Originally published on KTVB.com on October 19, 2022
A local teacher is going beyond the classroom to inspire people with a new board game that has officially hit the market.
Idaho Technical Career Academy High School Teacher Eric Olsen says, “It gets my own kids off their phones, and it gets people off their devices, and you get to just hang out and talk.”
Olsen created a family friendly board game he says it started with him playing with a pile of random objects in his kitchen.
“I just kind of rearranged it and had the kids guess what it was, and they thought it was kind of fun,” Olsen said. Two years later, Olsen created Glyphic’s which is inspired by the game Pictionary, but with a twist.
“But instead of drawing the picture, you make or build the picture with the pieces,” Olsen said. This is not just an opportunity to make family memories, Olsen says he hopes the board game makes it into Idaho’s classrooms.
“All that creativity and the students being able to try something new. I’m excited to see what my teaching friends do with it in the classroom,” Olsen said. Just in time for the holiday season, this local teacher’s board game has launched in Target stores all around the country.
“I went to one of the Boise targets just a couple days ago and saw it on the shelf for the first time, so that was a big moment. It’s very exciting,” Olsen said. This isn’t the end of Olsen’s board game creations. Now that he knows it’s possible, he says he’s got another one lined up.
“My second game is super fun another easy game that everyone can sit down and play it’s a card game. It’s called flip. We are kind of excited to see if we can get more games out and more people having fun with more games,” Olsen said.
To learn more about Idaho Technical Career Academy, visit https://itca.k12.com/.
