I design story-driven board games, combining over a decade of experience in game mechanics with my passion for illustration, design, and user testing. These are passion projects − I manage the project from the ideation phase to the print ready results.
01 Development
In early stages, I keep things pretty rough. As we gear up for external play testing, though, I upgrade the game elements with more illustrations and design.
User testing involves me sitting quietly with a notepad and pencil, jotting down notes and wincing as the players read (and usually misunderstand) the rules. I observe their playing and emotional states, careful not to interfere or help them. The process is enlightening if you can get pass the initial head smack you wanna give yourself.
For story-based digital games, I often create storyboards to map out all possible paths and scenarios.
02 Collectible Card Games
I redesigned card templates from an older collectible card game. Looking back, I could see the attempts at nailing down a mix of dark fantasy and sci-fi in the genre, but it fell flat. Also, the cartoon styles of some of the characters were incongruous to the epic story behind the game.
I looked at templates, font sizes, and patterns from CCG competitors and worked in those best practices. I kept the dark and ancient vibe in the design itself, though.
It's not perfect. While play testing these templates, I could see issues in readability when scanning your opponent's card from across the table.
The most relevant icons from the opponent's perspective were on the right (the left side from the owner's point of view)
Placing icons inside a row made scanning easier for players, but present new challenges. This is the stage I'm at right now... onward and upward!
