Ten months to Ten Years

Written by Tasliman Azam
Founder of Kraftz, Co-founder of Kraos Bangladesh.


The Journey of Kraftz started back in December of 2014, with the simple idea of crafting things that would be creative, and not locally available in the market. The concept evolved over the years to the creation of passion-centric products, that are interactive and experiential in nature. The journey of almost a decade has countless nights of brainstorming, surviving the phase of a pandemic, and the omnipresence of the urge to create something new for everyone. From a one-person stall business to a team sharing the same passion, the journey has been nothing short of magnificent to me.

With so many dreams our team has weaved together to fulfill in the upcoming days, we firmly believe that it's time to grow exponentially. Our team has envisioned 2024 to be the year where Kraftz truly accelerates and gets to serve unique experiences to more people than ever. With 10 months to go to a decade of Kraftz, I am going to write blogs every two months about what we are up to in our current phase of acceleration. So, what have we done in January and February of 2024?

Fostering Communities

Over the years of making interactive products that delved into the realm of games, art, and books, we ended up getting in touch with many enthusiastic individuals who not only want to know more about what we are up to but are also keen for us to create a space where they can freely interact about their passion and create a community around it.

We already had a form of structure for communities present in the form of Facebook groups for the board game and art community, but we went further and created the much-needed platform for book lovers. Starting from January 2024, our team has invested more time into the groups, not only in the form of engagement and posts, but by also planning various activities that the group members will experience in the coming days. 

For the board gamers, we have developed Kraftz Boardgame Community, where they get exclusive updates of our unreleased games, participate in play-tests, earn rewards, and also share their experiences with board games. For the art enthusiasts, we formed Art with Kraftz, where they get to share their creations; be it on our coloring plates, or any medium. For those who find passion in reading books, we formed KRAOS Booklover's Community, a place for book lovers and those who aspire to be one. Alongside book reviews and rewards for the group members, we will dive deep into events that we have in mind for the community, create and share blog posts about reading habits, and try to bring in book enthusiasts and authors to get to hear more about the great minds behind the books we read.

Launch of Coloring Plates Escape

We first launched Coloring Plates back in 2021, with the aim of upgrading traditional coloring books to a more durable form so that the art can be colored with any medium and then showcased or gifted to close ones. After launching three sets over the past three years, we chose to dedicate the fourth set to those who want to break free from their hectic lives and dive into another realm, even for a brief moment. We got countless messages from our customers (whom we call Krafters) to make a set that will not make them think of anything else, so we went on to create fifteen plates with fifteen captivating patterns that will act as their means of escape, and also help them get their much needed off-screen time. 

Within two weeks of launching the products, we are already getting images from our Krafters of their colored creations on the plates. Many of them are very passionate about art, but to balance their hectic life, they have given up on it. Coloring the plates took them back to the past, and made them want to pursue art just like before. Hearing these stories from the Krafters has motivated our team to indulge more in passion-based products, so more people can get to be in touch with their passion whenever they can.  

Coloring Plates Escape has been launched both online and offline, and it is currently available for order on our website, as well as in popular stores like Unimart, Bookworm, Jatra, and PBS.

BID IT officially launched

After covering numerous game sessions on private & corporate events through the board games that we have commercially developed over the past six years, we embarked upon a new mission- to empower the participants with a feeling that they had only observed but never went through themselves; the art of bidding!

Participating in an auction has always been a thrilling and captivating activity, and we wanted everyone to get a taste of it with our highly entertaining game BID IT. Like every board game that we have created so far, the game is also based on our very happening island named Gulmondi. The auction is based on the bidding for the precious treasures found on the island, and the team with the most valuable treasures at the end of the auction wins.

The game takes into account the traditional auction/bidding and adds multiple layers of depth and twists to it to make it challenging, yet highly entertaining for the players. A minimum of 10, to a maximum of 100+ players can play the game at a time. Duration for the game can last from 40 minutes up to 90 minutes, depending on the number of players, as well as the difficulty mode chosen for the game. Anyone interested to know more about the game can read the blog that I published last month. 

Creations shelved in brand new location of Jatra

Our journey with Jatra began in January of 2023, and the level of cooperation and response that we'd gotten from their team as well as the customers has been on another level. We started our journey by shelving only the board games at first, but we gradually ended up having our entire collection in the store. In no time, the place turned out to be the first among many stores where we launched our newly crafted products, only for the warm reception that we received from the Krafters, as well as Team Jatra. 
 

In February 2024, Jatra relocated to a brand new location in Banani where we finally got to shelve our entire collection together in one space. Not only did we get to be a part of the spectacular three-day launch show, but we also made the most of it by launching Coloring Plates Escape at the event. We are also looking forward to having events at Jatra soon- be it based on board games, storytelling, or an art-based activity.

If you are free on a fine afternoon, make sure to visit the wonderful space that Jatra has created for all of us.

Playtesting 'Secrets of the Mansion'

Our team is thrilled to announce the making of our 7th board game- Secrets of the Mansion: the Murder Mystery. Like all our games, it is also based on the fictional island of Gulmondi, where a detective has entered a cursed mansion, with the motive of catching the culprit behind a murder. Our team has been indulged in crafting this game for more than a year, and with the start of 2024, the playtesting for it has officially begun.

The initial tests of the game so far have shown promising results, with the game successfully maintaining a level of intensity and suspense that will captivate the players and challenge their deductive skills. Once the phase of playtesting internally is concluded, we will be inviting Krafters to test the game and give their valuable feedback. If you are interested in participating in the playtesting, don't forget to fill out the form!

Alongside Secrets of the Mansion, we are also working on two more games that we are hoping to publish this year.
 

Shelving products in Unimart Airport

Unimart has been the largest superstore where we have shelved our creations to this date, and we were over the moon when we got selected to have our products in yet another eye-catching store of theirs.

Our collaboration with Unimart began in 2022, and over the past couple of years, we shelved our products in Gulshan 1 and 2, Dhanmondi, Wari, Sylhet, and now in Uttara. A large section of our target group inside Dhaka lives in or around Uttara, and having a place as amazing as Unimart from where Krafters of that zone can now physically avail our creations gives us immense joy.

Unimart Centrepoint at Uttara is connected to the Third Terminal of the Airport and will be more than just a superstore as it will also house movie theaters, a convention hall, and a shopping mall- all in one! It is set to launch before or during Ramadan, and we cannot wait to hear the stories from Krafters of the amazing place that United Group has built for us.

Initiating the development of Digital Demos

The board game industry is still fairly new in our country, and to make the whole process of getting to know our games better, we have always tried to make it easy for our Krafters. Be it in the form of game tutorial videos, Q/A sessions on our Facebook Group Kraftz Boardgame Community, or reaching out to us directly by messages or calls, we tried to have all the necessary information accessible to anyone interested in our games. To take it one step further, we decided to develop Digital Demos for our games.

Through the Digital Demos, you can get an idea about our existing games before making a purchase. The Demo, as the term suggests, will not have the entire game, but it will give the gamers enough experience to get the gist of the game. The Digital Demo of our highest-selling board game Innocent Until Proven Guilty is currently under development, and we hope to launch it very soon. 

We do not have in our plans to release our board games through Apps yet, as we are currently indulging in experiential products that dwell in the realm outside digital screens.
 

A lot is happening simultaneously, as we approach completion of the 10-year journey of Kraftz. If you are interested in knowing about the upcoming months of the brand, make sure to keep an eye on the Blog section of our website.