Hasbro board game
For my final major project, I am taking on the D&AD brief from Hasbro, which is to make a young adults board game.
The brief is asking me to board game, to get an audience that are probably more into technology now back into board games. I need to make a party game, something innovative and exciting that will make people love games again and realise they aren’t to old for board games. I need to present my idea in a video, with a demo of the game itself and I also need to make a prototype of the board game. My objective is to make a diverse game that is unique and stands out as its own, maybe influence the 80s or 90s in it, just to make that audience more interested. I want to display it in my exhibition on a plinth/table and then have a bit board of the artwork behind the game, explaining briefly what it is and how to play it etc.
How people interact with the game
The way people interact with it is something I want to make the game special for. I believe that a good game invests people to not do anything else but play the game. Some games I have played I have been tempted to either divert or go on my phone etc, And I do not want my game to be like that. I can choose for my game to have just so many elements that the player can’t think of anything else but the game, or i could make a game that has a multiple job role, so each player has a different role in the team so they need to pay attention.
Gamification
Gamification is when a task, or a job is made into a game. It can be made into a game in ways such as offering a reward for finishing the task, scoring the task to achieve something and ruling the task to make it more competitive. This opens up so many doors to ideas of things to do. You can take something so boring that people hate doing and make people instantly want to do it by applying Gamification to it.
Materials
I will need to use materials wisely for my board game. I don’t want it to look cheap, i want it to look a professional standard, because many adults are serious game players and take everything seriously such as the artwork, the concept of the game and the sheer detail in them. I want to add an element to make mine stand out, and the one I am leaning towards most is having 3D elements. Depending on what my board game is, I can use 3D elements for scenery etc. With all of this being said, its a party game also, meaning the detail is obviously something I still want but it needs to be a game that people have a good time playing and not playing it for competition so much.
Theme of the board games
Theming of the board game is very important in my opinion, its the first thing people see before playing the game, so it needs to stand out and needs to make people want to play it. Many competitive board games obviously have the best theming, because whoever made them spent a lot more time making the game stand out to an audience with its theming, then you have games such as Monopoly, that have the same theming and just change the pictures and names depending on the topic (Disney, Star Wars, Marvel etc.)
Board games (Research and Development)
Before doing any research on the internet, i decided to go to Toy Master, who sell not only mass produced games, they also sell games that are limited edition and made by guys who take competitive board games seriously. These photos show some of the board games i found there, some are recognised by most of the UK because they are everywhere and others that are selling for £75-£95 because they are really rare and limited edition.
I had a conversation with the sales assistant in Toy Master, who knew a lot of board games. He said ‘We sell an awful lot of limited edition games, which is why we get so many in, although the price may look steep, many competitive gamers buy these from us’. I then asked him what would he say makes a good board game, like what keeps gamers interested and want to play more, he said ‘I truly believe theming is everything behind a game, sometimes we have games in that look so good on the box i will put one behind for myself and thats all it takes. The Nazi game we have (Middle Left photo) is probably the best we have in at the minute, it involves history in it, which is interesting alone to any serious gamer. Gameplay in a board game is obviously just as important to, the game needs to be enough to keep players interested, some of these games we have, players play upwards from 2 hours, so as you can tell they are incredibly detailed and thought through. Finally i asked him if he had any recommendations for my party board game, he responded ‘I guess just think what can keep players invested. Think about theming, so make it interesting to your target audience and what they would like to see/play. Also think about gameplay, whats the trend now? what will keep people wanting to get together in a party to play your game? what games do you play now, take a look at what makes them so special.’
From my visit to Toy Master for my primary research, I learnt a lot about board games, Its help me to think outside the box with a board game and there is no limit on how unique i can get it, because there are so many games out there, such as the ones in Toy Master that are so deeply thought of and so individual. The sales assistant obviously helped out a ton as well, taking me through the details of the board games and how to make it special just like the rare ones they have in and sell there.
The most popular game worldwide, made by Hasbro is Monopoly. Monopoly is a board game in which players must play to buy different streets and property, collecting as much money as they can until they go bankrupt. There are so many versions of Monopoly that are available now, with the game increasing in popularity from its release, Hasbro have brought out more themes of Monopoly including Monopoly Millionaires, Monopoly Junior and Monopoly Empire (Hasbro, 2014). Monopoly is such a simple concept but can keep people drawn for hours. As a game, I really like Monopoly, I think it is a great game with a great concept and if i have time i really like a good game of it. With it being a very old game i personally think the design is a bit outdated, Its very simple and apart from it being a unique game concept, the design isn’t very unique at all. I want my game to have a unique design behind it, Although i like the simplicity, I want my game to have a bit more detail than Monopoly.
This is another popular Hasbro game called Battleships. Although this isn’t a board game, I included this in my research because of its very unique idea. Battleships is a very popular game, no matter the age everyone loves to play it (Hasbro, 2015). The same idea has been replicated and made more complicated in different spin-off’s but no game will beat the original Battleships. I really like the game Battleships, I think it is so unique. I love the design of the game itself, although it is very simple, i love the concept, i love how it folds into 2 carry cases to make it easy to put away, get out and carry to different places if need be. I would love to try and make my game so it folds into a carry case if possible, it will be very hard to try incorporate that into a board game.
This game is called Cluedo, another made by Hasbro. Cluedo is a mystery game where you have to find out who is the murderer (Hasbro, 2015). Like Monopoly, Cluedo has had many versions of the game made over the years of success such as Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, The Office, Family Guy and more. As a game, I have never really played Cluedo, but i think it is a very good concept for a game, managing to challenge players mind and skill level. Although the board is detailed, I can’t help think that a 3D version would make the design more unique and detailed for the serious game players. The concept of the game is probably my favourite out of what I have researched, I think it is such a unique game idea.
This is the final Hasbro game i have researched called Trivial Pursuit. Trivial Pursuit is a very popular household game that tests players memories by asking them various topics of questions, until they fill in their circle. Many versions have been brought out of Trivial Pursuit, like Monopoly and Cluedo. Some versions have just specific question topics, then you have versions such as Trivial Pursuit Master, In which the board is bigger and the questions are harder (Hasbro, 2016). In my opinion, I enjoy playing Trivial Pursuit the most out of what i have researched, just because I like the element of being tested of my knowledge.
Out of what I have researched, I think all the games are very unique and diverse. Compared to each other, all of them are fresh concepts and ideas that are recognised worldwide. I have learnt that I want my game to be unique, have a fresh style and design to kind of update it with the trend, I want to incorporate elements such as 3D, to keep people invested and for big game players to want to play it because of the detail inside it. The hardest is obviously coming up with an idea for the game, what to do thats different, what to do that is attention grabbing, what to do that makes people want to play my game.
I have sketched down an idea i really like with help from my research that I did. My idea is to have a game that is set in the 80s/90s so that the older audience will already be more interested. My idea is to have it set in Downtown L.A. and have it like a cops and robbers format, so the cops are chasing the robbers from different points of the board. Have the board designed in a very retro, minimalist way like Berlin 82′ or Monument Valley (Because i love the way the graphics look on both of those, its the trend now). I could add the 3D elements by having either the buildings on the street 3D, or I could even make the road pop up like a highway so its 3D.
Here are my ideas for the game itself, I can picture the logo being very retro style, a very bright pink/silver on it, making it look nice. I want it in a similar style design to Monument Valley and Berlin 82 (below) because i love the simplistic minimalist style they both have, I haven’t seen any board game with that style, only digital games.
This game is called Monument Valley (Monument Valley, 2016) is a puzzle game app that tests players strategies with big 3D levels such as the 3 that are above. I love the design on this more than anything. All the colours fit in together nicely, the illustration itself is really nice. It has a very unique styled design which shows quite quirky but professional illustrations of the structure, very box like designs. I would love to have my buildings in this style, I would love for each of my buildings on the map to be detailed like this with different features on it to make it stand out.
This game is a free indie game called Berlin 82′. On it you control a car in a hit and run styled game to try outrun the police. I didn’t know of this game until my tutor showed it to me. I love the concept and more importantly i love the design on it, with every building being unique in its own way, sticking to the same colour scheme and how simplistic it is. Like Monument Valley (Monument Valley, 2016), this one also uses the square shaped design which looks simplistic but looks very nice and unique in its own way. I want to have my board set out like this with the wide roads, buildings etc.
I have a problem with my idea in which I am struggling a lot with, and although i love my idea and concept behind it, believing in it being unique in every way, the brief specifically says it needs to be a ‘party’ game, and I don’t believe my game would really be suitable for parties. I have essentially got to go back to the drawing board and think about what i want. Do i want to keep the same idea but incorporate an element so its suitable for parties? or do i have to completely change my idea. Either way, i am adamant in keeping the same design style and having the 3D elements on it.
I am going to adapt my idea and try and still make it. I need to think as to what people play at parties and how i can incorporate that within my original idea.
These 3 board games i found from the brief itself, it listed a few games that we could look at to gain inspiration and since i need to make this a party game, i will be taking a lot of inspiration from them. The first is called Obama Llama (Obama Llama, 2017). It is a rhyming game in which to win you must figure out the riddle/rhyme that includes a celebrities name on it. It is an insanely good idea for a party game that keeps people engaged and having fun. I really like the idea of the game, but i want my game to be a hard party game, i want people to get frustrated to win. The second is called Bucket of Doom. Bucket of Doom is very similar to Cards Against Humanity in the sense of there is a card czar that decides the funniest and winning person. The objective is to decide the funniest way to avoid dying. It looks like a good game, but i can’t help but think its just a replica of a game that already existed. I want my game to be as unique as i can possibly make it, its going to be hard because there are so many but i will try. The last is a game called Exploding Kittens. It was a game that blew up in the world of board games. The game was a kick starter project made by 3 guys to try and get $10,000 to produce the game. The game ended up drawing a huge $8,782,571. The card game is very similar to Russian roulette, but with a kitten instead. The aim of the game is to be the last one left. You can counter the kitten exploding with certain cards that are picked up by individual players. This is a very cool concept for a game and i really like how it incorporates a game that is played in real life. I think this is really unique and would like to make a game like it. Overall, i really like all 3 games and i think they are excellent examples of what i want my game to be. All 3 have elements to make them great and successful games and the inspiration from them is helping me think a little more.
This is some idea generation that i did to decide an idea that will make a good party game. My idea was to incorporate an already existing game that wasn’t a board game, similar to Exploding Kittens (Exploding Kittens, 2017). My idea was to somehow incorporate truth and dare. I then wrote some of the requirements that the brief was asking me so I can think about what i could do and what i couldn’t do. One of the biggest was the age range, and I needed something that would keep people invested and want to keep playing, this is where truth and dare becomes harder to do. At the same time, I wanted to keep it unique, and although it obviously wasn’t much of a party game, I really liked my planned theming with the retro L.A scene and the cops/robbers style.
This is further planning into my game. I have decided to stick with the same theming, wether that be I take the whole idea or just part of it I don’t know. I am looking to incorporate cards over a board with my idea, so I am coming away from using a board when the brief said we didn’t have to if we did not want to. With my idea having the cops and robbers incorporated with it, It will be 2 teams, one of cops and one of robbers. My idea involves having scenario cards, that will tell a story of what is happening during the time of the bank heist. The goal is going to be that cops have to catch the robbers, or the robbers escape.
My idea is to have the 2 teams (one cops, one robbers) and 10 scenario cards, turning over all of them will complete the game. The action or moral cards are something that people have to do, and if they do, they will continue turning the cards, but if they dont or they fail it, they must pick up a consequences card that will have a punishment or something that will hinder the players progress underneath. Researching further and jotting down ideas definitely helped me but i feel like the game is basic, I feel like it needs more to make it more complex and harder, so people can have a long game and want to keep playing.
This is my new idea for Bad Influence, the board game. It features a big board with squares that players must reach the end on, it has action cards, consequences cards and scenario cards. I like this idea more, it has more of a story behind it and with my interactions, it makes the players more invested and want to play the game. I like the idea of my scenario cards only being turned over when the game tells you to, which makes it last a lot longer than it would before. Most importantly, I have turned it into a party game, a fun game that will make people laugh and want to play as well as being competitive and hard to win.
I am developing my board game even more, to make it more unique. I have decided that i am going to stick with the same cards (action, consequence and scenario), but i am making the board a map now. I am going to feature a couple of different boards with maps of big cities on, where bank heists would actually happen. I am going to make the maps on wood, and engrave the paths where players can go. If i can try scale the map to a perfect size, i can have the players use cars, down the engraved bit. It is going to be extremely hard to do, and it will take a lot of time, but I am willing to spend the time as long as it will be unique and make people want to buy and play the game.
I am planning to do my board in a circular shape, which will feature multiple cities such as Paris, Milan and London. Im going to have the circular board made of wood, engrave the roads so that the players can get their counters down there also. I really like my new idea, I think it is really unique and stands out compared to other board games. It also fits in the theme, me using big cities as maps fits in with the robbers doing a bank heist. Im going to have to look at scaling, and how much I will have zoom in so the smaller roads are acceptable.
I am going to have to use the laser cutter facility at my university to make the board. I need to make deep and big cuts so people can go put their cars down their and move them properly.
I want to make the logo very simple yet retro style to fit in with the design of my game. My game design is minimalist, so i need a logo that will fit into that style. I wanted to do a retro looking logo but it wouldn’t really go with my theme.
I want to create exclusive cars that players can use as their counters. The cars need to be minimalist like the ones i have researched above. I want the cop cars to be similar to the one above and i want the robbers getting away in a fast looking car. I love the look of the cars that candy land have made because they look really nice, they look really minimalistic and simple, which will go with the design of the game.
These scale circular maps are the sort of thing I want to be using for my boards. Im going to have to look into scaling them more so that the thin roads will fit a little car down the engraved bit. With my research looking at the maps, its going to take me a while to get the scaling right as well as the wider roads and the engraved bits. I need to also find a way to make the board spaces, for fair playing, so i need a wide enough space to draw the spaces on. Ive also included the London illustration, although i am keen on the idea of using the big real maps like the Paris one, I love the simplicity of the London one, with detailed illustrations of certain landmarks which is a great idea. Now onto my games logo.
I originally wanted my game retro, when I initially came up with my board and the cops and robbers idea, I was going to go retro. I new what style logo i wanted which is why I came up with this one. But because of it focusing more on the map element, and I love the Monument Valley design, I have decided not to go with the retro logo and go with a more square minimalist design. I really like the logo itself, but it just doesn’t fit with my game.
I then decided to do just a big board full of different font logos and play about with different icons. I really like the bolder fonts, the ones that look sleek and more professional. I really like the outcome of all of them, some have a text style that tells more of a story as to what the product is, and some I have added different icons to symbolise what my board game is about and to make them instantly recognisable for the audience.
This is the one my final logo, the one i decided to use. This one has a very clean bold looking font which is easy to use, It also features map points across the top to make the board game more recognisable and kind of gives away what the game is and the point of it. I really like this logo over all the others that I came up with, I just think it looks more unique also, I have never seen anything like it on a board game before, but it still looks professional.
This is the design for my different cards. I mocked up one card and printed it off to see if the size was ok. The sizing for the card itself is perfect in my opinion, Its clear and easy to read and hold. I asked everyone on the degree what opinions they had about them. I was told to centre the text instead of having it to the side and use the the red backs for the consequences because of the colour being quite an angry colour. I will centre the text on my cards and I think i will have the action cards become blue, so I have the colours of sirens on the board.
I have just finished my final cards for the game. These packed cards are my Action, Consequences and Scenario cards. All have a different colour on the back so they are easy to identify when playing the game and if they get mixed in with each other by accident. I went with the blue on the Action card to represent the police uniform and kind of stick with one theming throughout the game. I chose red for Consequences so that the Action/Consequences cards are like sirens, also red is a very dark colour, it represents failure which is what I want my consequences card to be, I want them to have a huge impact. The colour green kind of represents peace, like its almost a relief to have it and all of the scenario cards will help the team, so I wanted to represent it in a relaxing way.
These are my instructions for the game. I have decided to just go as in depth as possible but at the same time make it simplistic for those reading, because not a lot of people bother with instructions when playing games. I have decided to highlight words in some ways wether that be in caps or underline, just important details that players of the game need to know before they start playing. I am happy with my instructions and I think i have detailed everything that I feel is necessary, so now I just need to design and make it.
Here are some screenshots of my final design for my instruction manual. I tried to make the design as simple and easy to read as possible, because not a lot of attention will be payed to the Instruction manual. I decided to do it on A5 sized paper and I will have it on two pages, so its small and not using a lot of paper. I continued the same theming, with the dark grey colour and the same font. I am very pleased with the outcome of this, It is exactly what I wanted from my manual, professional looking and simple as well.
These are some different materials that can be used on the laser cutter, where I will be making my board. Here we have just plain wood, perspex and slate. I like all 3 materials but only one will cover what I need, the other 2 will be no benefit for me. Perspex wont do me no justice because of it being thin, with me needed a lot of cutting out it could possibly crack in certain smaller areas and is easy to break by accident for people using the board carelessly. Slate is a very nice material and would make it very unique, but is not suitable for my needs, its very hard to cut deep into it, but also its very heavy, which makes it not practical at all. The wood is my best bet. I want a thicker piece than the example displayed in the picture, but also I need it in a circular shape. I will finalise it by maybe sanding the hard sides down so its not sharp, and I will stick a piece of thick card or thin wood underneath to draw the spaces on. Overall I am happy with the wood and will start to use the laser cutter to make my board soon. As well as that, I will need to look at how I can create packaging to keep my game in, but I will do that when I have made the board so I can know definite measurements and what I need to put in it.
In order to make my board as successful and perfect as possible, I want to experiment how the laser cutter will work, how deep I will have to go and how long it would take me to do it. I cut an A5 piece of the map out and laser cut it into the wood that I wanted when I researched.
This is my experimented wood. I cut it at 1mm, to see is it would hold a counter. It is a suitable depth in my opinion because it ables people to move their counter with ease and not get it stuck. My only real disadvantage is the road size, because I complete pen tooled the Paris map, some roads are bigger than others. So this means I need to make the counter fit the smallest road, meaning it will fit all the others. Failing that, I can block off the smaller roads so players have to go around, making the game even harder. Also, the players will have to take out their counter to move it to different roads in different directions. Overall I am really pleased with the outcome of the experiment, its a really ideal depth for what I want and the wood looks really nice. I want my board to then be circular, and I will sand down the sides to make it smooth all the way round.
This is my final board being made in the laser cutter. I have got the sizes perfectly to fit 2 boards on an A2 sheet of wood.
This is just being touched by the laser cutter to mark it, this will help me because I am going to cut straight through, rather than engrave like I experimented with because it took to long.
This is the final cut of my mark up board, and the start of the laser cutter engraving my board, In which i will take and glue down over my first marked up board to make the board more deep and less flimsy.
These are the final pieces. Both have turned out great, but unfortunately I accidentally didn’t join up the line of the road to the edge so it will get cut off, meaning I had some pieces still joined together, which isn’t an issue, I will rip the edges to glue it down and re-cut around my board to give it a smoother edge.
This was me gluing it down to the final board, overall the whole process took about 5-6 hours to get it completed. The cutter itself only took about an hour but then gluing it down proved to be very tricky as I had to make sure every piece was perfectly placed. After the glue dried, Its made it very secure and unmovable, which I am really pleased about because it won’t break easily.
After testing the width between different roads, I have got a rough size and I will be making cars as the counters on the 3D printer. As well as cars, I will be making the buildings to represent the bank and the police station, to be placed on the players choice.
These are some models i found online (thingyverse, 2017). These are very ideal for what I am looking for to include on my board game. They are all an ideal size and will look nice along with my board game. Both of the cars are a retro style and are very minimalist which will suit my board game. Both the buildings are easily representable as either a police station and a bank and will make great additions to my board when in play. Now I just need to print some buildings and cars like this through the 3D printer to go with my board since it’s complete.
This is me re-cutting my board in the laser cutter. Since it came out a bit wrong because of my pen tool lines not exactly reaching the edge, I re-cut it to give it a smoother edge. This proved to be a very long process because my A2 block around it wasn’t square, so we had to keep moving it slightly and testing it to make sure it was centred. Overall this took about an hour, which was a lot longer than first expected. It came out a very clean cut in the end and looks really nice around the edge now, making the game seem more professional.
The next job I wanted to do was to engrave my logo in to the board, just to give it a little extra, the board is very plain itself and I feel it gives it more of a professional look to have the logo on there as well. We tested the logo placement first because when we marked up the box, it looked like I hadn’t scaled it right. We tested it on a piece of white paper, where we sketched over it in pencil to see where my box was, we then had it touch the paper as to where it would go. Turns out the scaling was perfect and on the first attempt managed to get it spot on where we needed. The reason the laser created a shadow on the paper was because I accidentally doubled the layers. We then engraved the board itself. It has come out really nice, but by accident, the doubled layers weren’t removed on the bottom of the A, so it came out without them on. I decided to still keep it, in my opinion it still looks really nice, the rest of it came out better than expected and although they are missing, it doesn’t look bad and people can still tell its my logo.
Because of the 3D printer proving very time consuming, and my deadline soon, I decided to just make my characters out of wood instead. This is a shame because the 3D printer would have looked great on them, but timescale wise, I didn’t have enough time to be using that facility. I decided to layer some pieces up in which I would glue together in sequence to create a car to use on my board. As well as that, I also printed out the 2 roundabouts I was missing from my map before.
These are my playing cards, I printed them on A4 double sided matt card 200msg. They turned out very nice and look professional and exactly how I wanted them. The only issue we had was the back design. Because the printer I used wasn’t a double sided printer, I had to print one side and put it back in the printer to print a second, this meant that if i was to go with my original back design, they wouldn’t be level with my front card design. So to save time and a lot of effort with different techniques, I changed my back design to a patterned logo with the name of the card on. This still looks really nice and professional, I am very pleased with the outcome, now I just need to attempt to cut the cards as nicely as I possibly can do.
This is me gluing together my car. Because the characters are so small, fiddling with them trying to stick them down proved impossible so I had to get rid of some bits, including the wheels. Now I have a square, the base and the rod to guide it. It doesn’t look bad without that, and you can tell their purpose so I am happy with how they turned out, my only concern is how thin the rod is, it might be very fragile when playing the game but I won’t know until I test it later on.
These are my final Scenario cards. Because these are reward in a scale, I needed these to have the numbers on the back more than anything, but with the printer not being double sided I couldn’t do much about it and had to stick with the pattern. Because this was the case, I had to print off some numbers to indicate which card is which for the players. Although it doesn’t look really bad, I wished i could have done these more professional looking and maybe found a different technique for printing, but they proved incredibly time consuming and I had to stick with this option. I think they still look nice and don’t look particularly unprofessional, its just an indication for the players.
These are my final counters and buildings. Although I didn’t go with the 3D buildings, I have gone back to how I said I wanted my game and that was minimalistic. The characters are very simple but look great, same with the buildings. I am really pleased I managed to achieve what I set out. I also managed to pick up these sticker dots from Ryman’s which helped indicate which team is which (red=robbers, blue=cops) without spending time painting them. I think they look professional still as well, because underneath the colour of the stickers you still have the wooden counters, which I like about it because they match my board. I am happy my board is wooden, it gives it a vintage game feel rather than being made of plastic like every game is now-a-days.
This is me testing the board game with my family to make sure everything worked. Everything worked really well and we had a great game. The game was fair, we played 2 rounds where we took it in turns being different teams and both cops and robbers won 1, meaning it was a fair game. The game was more importantly fun, we all had a laugh playing it, which is exactly what I wanted. This game is so suitable for my target audience because to win the game you just nee to be as stupid and crazy as you can be. I am so pleased with how everything has turned out to this point, everything looks great and it all works better than I ever thought it would do. I am going to keep testing my game as much as possible to make sure it ran as smoothly as it did the first time.
I decided to varnish my board, to give it a darker texture and to make it stand out a bit more. In my opinion, the MDF made it look very bland and simple, just this simple coat of wood varnish has made it look a ton better already. The darker look makes it also look more professional to a player, It takes away the idea of it looking homemade, which was something I don’t want, I want it looking as professional as possible.
I am having to now look at packaging for my game. At first since it was only a prototype, I wasn’t going to do a box because the brief didn’t require one. I thought it might look better if I did just make something to store it, even if it isn’t much, just something to store it will make it look more professional. This website (Templatemaker, 2017) enables you to pick a box and type in the dimensions you need to make a template. You are able to save it as a pdf and print it if you need to. Since my board is already A2, the box template will need to be twice/three times the size, so instead, I didn’t print it but I used the pdf to measure and draw it myself.
To start, I picked up a sheet of cardboard which surrounded a door sold by a D.I.Y store. The sheet was given to me by the store without having to pay, so my packaging is the only thing that is free so far. I had to measure the box according to my board. I marked it in pencil and measured it with a small ruler and a tape measure. I used sharp scissors to cut it out with, unfortunately we don’t own a stanly knife, so my edges aren’t as clean cut as they would be if I used a stanly knife. I used the scissors to score the edges and fold them over to create my box. It all fit together flush and I have not had to edit it further.
Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome of my box, it is everything I wanted in a box for my game, with its unique opening and style, I have never seen a board game with a box like mine. It is extremely simple yet looks professional in my opinion. It took around 4 hours in total to make the box for it. My only issue with it is the jagged edges, especially at the front where you can really see it. If I was to do it again, I would have it either professionally made or use a stanly knife to keep it a clean cut edge. Even with the jagged edges, in my personal opinion, I don’t think it looks bad at all. It looks smart and professional to hold my board game in and keep it protected. I had to resort to making the box myself and not through a company because of the size of my board, it is a very awkward size and I couldn’t find any company around here that would make that size. I would have to go further afield and that is not possible with the deadline coming soon. I managed to find a couple of white boxes to hold the cards and the characters in. I then wrapped the boxes and the board in bubble wrap so it doesn’t move around in the box and is protected. I also used foam wedges that I found in an old laptop box to protect the edges of the board, to keep it stable in the box and to generally make it look more full, and like it has been packed like a professional board game.
Target audience
My target audience is from 16-26 year olds as set by the brief. This audience is hard for the brief that I have been set because that generation has been taken over by smartphones and technology, trying to pull them away from that is very hard. I need to make my game so good that people will want to play it, people will want to put their phones down and just play an old school board game, which is why I had the retro idea.
Hasbro
Hasbro (The company the brief is for) is a billion dollar toy/board game company that is based in the U.S. They are home to some of the most popular games and board games in the world today. The company was founded by 3 brothers in 1923. In order for my board game to be even nearly as successful as theirs, I need to really focus on the professional aspect of it and make people want to play it/buy it like they do their products. (Hasbro, 2016)
Schedule
This is my schedule for my final major project. I will be sticking to the schedule as much as I can, because i believe that time management will help me not stress about things so easily. I believe I can do it well within my schedule and use my organisation and time management to finish this project with no problems.
Final Design
I am really pleased with my final design, it has taken a lot to get to the end and I didn’t think it would be possible, especially with me having to change to a party board game but I managed it. I got every piece that I wanted, I have managed to make my prototype as professional as possible and I am proud of the way it turned out. This is the longest I have spent on a piece, it took countless hours to try and make it, as well as adding little features such as the logo to the board and the cover sleeve. I have managed to make the box more practical and look more like a board game by making little holes in each side to hold the counters as well as the dice and the cards. This took a bit of time because I had to measure every hole and cut with a knife. With me having a knife at the college, I also managed to clean up the jagged edge of cardboard as well. It came out looking really nice and I am proud of how it looks, it looks like an actual board game.
The sleeve finishes off the box nicely without me having to decorate the box entirely, something I didn’t want to do. I think that decorating the box would have been a long process, especially with not having a great deal of time. I was going to wrap the box originally and spent time looking around the house for something to wrap it with. While looking, I stumbled across an old game box that I had. The game was in a cardboard tray, and was wrapped with a cover to keep it protected. This was a quick, easy and professional method of making a box and I quite liked the idea. I went to the print bureau and managed to get a sleeve printed straight away. It took around half an hour with about 5 minutes to carefully glue it together. I am pleased with the outcome, my game looks very smart and the box/cover make it look more professional.
Evaluation
I made a board game for Hasbro as part of their brief they set on D&AD. I felt like I needed/wanted to challenge myself to the best of my ability and take on a brief that I wouldn’t usually do. By doing this I am able to gain experience and further my knowledge into new things, so I have the experience when I am older and working for clients.
I researched quite a lot into board games that Hasbro had created and looked into what makes them so popular. They are very fun games to play, people continue to play them even to this day because they are addicting and fun. They have unique ideas so I needed a unique idea that really stood out and made people want to play it over and over again. I needed something that stood out like the rest of the Habro board games, meaning I needed to get extra research and look into different ideas to stand out. As I started to develop a little more things became clearer as of what I wanted to do. I researched into styles, and I settled with wanting to do a minimalist style. Minimalist is very popular now and since my board game is directed at 16-26 year olds. The minimalist style also looks very clean and professional, meaning that I would have to work to the best of my ability to make it look simplistic yet professional at the same time. When searching what to do after I settled on a board, I came across several maps, which is when I decided to do a map based on Paris. This was my key to making my board game more popular, it was very unique and eye catching. Although it took a lot more work to make it more successful, it looked so much more unique which is something I wanted more than anything.
Production took quite a while. There were several elements of my game that had to be done professionally, meaning I had to carve out time (when they were free) to go to the University’s print bureau and make it. Several of my hours were spent in there completing my work. I had to do my board, characters, cards and box sleeve in there. Over all, the board took the longest, with the testing of the MDF etc. After the testing, I had to laser cut my board, glue it all together and then re-cut it around the edge with my logo engraved on it afterwards. It took a very long time, even longer due to the fact that I had to wait for staff to use the laser printer and they were very busy. My cards were something that I was able to print off by myself on the professional printer in the print bureau. The characters were cut at the same time as the board so I simply had to glue them together when I recut my board. I made the cardboard box at my house in which I had to measure and cut it all. Finally, the sleeve was done at the University’s print bureau with help from one of the staff members who printed it for me before I scored it all and glued it to fit over the box.
There were a few issues that occurred during the project itself. The first (and biggest) was my change in idea. I had to adapt because my original idea wasn’t really a party game. I had to step up and change my idea around to make it more like a party game. This obliviously involved me applying a ton more time into research to see what was the best idea and making mind maps and brainstorms to get a better idea. Another was time spent in production. Like I have mentioned before, there were quite a few days in where I had to leave doing anything to my board because a staff member wasn’t there to supervise the and set up the laser cutter. I had to just solve it by keep going back as much as I can, I kept having to check on a daily basis to see if they were free. Eventually I was able to go print off my things and make it all. I also wasn’t able to use the 3D printer because of it taking to much time and staff not being free, so I had to resort to making them out of the same wood that I used for the board game and I made them when I re-cut my board around the edge. I had to re-cut my board around the edge because my roads at the bottom of my map didn’t join at the edge, so I had to recut to make all of the roads lead off the edge of the board. When I engraved my logo on the board, the bottom of the A’s layers doubled up, meaning the machine didn’t recognise it as a path and it didn’t print it. There wasn’t anything I could have solved about this one really aside from completely re-doing the board, so because it didn’t look that bad I decided to leave it. Although I had my issues with the board, I am proud with the outcome of it all.
I think my strength in this brief was having a great knowledge about board games already. This enabled me to have a great creative mind on what I could do my board game about in my opinion. I was able to think of an idea and make it into a board game. It wasn’t easy but I had a lot of fun coming up with an idea and making it into an actual design. Another strength is obviously being the middle age of my target audience and regardless of research, I already have the knowledge of what people my age like, what they will do, what they wont do, what they will play etc. Another strength is organisation, I am a naturally organised person and especially with me having a schedule made as well, I was working very organised. With my organisation skills (apart from using the printer/laser cutter) I was able to do everything when I wanted to enable me to meet the deadline. My definite biggest weakness for this project is using the laser cutter. I walked into the brief not knowing how to use it, which meant I had to have a staff member helping me at all times, which wasn’t great for my time management, but with that said, it has turned into a strength sort of because I have learnt how to use it and would be capable of using it in a future project.
I have picked up several new skills while doing this project, some that I already had but I have adapted to make them better. I picked up the skill of being able to properly adapt an idea to make a project better. By this I mean having to make my game into a party game. I was able to pick up the skill of laser cutting, something I have never done before, which was hard to get right and took time but in the end I thought I made a good job of it. I managed to pick up the skill of making boxes, although its not much, I was able to use a net template and draw it out on a big bit of cardboard and successfully make a nice looking box for my board to sit in. This is a handy skill for future reference because in case I have to make boxes in the future to hold different work in for clients. I was able to adapt the skill of working to a professional brief set by a big company. I had to do this last year where I did a brief for BBC. I was able to develop my skill by gaining more experience when taking on the Hasbro brief and working for a big client, I had to make my work as good as I possibly could to impress a client like that. Finally, I was able to get the new skill of being able to make the board game itself, although I am a huge fan of board games, I have never made one before so having that opportunity to take that on was really good, but I gained skills to make one in future if I ever got tasked to by a client.
It has helped me progress in huge amounts, not just academically, but professionally and creatively. It has helped me academically by giving me experience of working on a big brief for a bigger client, having to work to the best of my ability, where I was pushed to my limits and worked harder than I ever have before. I was able to progress professionally by yet again working for a client; I felt that my work was a great professional example, with me going to extreme lengths to make it and spending a lot of time and money on it. I was able to make my work look extremely professional and like it should look when working for a client, this is progress because from now on, I will be using this project as example and will be doing everything, spending money and times to make my project look as good as possible. It has helped me creatively because I have experimented with materials and machines that I have never used before, I had to use MDF, a material that I have never used before and I also used the laser cutter. I have progressed in this because it makes me want to play about with more materials and experiment with the laser cutter more, which I have more knowledge in now.
I like everything that I did for the project, I really like how everything turned out, I believe it looks incredibly professional and like it is an actual produced board game. I can improve my project in future by having a set idea; I lost a bit of time with having to make it a party board game. I also lost time because of there not being staff able to set me up and watch over me with the laser cutter and the printer. I would say I could improve this in future by learning how to use them, which is fine with the professional printer, but I doubt I will be able to use the laser cutter myself because of it being a health and safety hazard. One thing I didn’t like about my project was that I didn’t have time to get my cards printed professionally, not that they turned out badly, but they weren’t as good as I wanted them to be and I felt they could have looked a lot better if I had them done professionally through a company. Overall, although I had a few things that I would improve in the future, I really like my project and how everything turned out, I am really pleased with it.
In a national context, my game fits in. Hasbro is a huge company worldwide and is very recognized in the United Kingdom because the board game market is brilliant over here, with many people actually going to toyshops just to play different games. My game is different because of its unique layout and individual set up. There are no games in the United Kingdom like my game that display that kind of a board of a certain place, and as far as I believe, there is no games with the same concept as mine. It stands out because of the board, the use of the map as a board and the wooden based board. It is statistically proven that ‘70% of the United Kingdom use social media’ (wearesocial, 2017). My aim of my board game is to try and get people off social media and playing my game, so with my game being extremely different and unique, I’d like to think that I am keeping the interest of the users and they will want to play my game rather than go on their phones.
In an international context, the board game community extends quite a bit, mostly in the USA. My board game fits in internationally because of the country based element, people might feel more interested that the game is based off a real place, and if there was even extension maps, they might be further interested. My board game is different because of it having a very demanding type of gameplay. In the UK this is ok, because I feel people over here will shed more time in an interest, while worldwide they are very social media active and are always on their phones. It stands out because of its style, the design of the board itself isn’t like anything released international, and in the UK we have a big board game scene, like I researched primarily. It is statistically proven that ‘71% of the world use social media’ (wearesocial, 2017). This is a huge statistic in itself and it might be a lot harder to get an international audience interested in my game rather than a national audience.
The national audience would probably be more interested in my board game than an international audience. This is because there is a smaller amount of people nationally and as well, we have a better board game scene in the United Kingdom, with people interested in playing homegrown and made games.
Overall, I am extremely pleased with my project, everything I have done I am proud of, I have managed to complete it all and I have met the deadline that I was set.
References
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