Ellie Skalla – Young Inventor of Galactiquest, Winner of Young Inventor Challenge

(Picture credit: Ava Gray, left, a reporter for Scholastic News Kids Press Corps, interviews Ellie Skalla, 11, of Oak Park, creator of GalactiQuest, at the 2018 Chicago Toy & Game Fair at Navy Pier on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018 as appeared in Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times)

When she’s not camping with her fellow Girl Scouts, or drawing in her sketchbook, Ellie Skalla can almost always be found playing board games with her friends and family.

Growing up playing board games, Ellie knew she loved games and the fun that came with them. After seeing her brother enter CHITAG’s Young Inventor Challenge, she decided she wanted to create her own board game and enter in the contest.

Ellie knew she wanted her game to be different from anything else on the market. “I didn’t want my game to be a typical board game like Candyland or Monopoly and wanted every space to be separate. I thought of a game set in space and went from there,” said Ellie. She created a board game with no board, just planets that are their own stand-alone spaces! In Galactiquest, the goal is to conquer more planets than any other player by buying rocket fuel and flying from planet to planet. Whoever conquers the most planets wins!

Pressman Toy saw the opportunity for Galactiquest’s success and chose Ellie as the winner in the Most Marketable category of ChiTAG’s Young Inventor Challenge. “The competition gets better and better every year. We are so impressed and excited for each of these young people,” said David Norman, President of Pressman Toy.

Pressman Toy worked closely with Ellie to bring her game to life, rocketing Galactiquest to shelves in early 2019!