Cranio Creations
Board games with an international approach
Founded in 2009 by Lorenzo Tucci Sorrentino, then 24, with 10,000 Euro of capital stock, Cranio Creations – a publishing company specializing in board games, especially for the 12+ age range – has taken an international approach since the beginning.
“We sell games worldwide”, says Tucci Sorrentino. “50 per cent of our production is distributed in foreign markets; therefore, we are seen as a game developing hub. In the last ten years Cranio Creations has received every international award, a demonstration of its products’ high-quality level. Since it is a self-financed company operating in a country where the pressure of taxation is meaningful, the start-up stage was engaging: ten years long we had to reinvest all proceeds in order to make the company grow. It has a special profile because we believe very much in people and we prefer having internal staff to cultivate rather than relying on freelances. Another feature of ours is care for the author, who is always specified on the packings; this way, we are part of a world contiguous to book publishing. Moreover, we acknowledge that a game’s most relevant aspect is making people entertain themselves and in order to achieve this we use innovative, functional, advanced game design mechanisms”.
Cranio Creations is better known abroad than in Italy: “In several countries we have a publisher who sends us the translation and asks for possible localization tweaks; then we take care of the foreign language version”, explains Tucci Sorrentino. “Last year, for instance, we published the Mesos game with an initial 45,000 units run and afterwards we localized it in 12 countries”.
At Toys & Baby Milano the company will introduce a line of products aimed at children: “One of them is the very funny Specchio Riflesso, where every player employs a mirror to find hidden objects”, reveals Tucci Sorrentino. “Furthermore, for kids, Feel Like A Fool, where you must let a word be guessed by using only one vowel, the Piccioni Esplosivi card game and the Halloween-themed Tricky Treats”.
