Deep Regrets Board Game Art - A Deep Dive into this Creepy Fishing Game - Interview with Judson Cowan (Issue #70)
“There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Judson Cowan, a designer, artist, and publisher whose new game Deep Regrets filled me with both excitement and terror.
It’s not the first time I’ve been drawn in by Judsons art. About five years ago, I backed a game on Kickstarter called Hideous Abominations. In the game, you are presented with a carnival of body parts and, as a mad scientist, are tasked with combining them to create your own monsters. I love a macabre theme, but what drew me in was the playful artwork.
Judson is back with a brand new game, Deep Regrets, that combines fishing with the horrors that could lurk beneath the surface. Discover why this game hooked me below!
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Thanks for joining us, Judson! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me! I am all over the place. Professionally and mentally. Obviously, I’m a board game designer, but that’s been new to me in the last four years. I’m a musician, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a photographer, a filmmaker, a gamer, a climber, a horror fanatic - I like being able to do and try everything (except sports, I could not give two shits about sports).
Weirdly, I’ve never really liked calling myself any of those things. I’m just a person who does things; I do some things more than others. I feel like avoiding being put into a specific bucket is an important part of my personal brand.
“I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien.”
BORING RECAP OF CAREER: I’m originally from the States and studied design and photography at uni in North Carolina. I worked for about a decade in the ad industry as an art director in Atlanta, Georgia. I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien. I’ve always had a side hustle of doing music for commercials and games, most notably Ben10 and Rogue Legacy, respectively.
And I’ve made a name for myself in the Soulsborne community doing maps and fan art of the video game Dark Souls. Before I moved into board game design, I spent about a decade in-house at Skyscanner, where I was a creative director and people manager.
Forgive an obvious question, but what comes first, theme or mechanics?
Theme and mechanics are so intrinsically linked I have trouble considering them individually. Take Deep Regrets, for example: the first time I thought about it, I already knew that I wanted a horror fishing game that featured heavy push-your-luck mechanics, dice used for strength, multiple depths and shoals, and a strong focus on exploration and discovery.
I developed the visual style, the theme, and the gameplay all simultaneously. I was even thinking about what the trailer, marketing, and box would all look like and how they would tie together the first day I started working on the game – I’m designing an end-to-end experience, not just a game. So, what comes first? The experience comes first. And theme and mechanics both serve the experience.
There’s a Maya Angelou quote I really like:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That’s how I think designing games should be approached: how do I want to make people feel? And how do I use theming and mechanics to create those emotions?
What is your attraction to SPOOKY STUFF when it comes to theme?
I’m just a SPOOKY GUY, I guess! I’ve always been obsessed with spooky stuff. I grew up making haunted houses for trick-or-treaters in my front yard. I was weaned on Scooby-Doo, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And I’ve honestly just never weaned off. All my favorite things are horror - movies, books, games.
I actually spent a season moonlighting at Netherworld in Atlanta, scaring people professionally. I once scared the rapper Bow Wow! He always brings his crew through the haunt every year.
The first game I designed was about building and running your own haunted attraction called Fright House. It’s a forever project that may never be finished, but I really hope to come back to it at some point; it’s very close to my heart!
You are the designer, graphic designer, and illustrator of your games. What are the advantages of doing it all?
There are a few advantages, but I think the most important one is velocity. Because I don’t have many external dependencies, I can move very quickly. I know what I’m trying to achieve, and I can get there very quickly because I’m not waiting on someone else to pass back design/art/development work.
The other key one is control. Coming back to this idea of crafting experiences, being able to control every aspect of that experience provides a very “auteur” approach. I hope that you can feel a lot more of my personality in my games than you might in games made by larger teams since I’m very carefully controlling every aspect of it.
The downsides are equally important: you don’t have a team to bounce ideas off of, you work in relative isolation, and you’re a huge bottleneck for your projects. I’ve tried to balance these negatives a bit by moving into a shared office space with other board game designers, so I have people working in the same discipline nearby at all times to chat with and get support from!
As a one-person studio, how important is playtesting and feedback?
I learned the importance of user research and feedback in my corporate life, and I brought that mentality with me to board game design. Here, user research is just playtesting, and it’s critical to making good games.
You can always tell when a game didn’t go through the proper amount of testing or was only tested by close friends and family who were too polite to give it the proper dressing-down it required.
I have a dedicated group of playtesters that I trust and work with a lot, but I also try to attend meetups and go to board game cafes and such to play with people I don’t know. Plus, looking for localisation partners gives a lot of very diverse feedback from very different cultures as publishers play your game to see if it's a good fit for their catalogue.
It’s important to get a variety of perspectives and consider how you’ll implement that feedback into your game.
In an early version of the game, madness was a universal scale - it did the same things, but it affected all players unilaterally. This was quite cool because it meant you could put pressure on other players and decrease the value of their fish. The downside was that Regrets didn’t do much. They drove up the global madness when acquired, but the only other effect they had was to force the player with the most to lose their most valuable fish.
In playtesting, the feedback I got was that Regret cards felt meaningless and extraneous. Ultimately, that feedback encouraged me to part with the idea of a global madness track in favor of individual player madness tracks. I lost a bit of “take-that” in favor of greater player agency and greater thematic integration of the Regret concept, and the game is much stronger for it!
In your opinion, what are the crucial elements of good graphic design?
If you’re familiar with Dieter Rams, the German industrial designer, he has a philosophy I really like: as little design as possible. Design serves a function, and extraneous design elements should be removed wherever possible.
When he was working, he had a very clean, minimalist approach. That approach is not correct for (most) board games. The “as possible” quantifier in the “as little design as possible” is super important - a lot more elements are required in board game designs to help with comprehension, engagement, and entertainment.
Often, things that serve a strictly aesthetic purpose ARE necessary in designing board games because, again, you’re designing an experience, and those design elements can enhance that experience. That’s still essential design.
I do think there’s a balance to be struck. I think a lot of games get overly decorative and detailed and it starts to be a bit like typing in all caps. An individual card might look nice when viewed up close, but the table viewed from afar starts to look like a bowl of rocks. There’s no discernable focal point. I wish more designers considered the entire board state as one composition when designing.
Squint at a photo of Everdell, then squint at a photo of Brass Birmingham. Both have strong illustration and design elements, but Everdell considered how it would be viewed at a distance, and Brass did not.
Everdell is recognisable from across the room because of its contrasty elements and unique forms - everything works beautifully together and stands apart from one another. Let’s just ignore the big annoying cardboard tree, which is a design decision that I think Dieter Rams would absolutely chuck in the furnace. It actively worsens the gaming experience and is just there as a gimmick. That’s not essential design.
What is your method for creating art? Are you digital or analog?
I love physical media and I love working with my hands. All of my illustrations start in ink. I do colour digitally on an iPad in Procreate, but I try to keep a tangible hand-touched element to each one.
I think working in ink forces a nice acceptance of imperfection. Watching people draw on an iPad is fascinating because they’ll draw and erase a line 10 times before they get one they like. With ink, you get one shot. You have to commit.
I like the way that forces you to accept the decision your hand made and move on instead of striving for some fictional perfection.
You can always redraw but I generally try to avoid this as much as possible. I might redo my pencils a few times before I get an outline I’m happy with, but once I move to ink, I usually stick with my first pass, except in rare circumstances. Another creative philosophy I really like is Miles Davis: he thought spontaneity and expression were more important than perfection.
I also like that it creates physical artifacts. I have all these folders of ink drawings and I’ve started selling them as part of my Kickstarters and on my site. That really resonates with people! Owning a physical part of a game’s creation process is something people find a lot of value in!
Deep Regrets features a monstrous deck of creatures. Where did the inspiration come from for the over 100 unique fish in the game?
50% of them are real things, it’s an even split of fair (real) and foul (fake) fish. I did a tremendous amount of research to find a mix of interesting fish and to learn about their anatomy and behaviour to help inform their mechanics.
I think my office mates got tired of me saying things like “did you know Pacific Islanders used to sacrifice Giant Trevally in place of humans?” or “did you know garfish have green skeletons??”
There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish. I wound up utilising the uncanny valley quite a bit! Making fish more human-like made them far more disturbing. Lots of fingers, big white eyeballs, that sort of thing.
In fact, one of the most disturbing fish in the game is the “human” you can catch at depth III. It just makes no sense that he’s down there, and that’s terrifying. And you can eat him to refresh the dice.
Do you have a favorite piece of art you created for Deep Regrets?
I just love Frod. He’s the first character I designed and he encapsulates the feel of the game so well. Lovecraft, but goofy.
Scooby and the gang investigate Innsmouth. I love him so much that he became the Automa opponent in the upcoming Buttonshy version of the game Shallow Regrets.
Any advice for someone considering creating and publishing their own game?
Just f***ing go for it. There’s plenty of good advice I could give you, but I’m a big believer in letting people make their own mistakes and learn from them. You won’t nail it on the first try, you’ll struggle, you’ll stumble along the way, but all of that will craft you into something interesting, and you’ll make better games for it.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m a big horror film fan, I probably pull the majority of my inspiration from that world. One that really set my imagination ablaze was Annihilation, so much so that I watched about four times and then bought and read the entire Southern Reach trilogy because I was hungry to explore more of that absolutely bizarre world. I need to pick up the fourth book!
Some of my favorite horror flicks from the last few years are, in no particular order, When Evil Lurks, The Vourdalak, Late Night with the Devil, Long Legs, In a Violent Nature, Barbarian, Oddity, and Hold Your Breath (full transparency, I did the credits for that one).
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, or you can visit my website tettixgames.com!
All images provided by Judson Cowan.
Confusing Lands Board Game - Combining Art & Game Design - Interview with Zak Eidsvoog (Issue #69)
“I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Zak Eidsvoog, an American artist and game designer. I get a huge amount of joy from discovering new (to me) artists, and I hope you enjoy discovering his work as much as I did.
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Thanks for joining us, Zak! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, thanks for having me! I’m a graphic designer, illustrator, and game designer (although I never know which order to put those in, haha). I was born in the Seattle area but grew up mostly in Portland, Oregon, where I now live with my wife and our dog, Kodi.
Pretty much all of my current creative pursuits began in college (in the early 2010s), where, after a couple of years of studying mechanical engineering, I decided to switch majors to graphic design with a minor in visual art. This was also around the time I got into hobby board gaming and started experimenting with game design myself.
A couple of years after graduating, I started freelancing for some indie board game publishers as a graphic designer and illustrator while working on my own game designs on the side. I’ve been doing all that for a little over 10 years now.
I’ve always had a balance of game and non-game-related clients, but at this point, I’ve worked on 20+ client games in some capacity as a graphic designer/illustrator. As for my games, I have a handful that I’ve released myself as print and play games online, as well as my first published game, Confusing Lands, which was released last year.
Do you have any advice for anyone trying to break into the industry?
My advice for anyone trying to break into any creative field is to start making whatever it is you want to be making professionally (art, graphic design, games, music, whatever). Clients will be more likely to hire you if they can see you have done the kind of thing they are looking for.
If you already have good examples of your work, make sure you’re putting it in front of people who are interested in that kind of thing (have a portfolio site that’s easy to find/navigate, post in bgg forums or on reddit, go to conventions or in-person feedback groups, etc.). Make sure that you’re putting yourself out there and making it easy for people to contact you and get a quote if they’re interested in working with you!
I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love (Impulse by Carl Chudyk) and then shared images and some of my process on my portfolio site and on BGG.
Game jams can be another great way to get some experience working on game projects and to make connections with other people interested in games. While there are generally more jams geared towards people who make video games, tabletop game jams are also becoming more common.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a process for starting new projects?
Whenever I’m doing client graphic design/illustration, my first step is always to interview the client and make sure I understand what the goals for the project are and what makes it unique. Sometimes, there’s room for me to bring some out-of-the-box ideas before settling on something and moving forward.
For those kinds of projects, I’ll do brainstorming exercises, gather visual inspiration, and create mood boards & sketches of potential creative directions. Other times, things are pretty locked in, and it’s just important for me to get up to speed and work with what’s already there.
How does your approach change when working on your own projects?
For my personal game designs, I would say that I’m a mechanics & game-feel first person. Usually, the very first test I do with an idea is to take as many blank cards or other components as I think the game will have and practice shuffling and dealing and moving things around, imagining how the game will feel to the players.
I tend to design my early prototypes in a somewhat abstract, themeless style to keep things flexible as I test out ideas. Laying things out this way helps me avoid getting carried away with the visuals before the gameplay is solid. Once I have something I like, I’ll either start showing it to publishers or, if it’s something I’m planning to develop myself, I will do my usual process of brainstorming, moodboarding, and pitching myself art and graphic design styles, as if I were doing a client project.
How important do you think the art is when pitching games?
Unless you’re designing something where the art is a fundamental part of the gameplay mechanics (like Dixit or Mysterium), I don’t think art is all that important when pitching games. I’ve heard from most publishers that I’ve talked to that the most important thing is that prototype components be clearly laid out and easy to understand/play with.
Keep in mind that some publishers may like your game but have a different theme they want to publish it with, or they might have specific artists they like to work with whose art style more closely matches their brand.
With all that being said, because I am an artist and a game designer, I will sometimes have ideas that I choose to develop in a more holistic way (with the art informing the game design and vice versa). When that happens, I think it’s ok to embrace doing both art and design, knowing that things might need to change later or you might end up going more in the direction of self publishing. This was essentially what happened with my game Confusing Lands although I was lucky enough to find a publisher whose vision for the game was pretty aligned with what I had already done myself.
Confusing Lands has a whimsical, lighthearted art style. Where did the idea for this board game come from?
‘Confusing Lands’ was one of three 18-card games I designed between 2020 and 2022 during the first few years of the Covid 19 pandemic. The other two are ‘Double Date Simulator’ (available as a print-and-play game on my itch page at zak-makes-games.itch.io) and ‘Solitairra’ an as-yet-unreleased solitaire game.
Like most of my games, Confusing Lands started with a very simple, somewhat abstract art style. However, even from the beginning, I imagined a lush landscape with rules that would prompt players to build very different ecosystems from game to game. As I developed the game more, the mechanic of stacking things on top of each other — as well as the random shapes formed by the cards — led me to think it could be a game about wacky floating island chains.
What does Confusing Lands art tell us about its world?
My initial goal for the art in Confusing Lands was to find a style that would look really pretty once players had finished gathering and placing cards to complete their landscapes. I first explored a more painterly style, thinking that it would add to that lush, picturesque feeling I was going for.
However, because the art serves such an important functional purpose in the game (it’s how players tell what type of terrain a given space counts as), I quickly found that I needed an approach that would make each space’s terrain type stand out more clearly.
This led me to the final art style for the game, where each terrain type has a bold outline and a specific color associated with it. After testing out this more cartoonish style, I was pleased to find that the final landscapes still look quite pretty, with the added benefit of being easily readable.
As for the world of Confusing Lands, I knew from the beginning that I wanted the game to depict the harmony between all the different elements within the game’s world (plants, animals, people, etc.). I do think the bright, cartoonish style that I ended up using helps give a sense of positivity and symbiosis to the world which people find appealing.
You’ve mentioned you’re mechanics first when designing games. Did you draw any inspiration from other games when creating Confusing Lands?
Gameplay-wise, Confusing Lands was inspired by a number of tile/card-laying games, most directly Micro Rome, Tiny Islands (digital) and Isle of Skye. All of these give players scoring conditions to influence tile placement but I wanted to see what would happen if the scoring conditions themselves were part of the tiles/cards and therefore a larger part of the players’ decision making process. When I designed Confusing Lands, I was also playing a lot of Lost Cities, and I wanted my game to capture some of the tension of committing to new scoring opportunities in that game.
After testing out several different approaches, I settled on the system where each scoring condition you take subtracts 10 points from your final score. This sometimes means that players will score in the negatives after their first game, but I’ve found that adds to the charm and usually makes them want to try again and improve. The name Confusing Lands is kind of my way of saying, “Don’t feel bad about your first score; it’s supposed to be confusing!”
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m currently reading “Masters of Atlantis” by Charles Portis (author of True Grit). It’s a fictional account of a secret society founded in the early 20th century and it has been a super fun read so far. I also recently read the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time, which really had an impact on how I think about life and art in general. A couple of great art books I picked up recently are “Umbra” by Jordan Speer and “Houses with a Story” by Seiji Yoshida.
Comics-wise I’ve been following the webcomic “3rd Voice” by Evan Dahm, as well as anything that Simon Roy puts out. Pretty much the only TV show I watch these days is Taskmaster, but as a game designer I find it very inspiring and enjoyable (my wife and I are eagerly awaiting the next season). We’ve also started renting older/foreign movies from the library and two really great ones we saw recently were After Life (1998) and Petite Maman (2021).
Besides all that, I find a lot of inspiration in nature, especially going on hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or along the Oregon coast. My wife is a singer and we have a lot of friends in the performing arts, which I’m super grateful for. Being part of a community of people working to make art always inspires me to keep working on my own projects.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me at zakeidsvoog.com and on pretty much all the socials at @zakeidsvoog, although Bluesky is probably where I’m most active these days. You can also find my personal games that are available for print and play at zak-makes-games.itch.io. Lastly, if newsletters are more your thing, you can sign up for mine at zak-makes-games.beehiiv.com/subscribe for occasional updates on the art and game design stuff I’m working on.
All images provided by Zak Eidsvoog.
Fame & Fable Board Game Art - Creating New Fantasy Worlds - Interview with Owen Davey (Issue #68)
“Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable…”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Owen Davey, a British game designer and illustrator whose bright and vibrant art style for the Fame & Fable board game stopped me in my tracks.
If you’ve visited my site before, you might notice it’s been a while since my last interview. This site has always been a passion project of mine, and I’m excited to return in 2025 with new interviews. Enjoy our conversation below.
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Fame and Fable - Board Game Cover Art
Thanks for joining us, Owen! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me. I'm a father of three kids and a freelance illustrator based in Worthing, UK. I've been working professionally as an artist for nearly 16 years now. I work across the whole industry really, regularly working in publishing, advertising, editorial, apps, packaging and teaching.
Where might we have seen your work?
I've worked with clients including Google, Disney, National Geographic, WWF, London Zoo and more. I like the variety it brings to my day-to-day work life. I've also had more than 40 books published, many of which I authored - often non-fiction and focusing on animals and nature.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a first step for new projects?
Research - it is pretty essential for my process. I have to explore whatever brief I've got, try to understand it in as much depth as I can, and then try to find inspiration within that. Often if I get stuck for ideas, research can dig me out of that hole - the world is a fascinating place with many topics that appeal to me, so I generally just follow my curiosity.
One of the things that I love about being an illustrator is that nobody else would create something in the same way as me - all my influences and interests are wrapped up in each project, so my experiences and my life shape a lot of what I create. That research to curiosity to inspiration process pipeline is where a lot of that stems from.
Fame & Fable board game on the table
‘Fame and Fable’ looks gorgeous. What made you want to create your own board game?
I've been a lifelong board game enthusiast, but over the past several years, I’ve fully immersed myself in the hobby side of it. It’s no longer just about the classic family staples or traditional card games; I’ve developed a deep love for in-depth thematic games that can easily steal hours of your time.
After the lockdowns in 2020, I felt an even stronger urge to step away from screens and spend more time with friends. That’s when I started engaging in regular game sessions — sometimes packed with a variety of short games, and other times devoted to tackling one sprawling epic.
Owen Davey - D&D Character Art - Anara
I’ve also started playing more solo games, but my favorite part of the day is still unwinding with my partner in the evening. Once the kids are asleep and the house is tidied up, we dive into a game together — it’s become such an important ritual. During lockdown, I was also part of a Dungeons & Dragons group and eventually took on the role of Dungeon Master. I poured so much energy into it, homebrewing everything from NPCs and monsters to items and locations.
I became obsessed with not just describing the world but illustrating it too, so my players could better visualize the adventures. When someone else took over as DM, I found myself left with a treasure trove of artwork and no clear purpose for it all. That’s when I decided to combine my passions for fantasy, board games, and illustration to create something new. Years later, that passion project has grown into Fame and Fable.
Fame and Fable Board Game Prototype
Fame and Fable’s world feels unique while paying tribute to classic fantasy tropes. Where did your inspiration come from?
Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable. The tone is playful, blending the grand, folkloric feel of epic tales with humor and a sense of fun—something that will feel right at home for anyone familiar with the TTRPG space.
What is the central hook for the player’s place within the world?
The game's lore centres on a realm overrun by monsters wreaking havoc across the land. Your mission is to gather allies and items to confront these threats head-on. In solo mode, the game introduces six key locations, each delving into classic terrains often explored in fantasy works. Fame and Fable aims to strike a balance between something familiar and new, offering a fresh perspective on beloved fantasy tropes while remaining rooted in the joy of storytelling.
Fame and Fable - Monsters
Fame and Fable features over 150 unique artworks, which, let's be frank, is a lot. How did that happen?
The game grew in scale over time. I had some artwork from my D&D campaign, but there was so much more I wanted to include. I wanted a wide range of card types and abilities for replayability, and that just kept expanding. No complaints, though—I loved it. I’m still illustrating potential characters and monsters for possible Kickstarter stretch goals and maybe even future expansions.
With a list of illustrations that long, what was your process for creating it all?
With anything this massive, it’s all about taking one step at a time. Thinking about 170 artworks from scratch feels impossible, but aiming for 20 more in a month? That’s doable. Breaking it down into smaller, achievable goals kept it from becoming overwhelming. Logistically, I had spreadsheets constantly updated to keep everything balanced and these big mega-files where all the final artworks were stored. I also have a habit of keeping every old version, so I probably have hundreds of Illustrator files.
My ideas usually come at the most random times—falling asleep, washing up—so I jot them down on my phone and later turn them into research. That research mixes with a healthy dose of imagination before making its way onto the page (or, more recently, the iPad).
Sketching is the easiest part for me—I've made a career out of drawing, so that part feels natural. The iPad lets me be loose with the process. I can swap out heads, try new outfits, or even randomly turn a character into a duck. No rules, just the rule of cool.
This whole project is about play, from how I created it to how it’ll be used, and the artwork reflects that. Once I’m happy with a sketch, I bring it into Illustrator to create the final lines digitally. Then I add colour using a restricted global palette—this keeps everything cohesive while also saving time since I don’t have to build a new palette for each piece. Each artwork takes at least a couple of hours, but some took much longer because they were trickier to get right.
Parents will never admit to having a favorite child, but do you have a favorite piece of art you created for this game?
I really like The Cursed—she’s got these epic muscles, cool braided hair, and a big flaming sword. Total badass. But I also love The Shepherd, who’s the complete opposite—he’s got a wide-brimmed hat and looks kind of like a sheep. I enjoy flipping those roles.
A lot of the cards have little hidden details inspired by research. The Shepherd has only one central eye, which is a nod to The Odyssey—Polyphemus, the cyclops in Homer’s tale, was a shepherd, so that felt like a fun connection.
Mechanically, The Cursed is a fan favourite because she can sacrifice herself to deal massive damage, while The Shepherd is great for annoying your friends since he collects their exhausted cards. My favourite part of this whole process has been designing cards that feel thematic—I really want the storytelling aspect to shine through in the game.
How is creating board games different from your other work?
It's an interesting task having to Art Direct yourself. I love working with my regular clients but it was really fun to allow my creativity to run wild. The difficulty is that there's nobody to sign it off. I have to decide if it's done or not and whether it works. I've definitely leant on friends throughout this process to help me check if things are actually cool, or maybe don't work as well as I thought they did in my head. The game wouldn't exist as it is now without their invaluable insights.
Fame & Fable Meeples
Have there been any particular challenges in creating your first board game?
There was a massive learning curve in figuring out how to design a game. I quickly realised that just because a mechanic works, it doesn't mean it’s fun. And because of the type of game Fame and Fable is, where each card works slightly differently, it meant that a LOT of playtesting was needed.
Each card has to make sense to multiple people and be as devoid of misinterpretation as possible. I was definitely not aware of how much work it would be to make my own game, but I've genuinely loved every second of it. I can't wait to build expansions for this game and develop other ideas I've had.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Card Art
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I've just finished rereading another one of the Brain Jacques Redwall books - Martin the Warrior - and now I'm delving into Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' - I'm loving the lore of the Allomancy. I've also been listening to various history podcasts, which often spark me to go research something I'd never known about before, from a certain type of weapon to a war I'd never heard about. I've been watching Hilda and Scavenger's Reign on Netflix - both of these have incredible world-building and just happen to be stunning visually.
Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to work as an artist?
Meet deadlines. Make awesome work. Check contracts. Look after yourself. Get yourself out there and show your work to your audience or the people that might commission you.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Board Game
Finally, where can we find you to see more of your work?
The best place to find more stuff about Fame and Fable is to follow me on Instagram at @fameandfable or sign up to the Kickstarter prelaunch page where you'll be notified about when the game launches - there are some early bird treats, so definitely back early to make the most of them.
Owen Davey - Fame & Fable - Group Art
All images provided by Owen Davey
Hedge Lord Board Game - Handmade Games and Traditional Methods - Interview with Timbrook Toys (Issue #65)
“The appeal of handmade products is that each item has special details which reveal the hand that made it.Working with irregular surfaces results in the kind of printing imperfections that distinguishes handmade art from mass-production… “
Welcome to issue 65 of my series sharing the stories behind board game art. This week, I wanted to bring to your attention a small company called Timbrook Toys, which is creating handmade games in Huntsville, Alabama. This project made me feel nostalgic for a bygone era, and I want to see more games like this in the modern era. I hope you enjoy this interview and a small insight into their work.
For more great insights into board game art, be sure to check out the interview archive.
Hi Dustin/Molly, thanks for joining me! For our readers who aren't aware of your work could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Dustin - Thanks for featuring us on your blog, Ross! I’m an artist who has lived in Huntsville, Alabama for a little over a decade now. I’ve worked professionally in a lot of creative fields during that time, including a lot of social media marketing and video production. A big part of what drew me to live in Huntsville is our local arts venue, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment, which is actually the largest privately-owned studio art facility in the US. Being a part of this diverse creative community has been a highlight of my life. Outside of making art, my favorite pastime is probably watching British murder mysteries with Molly and our dogs.
Hedge Lord - top down view of game components
Molly - I've known since I was little that I wanted to write for a living. I'm a technical writer at one of Huntsville's many tech companies; my background in technical writing really informed how we wrote the instructions for Hedge Lord. As an aside, while Huntsville does have a burgeoning arts scene, Huntsville is more commonly known as "the Rocket City" or, sometimes, "the Silicon Valley of the South;" many technologies that got humans into space were developed by NASA in Huntsville and the city has attracted technology companies ever since. In my spare time, in addition to watching too many British procedurals with Dustin, I read, bake, and train our deaf dog, Ernest, who we adopted a few months ago.
Hedge Lord - Concept Sketches
Have you always been into games and puzzles?
Dustin - I’ve honestly never been much of a gamer, so it’s surprising to have a game be one of the most popular projects I’ve ever worked on. Molly and I did have a brief phase of being obsessed with the idea of obscure, failed games relegated to thrift store shelves despite being good ideas. The magnet-based game Touche' is one that we found during that time that fits the model. That idea of losing a game to history certainly had some influence on Hedge Lord, which we designed to have the feel of something uncovered from a past era.
Hedge Lord - Game art spread
Molly - Same. I appreciate a good board game, but I wouldn't have called myself a fan of board games until recently. I like how board games can create a kind of community, whether it's only for the duration of the game play or as a regular occurrence over the course of weeks or months as you play a game regularly with friends or family.
Hedge Lord - First game prototype
You've created your own game called Hedge Lord! What is it, and where did the seed of the idea come from?
Molly - Dustin and I were on vacation in Asheville, North Carolina in the fall of 2017. On the drive from Alabama to North Carolina, Dustin talked incessantly about gears. How to make them, how to make things with them, and all the endless possibilities afforded by gears. Eventually, this postulation turned into a line of inquiry along the lines of "What would a gear-based board game look like?"
We visited the Biltmore Estate, while in Asheville, a manor built in the late 1800s and the largest privately owned home in the United States. While touring the Biltmore grounds, we noted how inappropriate it was that for all of its grandeur, the Biltmore did not have a hedge maze. A hedge maze just seems like the kind of finishing touch you need for a palatial manor house. (Dustin is also obsessed with hedge mazes, even more obsessed than he is with gears.)
So, these two ideas collided. We started talking about what a gear-based, hedge maze board game might look like. We created a back story, rules, and characters on the drive back home, and while stopped at a bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee, I came up with a name for our imaginary game -- Hedge Lord.
We got back into the grind of life when we got back home and I honestly didn't think much about Hedge Lord until I came home to find Dustin fiddling with a paper prototype of the game. From then on, our lives became consumed by developing, testing, and then marketing, selling, and producing Hedge Lord. The gear-based aspect eventually fell by the wayside, but I don't think Hedge Lord is any worse off for it.
Dustin - Like Molly said, I'm just obsessed with hedge mazes. The Jim Henson movie Labyrinth was a huge influence on me as a kid. So was the British stop-motion TV series The Wind in the Willows, which had a great episode where the characters race to solve the hedge maze at Toad Hall. Despite being fascinated by their appearances in TV and movies, I've never actually been in a real hedge maze. If we ever get rich off of this game you can bet we will be establishing one on the grounds of Timbrook Gardens.
Hedge Lord - Early game prototype tests
It sounds like you got well and truly bitten by the design bug. After that first prototype roughly how long were you playtesting the game and what did you learn?
Molly - I think we spent at least three or four months learning how to play the game with a prototype that Dustin made out of copy paper. The circle "hedge pieces" were attached with little brads and the playing pieces were different color beads that had angry faces, for the beasts, and happy faces, for the lords. We made our friends play constantly. The rules didn't change much from what we had in mind in the early days, we talked about it incessantly on vacation, but we did test different ideas, like if the beast should continue playing after the lord has been devoured and when and how the hedge pieces should be turned.
Our friends were really patient to keep playing through every iteration of the rules. Folks really seemed to enjoy the "entrapment" features intrinsic in moving the hedge and some people were frustrated to discover that "camping" their beast near an exit or guarding their lord with their beast were not full-proof paths to victory.
Hedge Lord - game illustrations
Every copy of Hedge Lord is handmade. Could you give us an overview of what goes into creating each one?
Dustin - We wanted these early copies of Hedge Lord to genuinely resemble something manufactured in the early 1900's, so using traditional methods like screen printing and woodworking was a must. Each copy of the game requires a painstaking process that involves 13 stages of screen printing and a lot of time at the drill press. Hopefully soon we will do the milling stage of production with a CNC router, but so far we've made over 100 games the old fashioned way.
Timbrook Toys - Handmade flyer
Hedge Lord - Game flags
We still aren't totally sure how long it takes to make each game because we do things in batches and stages rather than making one game at a time. It's safe to say each game takes 2-3 hours total though. I recently quit my day job to make games and toys full time, so I'm the main person in the shop. Molly still has a day job so she focuses on the matter of running our business and lends a hand in the shop a few hours a week.
Molly - It seems like it might take about thirty hours to produce twelve games, so Dustin's math checks out.
Hedge Lord - printed rules
What is the appeal of creating handmade products and why do you think it's important that people continue to make things this way?
Dustin - The appeal of handmade products is that each item has special details which reveal the hand that made it. I particularly like screen printing projects on wood because every copy that is produced ends up being unique. No two pieces of wood are going to have the same grain pattern, and working with irregular surfaces results in the kind of printing imperfections that distinguishes handmade art from mass-production.
Dustin - With a stack of Hedge Lord game copies
Most copies of our game have some registration errors and places where the wood surface is scarred. As long as the "flaws" in a print don't interfere with anyone's ability to play the game, we consider it a perfect copy. Your copy of Hedge Lord won't be identical to your neighbor's, and that's a good thing!
Hedge Lord - Game Parts
With such a DIY project how have you tried to spread the word about Hedgelord?
Molly - We have been very fortunate that our promotion has been largely organic. Folks seem to like Hedge Lord as much as we do and word spread quickly after we first offered Hedge Lord for sale on Dustin's personal Facebook page. We were approached by Alabama Public Television and the Alabama Media Group as a result of word of mouth promotion and both pieces from both organizations brought Hedge Lord even more attention.
Hedge Lord - Tournament
We've attended events as exhibitors and we've hosted a tournament at a local brewery. Those promotion avenues weren't successful, in terms of sales, but they've been extremely fulfilling in terms of meeting our audience, getting feedback, and sharing some wild games of Hedge Lord.
Dustin - The great thing about board games is that they are shared experiences. Word of mouth marketing is built directly into the product by the very nature of requiring multiple people to play. Since Hedge Lord is fun and people who play it end up wanting their own copy, the game really kind of sells itself.
Hedge Lord - Grid of game lids
What were the goals you set yourselves with this project and how have they changed?
Molly - Hedge Lord is the first of what we hope are many, many board games and toys, but making Hedge Lord takes up most of our time. Our current goal is to find ways to better automate the production of Hedge Lord (right now manufacturing is 95% powered by Dustin) so that we can pursue other ideas, too.
Dustin - In the big picture view we want to develop a whole creative universe around the characters and story of Hedge Lord that takes place outside of the confines of the maze. The business that we hope to build will allow us to focus on design and storytelling through other games, toys, comics, and film. It will be a dream come true to some day hire other artists to help bring our imagined world to life. For the near future though we are buckling down and focusing on making these early edition collectible games.
What are some non-game related creations (books, music, movies, etc) that you’re currently enjoying?
Molly - We watch a lot of murder mystery shows... probably too many. We're enjoying Endeavor (UK) and The Brokenwood Mysteries (NZ) right now. This week, I binge-listened to the podcasts Who the Hell is Hamish and Bear Brook and Dustin has binge-watched Call the Midwife while making games out in the shop.
Spinning top DIY prototypes
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Dustin - We’ve got more fun hand made products designed and ready to sell once we are further caught up with Hedge Lord production. Simple spinning tops, some colorful magnetic sticks for building with, and a really fun wooden watercolor palette.
Those items are fully developed, but we’ve got other games and toys in the works that still need months of design and testing before they are market-ready. These new products are spin-offs of the aesthetic and story we have established so far with Hedge Lord.
Hedge Lord - Game in play
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
Molly - You can visit our website https://timbrook.toys and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages. We post a lot of process and progress videos on Instagram.
All images provided by and copyright of Timbrook toys.
If you’re new to the site, why not stick around a while? There are interviews with some of the best artists in the industry and if you’d like to read more you can them by heading over to the Interview Archive!
Techlandia Board Game - Silicon Valley meets Lovecraft - Interview with Dan Ackerman (Issue #64)
“The key for me was not to just have a guy in a suit with a Cthulhu head, but to have the guy in a suit with a Cthulhu head be just another cog in the corporate wheel…”
Welcome to issue 64 in my series sharing the stories behind board game art. With all of the tech scandals of the last few years, the idea that a secret evil is lurking behind the scenes, pulling the strings, seems less like fiction every day. Techlandia is a board game that takes the premise of Silicon Valley corporations and spreads supernatural horror on top like a thick Lovecraftian marmite. Enjoy this glimpse into its dark reality.
For more great insights into board game art, be sure to check out the interview archive.
Today I'm joined on the site by Dan Ackerman. Thanks for stopping by! For our readers who aren't aware of your work could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
I'm probably best known as a tech journalist, and I've been with CNET, the technology news and reviews publication, for about 14 years, covering everything from social media and hacking to laptops and games. I'm also a pretty regular TV news talking head, mostly on CBS This Morning, and even found time to write a book. Naturally, it was game-related. The Tetris Effect is the nonfiction real-life story of the classic game Tetris, which was created in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and eventually escaped to the West. Fun fact -- not only am I a New Yorker, I'm a native one at that -- born and raised here.
Dan Ackerman - photo by Sarah Tew
You've got a brand new tabletop game on Kickstarter called Techlandia. Now before we get into the game itself, after years as a journalist covering tech and videogames, why make your own board game?
Over the past several years, I've seen a lot of innovation and interesting storytelling coming out of the tabletop community. It reminds me a lot of the late '90s and early 2000s in the indie video game scene. So, when I had an idea for a story I wanted to tell in an experiential, interactive way, my first thought was: "This should be a video game." About five minutes later, I thought, "Wait, this should be a board game!" Precisely because it was about technology and technophobia and high-tech gear, I loved the idea of presenting it in a very analog way, with cards and map tiles. It made for a very interesting juxtaposition, high tech and low tech at the same time.
Alright, elevator pitch time, what is Techlandia and what's interesting about it?
Techlandia combines some of my favorite things about board games with some of my wish-list must haves. It tells a dramatic narrative story with some Douglas Adams satire vibe, it has cool characters on a hex-based map, some exploration, some combat, and the two big things that were key for me -- it fully supports solo play (or up to 4 players), and it'll fit on a normal, human-sized table. As an apartment-dwelling New Yorker, I'll tell you that's a big plus.
It's a modern-day dungeon crawl, where as heroic (but unknown) tech bloggers, you have to sneak into the massive headquarters of Techlandia, the world's biggest tech company. Their CEO is announcing a brand new smartphone on stage in a few hours, and you suspect he's going to use the power of millions of connected new phones to open a portal to another dimension and summon various Eldritch horrors. I pitch it as "Silicon Valley meets Lovecraft."
Techlandia - Light Side
Just to put on your journalistic hat for a second, tabletop gaming has seen amazing growth over the last decade or so. Why do you think board games and RPGs have seen such a rise in popularity and do you think this will continue?
Part of the rise, or re-rise of tabletop gaming has to do with people being burned out on digital. From non-stop news to the negative effects of social media, to harmful "blue light" from laptops and phones, it's become trendy to take time away from screens, and recapture some real-world interactions. The ongoing popularity of vinyl records confirms this, and physical book sales are outpacing digital books again. For games, do many video games are big-budget cookie-cutter affairs that lack any real imagination or originality. They're like blockbuster movies -- all focus group and no inspiration. Tabletop is in a unique position right now where it's big enough to be sustainable and have a decent economic footprint, but still small enough for auteurs and indies to compete .
First time designers often find projects change more than anticipated during their development. Thinking back to your first concepts for the game, how has it changed since then?
If anything, my concept became larger and more in-depth as I went along. The entire thing started as an idle thought after a particularly grueling tech industry press conference. "This should be a video game!" And I brainstormed briefly on the idea of an 8-bit-style narrative adventure. Then, like lightening it hit me: "This should be a board game!" I had been playing a lot of Mansions of Madness and similar games, and a dungeon crawl to escape a terrible tech company was such an amazing idea, I got to work sketching it out on hex paper immediately. It really started to come together when I flipped the narrative -- instead of escaping the tech company, you were trying to break in.
Techlandia - Night Concept Art
Techlandia - Dark Side
I've got to say, it's a great narrative concept. So how did you look to marry that theme to the art?
Techlandia is a satire, in the mode of Douglas Adams or Brazil. But satire works best for me when everyone involved plays it totally straight. The art for the game box, the hex tiles, the various cards and the characters all play it close to the vest. Dark, foreboding, creepy. But when you combine that with the text and the scenario, the humor comes out. The key for me was not to just have a guy in a suit with a Cthulhu head, but to have the guy in a suit with a Cthulhu head be just another cog in the corporate wheel. The ridiculousness and the horror work hand-in-hand, and frankly, except for the actual evil magic stuff, it's not that divorced from the real tech industry.
Techlandia - Concept Art
Where did you find your artist(s) for Techlandia and were there any challenges in communicating your vision for how the game should look?
I've worked on print magazines and websites for many, many years, often very closely with designers, so I brought a pretty solid mainstream media understanding of design to this project. That comes along with respectable skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and the like (I mean, back in my print days, it was all Quark...). For Techlandia, I used three main artists, although I had preliminary discussions with many more, though the Board Game Geek forums, Fiverr and ArtStation. One artists did background and environmental art, another did all the characters, and a third did a single concept piece I had in my head and really wanted to include.
Techlandia - Pinboard of early game board sketches, which eventually transitioned into a hex tile map.
How long did you spend playtesting the game and at what stage of the project's development did you begin?
For me, development, playtesting and even art and design are all part of an organic whole, and you can't separate them. So, I was designing, testing, and sketching concept art from day one. For a narrative game like this, so much of the story is told visually, so if that doesn't work, the entire idea falls flat. One of the very first elements I designed was the player dashboard, which looks like a life-size iPhone. It's something I put together in one afternoon in Illustrator, and it's remained almost exactly the same ever since. Other elements change constantly, including all-new character design reasonably late in the game, when I wanted to shift gears a bit.
Techlandia - Early Prototype
Playtesting is often where board games graphic design elements are pulled into focus and refined. Did you find this was the case with Techlandia and what did playtesting make you more mindful of?
I'm not much of an artist, in that I provided original very rough sketches for a lot of the art, but they were really just pencil roughs. However, my long media career has given me many opportunities to work on page layout, UI and information design, so I'm a bit of a nut for that stuff. After the illustrations were ready, I laid out everything from the box to the rule book to the cards to the online ads. My design philosophy is all about clarity, purpose and narrative. Is the meaning of each design element clear? Does it serve a purpose? Does it advance the story?
Techlandia - Full game layout
Through playtesting, that led me to eliminate gameplay and design elements that did not advance those goals. By doing so, the writing became tighter and more focused, fiddly busywork elements were eliminated, and the visual design hewed towards minimalism wherever possible.
What are some non-game related creations (books, music, movies, etc) that you’re currently enjoying?
I'm a big reader, as many writers are. Some recent reads I'd highly recommend include Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff and Fall by Neal Stephenson. I'm really into authors like Walter Mosley, Richard Price, and Elmore Leonard. But I also love hitting up used book stores for classic mid-century sci-fi and always look for stuff by Frederik Pohl, J.G. Ballard, etc.
The Tetris Effect - Dan Ackerman
Do you have any recent projects, or upcoming that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Before Techlandia, my big project was The Tetris Effect, a non-fiction book from Hachette/Public Affairs. It's a real-life high-tech thriller about how the video game Tetris was created by a Soviet computer scientists in the 1980s, then essentially stolen by western software companies, leading to a huge international battle for the rights to the game. You can find it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold, and it even got reviewed by the New York Times.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
I am very easy to find. ;) You'll see my work on CNET just about any day of the week, where I've been reviewing gadgets and giving tech advice for the past 14 years. I'm on Twitter as @Dan Ackerman Instagram as @danack and I keep track of all my various projects at danackerman.com. Oh, and I do a semi-regular podcast where I interview authors, called CNET Book Club , and that's here:
And before I forget, the Kickstarter page for Techlandia is right here!
All images supplied by Dan Ackerman
If you’re new to the site, why not stick around a while? There are interviews with some of the best artists in the industry and if you’d like to read more you can them by heading over to the Interview Archive!
Phil Walker-Harding: Art in Board Games #4
For me, the funnest part of these titles is when you get a piece to fit perfectly in a space and fulfil a plan you have been working towards. So when I started the design that became Bärenpark, I tried to make these moments happen often and be the real payoff for the players throughout the game..
Welcome to Issue 4 in my series sharing the stories behind board game art. This week, we have Phil Walker-Harding, a game designer who started his career self-publishing games and creating his own artwork. Since then, he’s designed hits such as Sushi Go!, Imhotep, Archaeology: The New Expedition, and Bärenpark. Along the way, he has worked with a variety of publishers like Kosmos, Gamewright, Z-Man Games, Abacusspiele, and Wizkids. On to the interview!
Be sure to check out the interview archive for more great insights into board game art.
Hello Phil, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I'm from Sydney, Australia and I have been designing games for around 10 years, and doing it a bit more seriously for the last three.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
The earliest memory I have of this is wanting to be an author. I was very into reading in primary school and I loved to write my own stories, so the thought of getting to do that all the time sounded great! I studied film at university and have also played music, so I guess I have always wanted to go into a creative field.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
From a young age I played board games with family and friends, and even designed some with my brother and my cousin. Of course, they were very simple and mainly pretty silly versions of the roll and move games we played. When I got into modern board gaming as an adult, I instantly became interested in designing again. After a bit of practice I decided to try my hand at self-publishing my first game, Archaeology.
Prototype of Bärenpark board game (known at that time as Wonderland)
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
When I was self-publishing my designs I started out doing the artwork myself. I had some graphic design experience which was very useful, but I am not much of an illustrator! However, I always tried to make the artwork clear, simple and contribute to the atmosphere of the game. I always started with trying to imagine how the game should look on the shelf, and also on the table. If someone sees the game, or walks past it being played, what art style will draw them in? Now that I no longer self-publish, I obviously have less chance to do artwork. However, I always try to make my prototypes at least somewhat evocative for the players. I think late in the design process, applying good artwork to a prototype can help make the theme and the gameplay experience start to come alive.
Photos of Bärenpark by More Games Please
You were involved in the creation of Bärenpark, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
I started designing Bärenpark with just the simple idea that I wanted to do a game involving polyomino tiles. It took a whole lot of churning through concepts and testing to figure out where I wanted the game to go and what I wanted the focus to be. I would say the biggest single design challenge was figuring out how players gain new tiles to place. I wanted to give the players freedom to choose their pieces, but I also wanted the decisions in the game to be relatively quick and simple. In the end I used a mechanism I had been developing in another game. When a player covers certain icons on their board with a tile, this allows them to claim particular new tiles and add them to their supply.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on Bärenpark?
I have always enjoyed games that use polyomino pieces, such as Blokus, The Princes of Florence, Fits and Mosaix. Playing Patchwork more recently re-ignited my interest in doing a game where these tiles would be the main focus. For me, the funnest part of these titles is when you get a piece to fit perfectly in a space and fulfil a plan you have been working towards. So when I started the design that became Bärenpark, I tried to make these moments happen often and be the real payoff for the players throughout the game.
Photos of Bärenpark by More Games Please
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
For me, inspiration for game design usually comes from playing games rather than any other medium. I always try to play new and unique games as well as games outside of my comfort zone to see if any new ideas trigger in my brain. One day I'd like to design a more complex design that required research and interaction with other creative areas, but this hasn't come up for me much yet. Although, I did eat a lot of sushi when designing Sushi Go!
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
If you want to be a designer, all I can say is - design! Keep working on improving your games and getting them out there. Don’t wait for a big break, use avenues like print and play to just get your games in front of people. You will learn and grow from each experience. Publishing, even on a small scale, is quite a big job in terms of logistics and administration, so make sure you are ready to take that on if you choose that path.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
My new tile-laying game Bärenpark is just being released in English now through Mayfair Games. There is nothing else ready to announce just yet, but expect some new additions to games I have already worked on ;) Lately, I have been trying to design something in the social deduction genre, so hopefully that will also turn into something one day!
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
I have a little web site at www.philwalkerharding.com and I’m also on twitter: @PWalkerHarding
Peter Wocken: Art in Board Games #2
I had visited La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona when I was living over in France, and it was an amazing and beautiful structure! When the game was pitched to me, I got really excited about the setting…
Welcome to Issue 2 in my series sharing the stories behind board game art. Peter Wocken is a Board Game Graphic Designer who has worked on a variety of games such as Sagrada & Dead of Winter, and with publishers such as Plaid Hat Games, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), Floodgate Games, CMON, and a bunch of other companies with “Game(s)” in their name. I’m incredibly grateful he joined me for my site’s second interview!
Check out the interview archive for more great insights into board game art.
Hello Peter thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hi Ross, it’s my pleasure talking to you. I’m a full time freelance Board Game Graphic Designer based in Minneapolis, MN.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be an illustrator or comic book artist. I was super inspired by geeky things growing up, and was constantly looking for new fantasy and sci-fi art. I purchased my first Magic the Gathering cards in probably third or fourth grade just for the art, but I didn’t learn how to actually play the game until maybe five years ago. I was also a voracious reader and read everything in the DragonLance and Star Wars universe.
Dead of Winter: The Long Night
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
I was laid off from Best Buy as a Lead Production Artist (creating signage such as “Hot DVDs Just..”) and was looking to switch up what I was working on for a daily basis. I had some friends that worked at FFG and I knew that I loved gaming, so I applied as an intern and was quickly hired on full time as a Marketing Graphic Designer. After a few years in Marketing, I moved departments and became a Game Graphic Designer.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
I try to start in my sketchbook. It helps me quickly brainstorm components and icons before working on them in the computer. It’s too easy to have work start to feel precious once it’s on the computer, and it’s tempting to keep adding more details. For a while, I was only working on the computer, and when I started sketching again, my hand kept trying to find the keyboard and hit [command]+[z] and undo. At that point, I told myself that when starting a new project, I at least needed to sketch a bit of the brainstorming so I didn’t get too rusty.
You were involved in the creation of Sagrada, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
For most of the games I work on, I’m doing graphic art, so lots of borders, card layouts, logos, icons, etcetera, but I tend to stay away from doing the illustrations themselves. It’s not that I can’t do them, it’s more that my rates are high enough where generally it makes more sense for a client to hire a separate illustrator. For Sagrada though, it’s the seventh game that I’ve done for Floodgate Games. After talking through the visuals during our kickoff meeting, we knew that there wasn’t much need for illustrations since most of the cards were primarily graphics “heavy”. We agreed that I would do the end-to-end visuals on the game.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on Sagrada?
I had visited La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona when I was living over in France, and it was an amazing and beautiful structure! When the game was picked to me, I got really excited about the setting. I had also been playing around with stained glass as a graphical element in a couple of games before Sagrada, Council of Blackthorn and Dark Frontier, so I had been honing my technique. Then, it was a matter of creating stained glass visual elements like they have in La Sagrada Familia, so no gothic super intricate windows with lots of figures in them, but something a bit more modern and abstract. The publisher also suggested creating a gradient across all four player windows, which was an awesome idea, so I just went from there and created thousands of panes of glass, but tried to recycle enough elements between windows where I didn’t have to do everything from scratch.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
As long as I’m not dealing with text or rulebooks, I tend to listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. I recently finished listening to The Wheel of Time series, and now am returning to reading the Dark Tower series, which I revisit every few years. Podcast wise (and alphabetically), I love listening to Board Games Insider, Breaking Into Board Games, Comedy Bang Bang, The Dice Tower, Fear the Boot, Ludology, MBMBaM, Planet Money, Spontaneanation, StartUp, Thrilling Adventure Hour, and 99% Invisible. I’ll also pepper in other podcasts, especially if they’re board game related, so I can stay on the pulse of the hobby game industry.
Bioshock Infinite board game card
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
Do it, but don’t quit your day job until you’ve got a few games under your belt. It’s also important to specialize and get paid what you’re worth. It’s not worth making slightly more than minimum wage unless you’re independently wealthy and are doing it ‘cause you love board games.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
There are a lot of games happening behind the scenes, but unless they’ve been talked about by a publisher, I can’t talk about what I’m working on since almost everything is under NDA. I will say that you should check out News@11, which I’m working on with Floodgate Games. It’s not out yet, and I’m still working on the visuals, but it’s super-duper fun.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
The best place to find my work is at: www.BoardGame.design. I don’t update it nearly as often as I should, but that’s my personal site.
I also tweet at @PeterWocken, am on BGG, and I occasionally update LinkedIn.
(Images supplied by Peter Wocken)