A test pack shot I took – not bad for a lighting set up cobbled together in half an hour using an old vacuum cleaner box, a couple of sheets of white cartridge paper, some tin foil and my girlfriend’s S.A.D.* lamp.
*Seasonal Affective Disorder – basically, if you feel down during the winter due to the lower light levels, using a S.A.D. lamp can help you feel better.
How to use feedback (in board games testing) -
Game designer Jay Treat provides valuable insight into the mindset of the board game tester to help you get genuinely useful feedback from your session.
10,000 Feet to Publishing a Board Game -
Accomplished board game designer James Mathe has produced an incredibly succinct, yet comprehensive, checklist that all wannabe self publishers need to read.
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I’ve had an extended break from designing the board game. I reckon when you’re so immersed in something that requires such a great amount of time and concentration it’s easy to get sickened of it before it’s finished.
Anyway, the rules have been refined (again!) and I’ve started to investigate potential routes for the artwork. The main choice has been between slick Sim City-style computer generated isometric perfection, and a totally opposed, hand made with visible flaws and rich texture approach.
I’ve crudely mocked up a potential style route for the artwork here. All the illustration work other than the train tracks and icons was shamelessly stolen and hacked up from the website of superb illustrator, Abigail Daker (sorry Abigail!), who I’d love to approach to do the artwork for the finished game. It’s not representative of the final artwork, but is rather an indication of a potential route I might take with the style.
I was originally opposed to a hand painted look, as I didn’t want the game to look like it was copying classics like Settlers or Carcassone, but it’s a visual route that fits the themes so well that I think it’s inevitable the artwork will go this way.
Even though it’s a really crude mock up, I think it does a great job of showing the kind of aesthetic potential the game has. Regardless of how the gameplay turns out, if I do manage to get the game published the visuals are definitely going to be a winner.
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Meeple earrings: definitely a present for the more geeky girlfriends (and boyfriends? Who am I to judge?) out there. Buy them at HardBoiledMegg Etsy store. (via Daniel Solis)
Tile laying game, Tsuro, from Calliope Games, is pretty lovely to look at and apparently is a great player too.
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I’m loving this idea for a kind of 3D Carcassone game that Tom Scutt posted to the Board Game Geek forums. There has to be a great game in there somewhere!
Cathedral, by Robert P. Moore, is another rather lovely looking game featuring simple, but beautiful, wooden playing pieces (image from Board Game Geek)
I came across this image of Joseph Hartwig’s rather wonderful 1922 Bauhaus Chess Set via Eye Blog
Interesting information about board games publisher contracts -
Written by board game designer, Tom Jolly.