DREAD
A custom board game where players work together to collect weapons and discover rooms when they find themselves transported into an unknown environment with mysterious threats. Halfway through the game, the board tiles flip over, and one player is overtaken by a creature. Now, the players must fight for survival.
I chose to create this piece because I enjoy thinking through strategy and design. The game is complex and original, and I had a great time thinking through the instructions, play testing ideas, and challenging myself. I am not a designer who just makes things look good. I am a designer who makes ideas a reality.
IDEATION
Exploring the design for this game was a unique challenge. I used a rough pen on Procreate for the hand drawn logo and decided that would be the pen I would use for the rest of the design for a dark grunge mood. I chose a black and white color palette to simplify my illustrations and embody a dark and drastic theme for the game, and the small pops of red highlight important elements in the illustrations. The most time consuming element of this game was creating the concept and rules. I love thinking deeply through user journeys and problem solving, so once I created the game itself, the design naturally followed the conceptual foundation.
ROOMS
The idea for a tile-based board game was inspired by games like "Betrayal of House on the Hill" and "Escape". Creating the game with this element allows for a completely unique game play each time without significantly complicated rules, so it was a strategic move. My room illustrations are inspired by the concept of "The Backrooms", and each room is slightly unsettling and completely random. Instead of designing the rooms with an aerial view of the room layout like many games do, I illustrated them at a unique perspective to create more visual interest.
CARDS
I desired for the card designs to be very clean with unique illustrations on each of them. The icons on the back of the cards are all hand drawn, and all drawings use the same textured digital pen. These cards all have unique powers and abilities that substantially impact game play depending on how they are combined.
CREATURES & PLAYERS
Balancing the characteristics of the creatures was one of the most difficult challenges to do on my own, and I am currently fixing minor balance issues during play-testing. Creating the tracker cards to keep track of health, actions and level ups was challenging too, and I have revisited the design various times.
As I have been preparing to crowdfund and produce this game, I have been reworking the game design and illustration, as well as play-testing and revising elements of the game.
PLAYTESTING
WEBSITE
I designed the website to mimic the game and box design. Halfway through the game, the board flips over and the dark aspect of the game begins. The top of the website explains round 1, and when you scroll, the purpose of round 2 is revealed. Viewers keep scrolling to read more about the game experience.
