Making the board! (game mechanics + cards)

Board process!

One of my initial sketches for the board

My teacher who specialises in book binding has helped me make the board and taught me how to cover it in book cloth:

The yellow covered cardboard was his maquette. I used it as an example to create my own, on a bigger scale:

I decided to go for a 75x75cm board

Furthermore I covered it in dark blue book cloth so it would have a more polished look:

I attempted to cover the cardboard in 2 different ways to make sure the corners have enough room to be opened and closed. I ended up liking the one on the top more!

This is how the board looks all closed up! A blue pyramid!!!

At this point it was time for a PRINT TEST! (to make sure the design fits well on the board)

At this point I had made 1 small sized board and 2 final size boards. I decided to print a black and white version of the board for the small sized one so I could see how the design fits the board. The corners weren't perfectly aligned but I think it went well for a first attempt.

PLAY TEST TIME

We played it so we can see how much time it would take a player to reach the end of the game (it was around 30 mins) We used paper game pieces and mock playing cards as I hadn't fully developed them at that point.

This game was very useful as everyone gave me feedback on the experience and they helped me make some important decisions about the playing cards and overall design!

Colour print test:

I liked the way the board looked but I felt like it needed some tweaking (please see my other blog post named 'Developing the game board design' for the full process!

Final design print test:

CARDS + GAME PIECES

I used a template found online for the playing cards and the card box (which I opened in InDesign)

Up next I had to decide what font to use for my cards so I found some suggestions online

Researched what are the most popular fonts used for board games:

Went back to InDesign and tried a few of the options mentioned on the website above

I really liked this one a lot (Gill Sans MT Ext)

The text on the cards was inspired by The Egyptian Forty Two Commandments : https://www.perankhgroup.com/commandments.htm

This is how I want the text to be placed on the cards:

The cards have the role of making the player go back or forth a few steps and the JOKER cards have the role of making the game a bit more interesting by asking players to switch places on the board or miss their turn etc.

Up next I had to design the back of the cards. I was inspired by this type of designs:

More visual inspo:

Here's a few designs I came up with for the back of the cards:

For the card pack I decided to go with this design because I liked the beige colour and the simple design! (inspired by egyptian jewelery)

(Alligned it with the card pack template)

Print tests

After a few print tests I decided to choose these colours/designs:

The blue cards affect the person who has pulled the card and the red one affects all players!

GAME PIECES

Used this piece of jewelery as a stamp for my game pieces as I didnt want to use regular plastic ones. This piece has the egyptian life symbol on it and i thought it would work well with the overall design of the board