A Focus on Artwork

Today's post is going to be a little bit different. Instead of being about a specific game we going to focus on art in our board games.

During the worst of covid we decided to put Flying Fish Games on hold for a bit to see what would happen. With so much happening and so much uncertainty we decided to take the time to improving our current games and complete some of our "In-progress" games.

We teamed up with @stirlzzz for the graphic artwork and @flyingfishhd for the graphic layout and product design. Stirling Little creates vivid, eye-catching images with a unique flare all his own. His worlds and characters come alive on the table giving players an immersive theme that draws you into the games. Halldor uses his skills to make the game design, layout and components are easy to read/understand, functional, and enhancing the thematic experience.

We started with NuGEMS, which we mistakenly thought would be a quick one to touch up and has turned into one of the most time consuming projects art wise. We started with some fresh artwork from Stirling for the packaging and marketing and now we are into redoing the card art for all 54 cards in the game. It's been a large project but definitely worth the effort as it's all coming together beautifully for a much better, more immersive game. While we were at it we rebalanced the gem cards and added a 'tools' mechanic to the game to give more variety and strategy adding a fresh design to the layout of the cards.

(Old version artwork and a special edition packaging)

Corporate Sharks is the other large project near completion. For this game we had a number of thematic images made for the game. Stirling created beautiful images showing both the pristine countryside of Unincorporated and the darker world outside. Currently he's creating an amazing collection of buildings to use as 2.5" building tiles which we'll be displaying soon. We've also upgraded most of the components to larger sizes and better quality. The fully designed rulebook with proper images and art is also almost complete. No ones wants to read a boring all text rulebook. Between the graphic art, layour redesign and playtesting, Corporate Sharks is going to be finishing up in the next few months.

(Some of the building tiles used to playtest mechanics and balance. Not large enough to really show off the upcoming art)

(Basic components, Negative and Positive Public Opinion. Easy to understand and use but lacking any flare that ties them to the rest of the game. New custom shaped/designed punch-outs have been made to replace these.)

(Top - An early version of the Corporate Structure Deck. Cardstock, cumbersome, mostly text.

Bottom - We switched to smaller punch-outs and converted to an icon set used throughout the stack. Went a bit too small.

The newest design has a custom shape that interlocks and finally found the perfect size.)

(Left - Original currency. Tiny cardstock pieces were clumsy to handle. boring art/design.

Right - An updated attempt at the currency (Credits). Better design, triangular shape didn't work.)

(2 different early versions of the Shares Deck. We're sticking with the small cards but a new design to match the other design updates.)

The difference between the functional prototype of Corporate Sharks and this upcoming full art version is striking. We can't wait to finish playtesting with this beautiful versionand share it with you!

We love the art and design so much we've turn it into tshirts! Click Here for details about the tshirts. We figure that the art is so beautiful, we should show it off.

While this past year has been incredibly turbulent, the time we've taken to develop the art and design of our games has brought new life and momentum to our line of board games. Drop your email above to see the the newness and it's announced!