Jolly Dutch Productions B.V. was founded in December 2017 by Alexander Kneepkens and Arnold van Binsbergen to develop and publish board and card games. The two combine their love for board games and entrepreneurship, to bring joy to families and friends by getting them around tables and playing entry-level games.
Alexander focuses on the game mechanics and gaming experience, whereas Arnold’s focus is on getting the game ready for production and marketing.
In addition to Alexander and Arnold, there are two (co-)authors so far for the Jolly Dutch games. Wolfgang Kramer is the co-author of Chartered: The Golden Age, a game descendant from Kramer’s Big Boss. Inge van Dasselaar is the co-author of Herrlof, her first game.
The artist for the frist two Jolly Dutch games was Henk-Jan Hoogendoorn. His work on Chartered: The Golden Age was his first step in the board gaming community, which he followed up with his work on Boogie Beasts.
For Herrlof the Jolly Dutch team cooperated with artist Tristam Rossin, a well respected artist with several previous board game projects completed.
The team decided in early 2018 to launch their first crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for Chartered: The Golden Age, but pulled the plug after a matter of days as it became clear there was not enough momentum to reach the funding goal.
In October 2018 the team relaunched a new version of Chartered: The Golden Age, this time with success. Within 24 hours the crowdfunding campaign reached the funding goal and by the end of the campaign the total funding added up to 284%.
A total of 1.389 people backed the project, thereby ensuring that the game went into production. All backers received their copies of the game and Chartered can now be found in shops in the Netherlands, and some other European countries. Our webshop also accepts orders from Europe, the USA and Canada.
Following the success of the Chartered Kickstarter campaign, Alexander, Arnold and Henk-Jan worked on the second Jolly Dutch game: Boogie Beasts. The idea behind the game was born in the summer of 2018 when Alexander took up skydiving. Following a number of failed and functioning prototypes, the team decided to produce the game directly.
The third Jolly Dutch game, Herrlof, was launched on Kickstarter on January 7th 2020 and closed the crowd funding campaign on February 4th with over 1300% funding. This is a two person trick taking game set in the Viking age.
The title of king was not simply inherited in the Viking age, you have to fight for it. Enter the Viking age and use the armies of four magnates and chieftains to brawl for the Herrlof: a sign of victory and praise gained in war. Through trick taking and special abilities, you will seek to win just the right amount of power to become the Viking king.
Herrlof is now available in our webshop and all physical stores that carry Jolly Dutch games.
The team is working on several other game ideas, ranging from large board games to light card games. They are also working on two expansions for Chartered: The Golden Age.
