DICE TOY LABS was founded in 2018 by PhalgunPolepalli and Shwetha Badarinath, a husband and wife duo.
Mozaic Games – a Dice Toy Labs venture, is on a mission to create cool board games for India. They are passionate about designing strategy board games and licensing games from local inventors; they are quick to champion the work of other board game designers to tell different Indian stories through board games for the world to enjoy.
Mozaic Games is a game design studio in Bangalore where they create modern strategy board games with Indian themes. Their board games are gender-equal and age neutral.
The first game they created was Yudhbhoomi, where players can relive epic wars from Indian history. They researched many historical events in Indian history. They gamified these events into immersive board games that ensure players get an edge-of-the-seat experience while engrossed in the story. The game – Yudhbhoomi put them on the toys and games map in India.
The next game, Indus 2500BCE, is based on building a thriving city in the Indus Valley Civilization, which started trending worldwide. Indus 2500BCE put them on the world’s board games map.
They then went on to make many board games and card games.
Their latest game, Karigar-e-Taj, raised 300% more funds than they asked for on a popular crowdfunding platform called Kickstarter in the US. In this game, you lead artisans (karigars) to build and complete the Taj Mahal to earn Emperor Shah Jahan’s favour.
Another game called Startups & Beyond has become part of the curriculum at many top business schools in India. In this game, as entrepreneurs, players optimise at every step in the entire life cycle of their products and try to build a successful startup.
In 4.5 years, they have designed 50+ games. They have created fun board and card games for large toy companies like Hasbro, WinMagic Toys, and corporates.
In 2021-22, Phalgun won the Mojonation 100 Award, which celebrates the world’s most influential creators in the Toys and Games space. This recognition helped get validation from industry stalwarts across the globe.
In 2022, Mozaic Games represented India globally at the International Board Games Convention – Essen Spiel 2022 in Germany; this is the first time in 4 decades that they’ve seen an Indian Games publisher exhibit authentic Indian Games at Essen Spiel. As expected, the games were chosen as the “Most Anticipated Games” at the convention, chosen by board game bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers worldwide. Another important initiative by the team is to build and support the Indian board games community, which includes game designers, game publishers, game manufacturers and gamers in India, with a clear objective of spreading the love for board games in India.
The team supports designers pursuing game design with Board Game Design Kits and workshops to help streamline their design process. Phalgun has been invited as a visiting professor to teach Game Design for the students pursuing Bachelor of Design at PES College of Engineering, Bangalore.
Mozaic Games is on a mission to make everyone in the world enjoy and celebrate the stories India has to offer through visually and mentally stimulating board games.
