Week 11/12

Overview

As we're at the end of the project, we were only focusing on smaller tasks, as we have completed all the necessary tasks in the previous weeks. I've created a poster for the arcade event to promote our game, and Max has been working on painting the counters, as well as both of us thinking of ways to package the game and supporting materials.

Arcade Poster

To advertise our game for the arcade event I've made a poster. The aesthetic and theming of the poster fits that which I've created for the cards and also the rulebook, which helps to reinforce the aesthetic for our game. I wasn't so sure about the background though, so I've made another version without the background.

Arcade Poster

This version is a little clearer I think. There is more contrast between the beast and the background in this version, so it may be more appropriate to print fully, as I know that we've had the same issue with our cards. I've also used the smudge tool on the text to make it seem like the text was written in ink, and has bled into the paper a bit.

Poster and Counters

We had a brief discussion about the posters I created. We've opted for the one with the background, as it has a nice gradient that makes it look more threatening. The texture of the paper is also better shown where the background is darker than the alternative poster I made. Max also suggested making a wanted poster for the beast, so I will be working on that too.

We've also decided on counter colours. There's been a bit of debate, but we came to the decision of the Ranger having a normal gun, the Medic being red, the Thief black, and the Hunter orange. Max is also going to be working on a potential packaging design for what extra characters could come in and be sold as, based off of discussions we had with James last week.

Poster

I've made another poster for the arcade based off of Max's suggestion. I took inspiration from other wanted and rewards posters, and took the opportunity to make use of the frame that's so often seen in these types of posters. Rather than just framing the beast, I put parts of the frame behind the beast, making it seem as if it's crawling out from the frame. This added perspective makes the poster a lot more dynamic. I have realised though in both posters I've neglected to include the title of our game, so I'll be going back and adding that.

I feel as though adding the Kryat logo disturbs the overall feel of the piece, but ultimately the poster isn't of the utmost concern, and it still does its job to a very good standard.

Packaging

Max and I have been discussing the potential design of the packaging for any extra character models we could make in the future. I like the design he's created on Photoshop, but I'm not sure about using spray painting to accomplish the job. I am interested in seeing how it looks though, so I'll wait so I can make a more informed decision.

Rulebook

I've gone back and made a couple changes to the rulebook. The biggest change is the font choice, going from Holy Empire to Book Antiqua. This was the font that most people thought was the most readable and looked the best, so it was an appropriate choice to change it to.

I also realised I neglected to include a page which describes the layout of the cards. As Journey and Item cards follow a similar format to the Creature cards, just without the capture requirements, I used the Creature cards for an example on this page. This will hopefully clear up any confusion about what different parts of the card mean. The inclusion of this page also meant I had to flip the contents of the following pages too, so that they wouldn't be cut off by the binding.

Slack

I've sent Max a slightly bigger Grand Beast card for him to print and laminate ready for the arcade event. A5 seemed too big compared to the rest of the cards, so I opted for a slightly smaller A6 size, which I think should go nicely with the other cards.

Max has also finished the counters, and altogether they look very nice and are representative of each character that we've designed. I'd maybe add another layer of paint, as the coat doesn't look too even, but for a vertical slice I think he's done an excellent job. The mats also look very good together, and I think the suggestions Max made for them before have made them a lot more readable, despite straying from our visual theme slightly.

I've also created a document between us to write up our post-mortem, which is the final big thing we need to complete before finishing the project. Kat and I have completed our evaluations, and we're now just waiting on Max to finish his part.

Arcade Poster

Ed has made me aware of the changes to the time of our arcade event, as well as the venue, so I've gone back to change that information. I've also used this opportunity to decide on using just one of the posters, to keep consistent with our advertising.

Packaging

I've made some conceptual pieces about how we could package the material for our game. The first design for the base game box follows the same aesthetic theme I set out for the design of the cards, which was also incorporated into the playmats too. I think it all fits, but it doesn't really help the logo stand out. The second design is a lot more eye-catching I think, using the design Kat created for the backs of the cards. I also included some supporting information, although this isn't true to the game, rather it's just placeholder information for the design.

I tried creating designs for the character packaging, too. This follows the same design as the box for the game, and therefore has similar issues of clarity with the mossy rock background. I think the forest design is a good look for both package designs. I also used the design that Max created for the playmats to help the name of the character stand out more, which is better than using the design I created for the cards.

Arcade Poster

Max made me aware that Ed thought our poster might look better with a small amount of colour from the Grand Beast to show through. I do think it looks nice, but I think that ultimately the previous poster fits more consistently with the aesthetic that's been laid out for our game.

Post-Mortem

Project Goals:

Kryat is an adventure card game where you capture creatures to gain dice in order to fight Grand Beasts. This is the biggest project that any of us in the team have undertaken, so there was a lot to be learned from the past few months of development.

The ultimate goal for this project was to deliver a completed vertical slice by the 19th of May. We were successful in this endeavor, having completed our vertical slice before our submission deadline, allowing us extra time to consider the progress we made with the game, and what we could potentially do in the future with this project.

Our next goal for the project was to have the vertical slice in a presentable state for the arcade event that we’re holding after our submission. It would’ve been alright to not have completed art for the game, but we wanted to go above and beyond with our project, and I think we were able to deliver to a suitable standard.

Logan

Personal Goals:

As the leader for this project, my primary personal goal was to be successful at managing the project and my team. I was worried about whether I was going to be up to the task, as I was completely out of my depth being a leader for a serious project, but upon reflection, I think I did a successful job. I organised the team into roles within the first week of development, and we were able to get to work almost immediately on the game. I got what days that everyone was able to work and found a day where we were all free to have a dedicated discussion about the week's progress. I also created a scope at the beginning of the project, considering everyone’s speed of work, and setting milestones based off this scope. This scope and the project’s goals were also edited a couple of times based on how we were progressing, to make sure that we weren’t going to go over budget on our scope. Overall, we made sure to have consistent communication with each other. If there was a problem, we would make it known on Slack and work together to solve it, and we’d critique each other’s work to help us all improve.

As far as understanding the pipelines and processes that go into making a card game, planning is obviously very important. Before making the art for the cards, we needed to decide on the format of our cards, as well as getting a feel for the layout. Depending on the layout, the art could have been covered up by the card elements, so I’m glad I caught this issue quickly before too much art was created. Luckily, the pieces that were created were fine, but this is something to consider at the start of producing cards for any future projects. I also developed a good flow for making cards. We would come up with different effects and playtest those, before finalising the mechanic. Then we would create concepts for these mechanics, before creating the final artwork for the card. Then I would come up with flavour text for the card and add the effect and the rest of the text on to the card, ready for printing. This was a very efficient method of development, especially with two team members able to work on the art.

The art direction for the project was very different from what I’m used to personally. I usually work in a more illustrative style, whereas the art direction for Kryat was more painterly, which I’m not very skilled at. However, I think I was able to produce some really good artwork from this project. I mainly flatted out a background for the card, and then used a layer mask to create a space for the main subject matter. The layer mask helped to keep all the brush strokes together and maintain sharp edges that separate the main subject from the background. I would then add some nice lighting as a final detail to the artwork.

My final personal goal was to try and build a community and market the game a little. This was a lot less successful than my other goals. I created both a Twitter and Instagram account for our game where I would post what the team and I had been working on. On Twitter, I tried to be a little more proactive with marketing and promoted the game under different threads which would support indie games, but I didn’t manage to gain much traction with that. I understand that marketing is a very complicated subject, and next time I’d ideally have someone to do a dedicated job marketing the game.

The Good:

Organisation for the most part has gone very well. We tried out different ways to communicate with each other, with Slack as our main channel of communication. We tried out using Trello in the first couple of weeks, but that method was quickly abandoned in favour of using pinned messages in Slack. These were easier to access, and it’s easier having all our important information in one place. We also had a Google Drive where we shared all the files we were working on over the project, so that we could easily collaborate whilst working at home, as well as in class.

I’m very proud of how well the cards came out. Thanks to James’ suggestion, we were able to use MakePlayingCards to print off our cards. There was a small issue with the design for the tuck box, but that was able to be quickly fixed, and the cards were even delivered earlier than expected. The cards look very professional, although it is a little hard to get them out of the tuck box. I also maybe would have changed up the design of the tuck box a little, as the one that we have currently was a quick placeholder. A couple of the card designs could also do with a rework, like the Poacher Camp, but overall I’m very proud of the designs, and the quality at which they were printed.

I think the reason why our game turned out so well was due to the amount of playtesting that we did. We conducted about 14 individual playtests, testing different mechanics, and iterating and improving upon those when necessary, so our game played together very tightly. We took all the criticism we got very seriously, and used it to come up with new solutions to improve upon our game.

The Bad:

There was an issue with getting art for the project started at the beginning of the project, but we were able to fix that almost immediately. It turns out there was an issue with communication, and different parties felt like they weren’t being heard. However, we were able to fix this by initiating conversation, and discussing the problems that we were having with the project. This was difficult to do initially, but after breaking that barrier, subsequent communication became a lot easier, and our overall synergy improved massively.

There was also an issue where one of our teammates had to work from home due to testing positive for Covid-19. This was a very big complication, as without being in person, it was very difficult to show off the different bits that we were working on for the game, as well as how the game would play. Without being able to grasp how the game worked and the progress we were making, there wasn’t much our teammate could do. However, as team leader, I should have made more of an effort to find work that needed to be completed, or made use of other ways of communicating, such as through Slack calls, in order to better show the work that we had been completing so the whole team could understand where we were at.

We did overshoot our project scope a little bit. We intended to finish the designs of the cards by the end of first semester, just before Easter break. However, due to complications with the designing of these cards, we only ended up sending them off two weeks after. This was still before the last week we could have waited to get the cards printed, but I think with a little more organisation and leadership, we could have gotten them printed earlier and saved cutting into Easter break.

There was also an issue with getting the tuck boxes for the cards printed, although this wasn’t a big problem. We were able to get in contact with the company immediately, and send over a new design for the tuck boxes. However, this wouldn’t have happened if more care had been taken when picking out the products, and if everyone had gotten necessary rest to avoid making these mistakes.