The QUEEN of GAMES
PLAYING PEEING PUP, AT LEAST AS AN adult, is an exercise in staying calm. It’s essentially a game of hot potato, except instead of tossing around a vegetable, you’re frantically petting a plastic puppy, willing it to bark three times so you can pass it off before it pees in your face. Adding to the tension: I’m playing with the game’s inventor, Kim Vandenbroucke.
As the 40-year-old from Logan Square and I engage in a couple of rounds on a recent afternoon, I find myself hopping up and down and yelling at the incontinent dog, squealing every time it makes another noise (“It farted!”) and squeezing my eyes shut in fear of getting sprayed.
You can see why kids love it.
Peeing Pup, a Hasbro release initially sold only in Walmart, was a smash hit last holiday season — the biggest success of Vandenbroucke’s 17-year career as a game creator. (She won’t say how many games she has licensed in all, but her website lists 36.) It also landed her a Hasbro Emerging Inventor Award, as well as a nomination for game innovator of the year at 2019’s Toy & Game Innovation Awards, or TAGIEs, which are basically the Oscars of the industry.
How does one come up with such a strange — and strangely appealing — notion for a game?
