Meet Matt Brown | Designer and illustrator of Kavango Board Game

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt Brown and Zara Reid, the creators of Kavango board game and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt and Zara, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Hello! Thanks so much for your question. Kavango is a conservation themed board game for 1-5 players where you become a conservation expert and transform an area of degraded land into a thriving nature reserve. The idea for Kavango first blossomed during the C-19 lockdown when we were both had a bit more time on our hands, we were feeling climate anxiety and wanted to focus our energy on something positive. When we moved to Botswana and began to travel around Southern Africa, we were inspired by the amazing work going on to protect wildlife and biodiversity and the game evolved to become deeply focused on that region. We undertook a 3 year design process to develop Kavango. All the artwork is hand-illustrated by Matt and the mechanisms are based on real-life conservation methods. We belive that an optimistic narrative can inspire and motivate people into creating a better world. We hope that playing Kavango will motivate people to protect wildlife and biodiversity wherever they are.

Great question. We’d have to take them on a tour of the places in Botswana that inspired Kavango!

Firstly, we need to explain what Kavango means! Kavango is our shorthand name for the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area which spans 5 countries in Southern Africa and is home to the world’s largest elephant population. The area is full of biodiversity and Kavango is inspired by the region and conservation methods within it.

Each player board in our game represents a different landscape in Southern Africa. The premise of Kavango is that each player is working to transform an area of degraded land into a thriving nature reserve. Each player has a different area of land, symbolised by their player board, which has its own unique habitat and starting conditions. Your challenge is to maximise the potential of your land to create the best nature reserve in Kavango.

The boards are all inspired by real-life places we have spent a lot of time in while living in Botswana and it would be fun to take our friends on a trip to visit each of the five landscapes.

Stop 1. We’d start in north-east Botswana in the Chobe Forest National Park, which was our inspiration for the Green Player Board. This is a beautiful and thriving forest adjacent to the powerful Chobe River. There are seasonal floodplains across the landscape and it’s a haven for bird and aquatic species. Chobe is full of elephants and you can even see them on the main road as you drive towards the park!

Stop 2. We would then drive south until we reached the vast Makgadikgadi Salt Pans which inspired our Purple Player Board. The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans are desolate vast expanses of endless white for most of the year when they are waterless and extremely arid. However, in years of good rain, the flat landscape floods attracting wildlife – most spectacularly flamingos in the tens or even hundreds of thousands and huge migrations of zebra and wildebeest.

Stop 3. After a few days in the Salt Pans, we’d head north-west to visit the Okavango Delta which inspired our Blue Player Board. The Okavango Delta is the most breathtaking place we’ve ever seen. A protected UNESCO world heritage site, the land is characterised by meandering waterways, lush vegetation and an abundance of wildlife.

Stop 4. Then we’d start our journey south via the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, our Yellow Player Board. Here you can see golden grasses stretch to the horizon and the night sky aglow with stars. It’s the second largest wildlife reserve in the world, encompassing 52,800 sq. km. During and after the rains, the area teems with wildlife as herbivores migrate to enjoy the fresh grasses and predators follow them. It’s the only place where we’ve seen a cheetah run at full speed while it was chasing a springbok!