By Henri Morineau
Cayman is getting its own home-grown board game, courtesy of a mother who had to find innovative ways to entertain children in the days following Hurricane Ivan when there was no electricity or internet for weeks.
At the time, Carolee Aaron, as well as looking after her own daughter Alisalee, was hosting two families with children in her home, which was had survived the devastating storm.
“The board game was birthed during Ivan,” Aaron told the Cayman Compass.
“I played many board games over the years,” she said. “I’ve always been a board-game lover.”
And it’s that love of board games, coupled with an ambitious mindset, that led her to spend two decades perfecting the game, called PullOver, which has been manufactured in the United States. She hopes it will soon be available for sale in Cayman.
PullOver is a racing game, designed around a roadway, and the objective is to get from the starting line to the finish line. Players move along the board using dice, and there are road signs along the way, depending where you land. At the beginning of the game, players are given cash, and as the game progresses, money is paid to or collected from the various ‘drivers’. Up to six players can take part.
Strong ambitions
Aaron, who was born in Cayman and grew up in Savannah, said making a game from scratch for kids during the aftermath of Ivan inspired to her to make a real board game of her own. Despite her strong ambitions, being a full-time mom and working long hours delayed the development and completion of the game.
“I had friends and family that played it all the time,” she said. “It’s the same basic ideas over time.”
Last year she decided she finally wanted to put 100% into the project. “In 2023, I said, let me seriously consider the game, seriously look into it, seriously work on it, finetune it,” she said.
The two decades from 2004 to 2024 was the span of production. “I am ashamed,” she said jokingly of the long road to finishing the board game. “You can say it started in 2004, but I can say I diligently worked on it, every single year.”
Aaron visited the Cayman Compass office recently to demonstrate the game, with her niece Adriana Dixon as her opponent. As they played, Dixon said the game has come a long way since she and her aunt first played it on paper.
Rivalling Monopoly?
Aaron, who worked in the banking and finance industry for years before going into business for herself in 2022, says she has high hopes for her board game, believing it can compete with some of the most popular games in the business.
“Why not go big if you can? Every household might have Monopoly, why not have a PullOver game? My goal is every household needs to have one of these games, at least locally, but also internationally,” she said.
Since the game is not specific to Cayman, it can appeal to anyone, anywhere, and can be sold worldwide, she says.
A player of board and card games long before computer games became popular and available to everyone, Aaron says she loved playing Old Maid and Uno, and says PullOver is a “mashup of everything from childhood to today”.
To this day, she says, she still prefers playing board games over digital games, as they bring people together and allow everyone to partake and have a good time.
“I love the aspect that we can come together as friends, family, [in a] social setting, you know; I love the kind of setting that board games allow, instead of individually on your digital game,” Aaron said.
She added, “If I’m not laughing or if I am not having fun, and if it’s too much strategic thinking, no. Because I had a full-time job at the time, and I have to do all my strategic thinking at work and making all these decisions at work, so, when I play a game, I need a game to make me have fun, laugh, and enjoy interactions.”
She reached out to a board game company in the US to help her with manufacturing the game, which is now, finally, a reality.
Aaron will be hosting a ‘meet and play’, on Saturday, 27 July, at the George Town Historic Library from 10:30am to 1:30pm where families can meet the game creator and try out PullOver.
Henri Morineau is a Cayman Compass summer intern.
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