didn't know, for a time it was
also home to the wij Aboard, a Danvers board game company,
recently came out with an update to this hair raising game.
(00:51):
This is all about Salem, so Phil Orbains is here
to talk with us about it. He's the co founder
of Winning Moves Games and Phili, it is so good
to have you here. Let's start by talking about the
fact that your company alone is full of local history
in its own right. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Sure, well, first, it's important to say that I worked
at the great game company Parker Brothers during the nineteen
eighties and into the early nineties, and Winnie Moves is
actually a little version of Parker Brothers. Because Parker Brothers
itself was acquired by hasbroo of Rhode Island in the
(01:30):
early nineteen nineties and the Parker brother facilities here on
the north shore of Boston were closed down. But I
and a few other members of the industry thought that
there was a great opportunity to preserve the classic edition
of all the great Parker brother games that Hasbro really
(01:51):
had no interest in reissuing. They were very much in
tune with what was necessary for today and tomorrow, well
not necessarily what you and I would remember from the past.
And with that idea in mine, plus with my contacts
and the industry, I was able to acquire a lot
(02:12):
of great properties, meeting new games and great people, and
Winning Moves was able to put its feet on the
ground and has continued to grow.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
It must be so fun to go to work every day,
channel your inner child and just enjoy what you do,
because it is such a rarity these days to find
jobs that you can actually enjoy yourself truly to the core.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I would. I have to agree completely with you.
I've always said to you know, my friends in particular,
that if I do my job well, I make people smile,
and that gives me, you know, a lot of reassurance
that I'm in the right place for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So obviously north Shore is huge this time of year, Salem.
You can't even get downtown at this point. How trying
to you know, take your life in your hands. It's
one of those times of a year, of course. Yeah,
it's just crazy. So speaking of Salem, you all came
up with this. I mean, wiji boards have been around forever,
but you came up with this very special Salem addition, weijiboard.
How did that idea come about?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I think the impetus for it is that Salem was,
for the longest time the home of Wija, and we
can talk about that in a moment. But the Salem
of course, has this long history of being associated with
the witch trials and spiritualism and just you know, sort
of the psychic world in general. And eventually it dawned
(03:38):
on us that, with Wija being a universally known game,
to ask the psychic world questions, why not specify it
in an addition that bespeaks its longtime home Salem. And
when we started on that, we realized Salem is just
so replete with great imagery, you know, all of the
(04:02):
famous buildings in town and the aura that it has
that it just simply the idea just took hold and
developed itself.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And obviously you being in Danvers as well, there's a
connection to the witch trials there too. I think a
lot of people don't realize that people and Danvers had
their own connections to all of.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This well, as I remember, Danvers was part of Salem
during the witch trial herm Era and Danvers was basically
separated from Salem, so that Salem itself would not have
the stigma of this awful period of time.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Putting together the game, how did you go about trying
to choose which iconic Salem sites would go on the game, because,
like you said, there's quite a few of them, but
there's only so much board space.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah. Well, what we attempted to do was to put
in the background of the Wija board, which if you
know the Wigia board, you know that it includes all
the letters of the alphabet grow up numbers, you know,
the words yes and no, and a few other important
gameplayer if you will play elements and in the background.
(05:11):
Typically the board has just been a solid color like black.
So what we thought would be nice would be if
we had halftone images of the most iconic buildings of
Salem from earlier times, you know, including the Witch Museum,
the House of the Seven Gables, Derby Wharf and there. Fortunately,
(05:31):
we're just enough to make for a very nice complete
background for the Luigia boards.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
And I'm looking at it right now. I mean, the
design is absolutely beautiful. It's this nice Stepia color, it's
you know, very historical, and you've got these beautiful sun
and moon images on it. This must have been a
lot of fun to put together for you.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, And we have for the longest time had a
great association with a former Parker Brother artist named Steven
Strum who lives in Rockport and Steven's WiFi arena has
worked for Winning Moves also from day one, and we
felt Stephen, given his you know, love of games, his
(06:15):
location here in the North Shore, and his graphics skills,
would be just right to design it. And I'm sure
glad we did because the product itself. I think this
turned out to be so striking an appearance.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It is beautiful. And how has the reaction been? How
are people how are people liking it so far?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, I think the best way of answering your question
is when we first envisioned this, we thought, okay, well,
you know, the community of Salem, in the business of
Salem would obviously have an interest in it, and maybe
that's as far as it would go. But what we
found is that the aura of Salem is known far
and wide, and our sales are much better than we
(06:57):
thought they would be because it's attracted interest elsewhere in
the country.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That's phenomenal, and it's got more people. Where can people
get the board game? Do you have to go on
their website or can you just find it at stores
and Salem? How can you get it?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, the best place to go, of course, would be
almost any store in Sale. Now. We recently had a
really terrific launch event at the gift shop at the
Pabady Essex Museum the PEM, and that would be my
first recommendation. If you're in Sale. The museum store is freestanding.
You don't need to buy a ticket to go into it.
It's right on the street next to the museum, so
(07:35):
you can pop in there and they have a very
ample supply. And then online, if you just search online,
you'll find any number of places that you can buy
it instantly.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
What's coming up next for winning moves, I mean, obviously
outside of the Wiji board. What is coming down the pike?
Or is this still a little early to talk about
your upcoming stuff that's coming out?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
No, no, I can say a few things that are significant.
First of all, are current of our current best sellers
is actually a very clever combination of Monopoly scrabble, called
as you might imagine, a monopoly scrabble. It uses the
ingenuity of the word building building element of a scrabble
(08:16):
board placed inside the outer track of a monopoly board.
And here's what's so cool about it. On you build
a word like you would in scrabble, the value of
your word and points determines how many spaces you move
on the monopoly board, So there's no dice. It's actually
your word building ability that determines where you land. And
(08:40):
we've also streamlined the monopoly aspect of the place, so
it only takes fifty minutes to play the entire game.
I remember seeing this at a very important inventing house
several years ago, and Ma was so skeptical when they
brought it out it Versus said, how could this ever work?
And in two minutes I was sold on it. And
(09:02):
I'm so glad that Hasbro gave us permission. Hasbur, of course,
being the earner of Parker, also owns the brand Scrabble
of Monopoly, and they gave us permission to introduce it,
and it's been a terrific hit. Do you know that
the game Pretty Pretty Princess.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I'm a kid of the nineties, of course I did.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, I just had to ask it that way, Nicole, Well,
the answer is we've been making a version of Pretty
Pretty Princess for many years. It's one of our top sellers.
And next year where this will be for twenty twenty five,
we're introducing a reproduction of the original, which includes a
really high grade crown and the lovely jewelry case.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Oh my gosh, we we able.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
To recapture your love of Pretty Princess, Pretty Pretty Princess,
exactly the way you remember it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Oh my gosh, My forty year old self is just
loving this right now.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I'm glad to know that you're you're, you're a fan,
because it's it's I'm so happy that we have this
for you know, for everybody who has that nostalgic feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, us millennials who wish we were back in the
nineties playing our board games and watching game shows and
all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, you know, through board games you can travel back
in time because they bring back such wonderful memories of
when you were younger.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Have a safe and healthy, spooky weekend. Please join me
again next week for another edition of the show. I'm
Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend,
where each week right here we talk about all the
topics important to you and the place where you live.
It is great to be back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. While considering it's spooky season, people from
all over the region, the country, the globe say there
is nowhere else they'd rather be than right in the
middle of downtown Salem. Forget driving around there. It's just
(00:30):
not happening right now. But you know what, there is
so much to do. Haunted happenings is in full force now.
Outside the obvious connection to spooky things and Halloween and
all that, the which city is actually teeming with history
and if you didn't know, for a time it was
also home to the wij Aboard, a Danvers board game company,
recently came out with an update to this hair raising game.
(00:51):
This is all about Salem, so Phil Orbains is here
to talk with us about it. He's the co founder
of Winning Moves Games and Phili, it is so good
to have you here. Let's start by talking about the
fact that your company alone is full of local history
in its own right. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Sure, well, first, it's important to say that I worked
at the great game company Parker Brothers during the nineteen
eighties and into the early nineties, and Winnie Moves is
actually a little version of Parker Brothers. Because Parker Brothers
itself was acquired by hasbroo of Rhode Island in the
(01:30):
early nineteen nineties and the Parker brother facilities here on
the north shore of Boston were closed down. But I
and a few other members of the industry thought that
there was a great opportunity to preserve the classic edition
of all the great Parker brother games that Hasbro really
(01:51):
had no interest in reissuing. They were very much in
tune with what was necessary for today and tomorrow, well
not necessarily what you and I would remember from the past.
And with that idea in mine, plus with my contacts
and the industry, I was able to acquire a lot
(02:12):
of great properties, meeting new games and great people, and
Winning Moves was able to put its feet on the
ground and has continued to grow.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
It must be so fun to go to work every day,
channel your inner child and just enjoy what you do,
because it is such a rarity these days to find
jobs that you can actually enjoy yourself truly to the core.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I would. I have to agree completely with you.
I've always said to you know, my friends in particular,
that if I do my job well, I make people smile,
and that gives me, you know, a lot of reassurance
that I'm in the right place for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So obviously north Shore is huge this time of year, Salem.
You can't even get downtown at this point. How trying
to you know, take your life in your hands. It's
one of those times of a year, of course. Yeah,
it's just crazy. So speaking of Salem, you all came
up with this. I mean, wiji boards have been around forever,
but you came up with this very special Salem addition, weijiboard.
How did that idea come about?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I think the impetus for it is that Salem was,
for the longest time the home of Wija, and we
can talk about that in a moment. But the Salem
of course, has this long history of being associated with
the witch trials and spiritualism and just you know, sort
of the psychic world in general. And eventually it dawned
(03:38):
on us that, with Wija being a universally known game,
to ask the psychic world questions, why not specify it
in an addition that bespeaks its longtime home Salem. And
when we started on that, we realized Salem is just
so replete with great imagery, you know, all of the
(04:02):
famous buildings in town and the aura that it has
that it just simply the idea just took hold and
developed itself.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And obviously you being in Danvers as well, there's a
connection to the witch trials there too. I think a
lot of people don't realize that people and Danvers had
their own connections to all of.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This well, as I remember, Danvers was part of Salem
during the witch trial herm Era and Danvers was basically
separated from Salem, so that Salem itself would not have
the stigma of this awful period of time.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Putting together the game, how did you go about trying
to choose which iconic Salem sites would go on the game, because,
like you said, there's quite a few of them, but
there's only so much board space.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah. Well, what we attempted to do was to put
in the background of the Wija board, which if you
know the Wigia board, you know that it includes all
the letters of the alphabet grow up numbers, you know,
the words yes and no, and a few other important
gameplayer if you will play elements and in the background.
(05:11):
Typically the board has just been a solid color like black.
So what we thought would be nice would be if
we had halftone images of the most iconic buildings of
Salem from earlier times, you know, including the Witch Museum,
the House of the Seven Gables, Derby Wharf and there. Fortunately,
(05:31):
we're just enough to make for a very nice complete
background for the Luigia boards.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
And I'm looking at it right now. I mean, the
design is absolutely beautiful. It's this nice Stepia color, it's
you know, very historical, and you've got these beautiful sun
and moon images on it. This must have been a
lot of fun to put together for you.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, And we have for the longest time had a
great association with a former Parker Brother artist named Steven
Strum who lives in Rockport and Steven's WiFi arena has
worked for Winning Moves also from day one, and we
felt Stephen, given his you know, love of games, his
(06:15):
location here in the North Shore, and his graphics skills,
would be just right to design it. And I'm sure
glad we did because the product itself. I think this
turned out to be so striking an appearance.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It is beautiful. And how has the reaction been? How
are people how are people liking it so far?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, I think the best way of answering your question
is when we first envisioned this, we thought, okay, well,
you know, the community of Salem, in the business of
Salem would obviously have an interest in it, and maybe
that's as far as it would go. But what we
found is that the aura of Salem is known far
and wide, and our sales are much better than we
(06:57):
thought they would be because it's attracted interest elsewhere in
the country.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That's phenomenal, and it's got more people. Where can people
get the board game? Do you have to go on
their website or can you just find it at stores
and Salem? How can you get it?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, the best place to go, of course, would be
almost any store in Sale. Now. We recently had a
really terrific launch event at the gift shop at the
Pabady Essex Museum the PEM, and that would be my
first recommendation. If you're in Sale. The museum store is freestanding.
You don't need to buy a ticket to go into it.
It's right on the street next to the museum, so
(07:35):
you can pop in there and they have a very
ample supply. And then online, if you just search online,
you'll find any number of places that you can buy
it instantly.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
What's coming up next for winning moves, I mean, obviously
outside of the Wiji board. What is coming down the pike?
Or is this still a little early to talk about
your upcoming stuff that's coming out?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
No, no, I can say a few things that are significant.
First of all, are current of our current best sellers
is actually a very clever combination of Monopoly scrabble, called
as you might imagine, a monopoly scrabble. It uses the
ingenuity of the word building building element of a scrabble
(08:16):
board placed inside the outer track of a monopoly board.
And here's what's so cool about it. On you build
a word like you would in scrabble, the value of
your word and points determines how many spaces you move
on the monopoly board, So there's no dice. It's actually
your word building ability that determines where you land. And
(08:40):
we've also streamlined the monopoly aspect of the place, so
it only takes fifty minutes to play the entire game.
I remember seeing this at a very important inventing house
several years ago, and Ma was so skeptical when they
brought it out it Versus said, how could this ever work?
And in two minutes I was sold on it. And
(09:02):
I'm so glad that Hasbro gave us permission. Hasbur, of course,
being the earner of Parker, also owns the brand Scrabble
of Monopoly, and they gave us permission to introduce it,
and it's been a terrific hit. Do you know that
the game Pretty Pretty Princess.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I'm a kid of the nineties, of course I did.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, I just had to ask it that way, Nicole, Well,
the answer is we've been making a version of Pretty
Pretty Princess for many years. It's one of our top sellers.
And next year where this will be for twenty twenty five,
we're introducing a reproduction of the original, which includes a
really high grade crown and the lovely jewelry case.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Oh my gosh, we we able.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
To recapture your love of Pretty Princess, Pretty Pretty Princess,
exactly the way you remember it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Oh my gosh, My forty year old self is just
loving this right now.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I'm glad to know that you're you're, you're a fan,
because it's it's I'm so happy that we have this
for you know, for everybody who has that nostalgic feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, us millennials who wish we were back in the
nineties playing our board games and watching game shows and
all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, you know, through board games you can travel back
in time because they bring back such wonderful memories of
when you were younger.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Have a safe and healthy, spooky weekend. Please join me
again next week for another edition of the show. I'm
Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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