Graphic Design I created for a boardgame, Tomb of the Dread Lords, by Maciej Kozlowski.
Full-colour components: Download the latest game components.
A low-ink version was also created: Download the low-ink components.
Tomb of the Dread Lords graphic design: during gameplay.
Final design files before cutting.
Original playtest files from the game designer.
Brief:
- Create a minimalist and elegant design for the game to mirror the game’s simple and elegant mechanics.
- Just enough theme to spark the imagination without dictating the specifics.
- Improve usability. Include as much gameplay information on the relevant components as possible to minimise the need to refer to the rules during play.
- Optimise layout to create as few pages as possible for economical printing.
- Page size optimised for printing around the world (A4 and Letter sizes).
Solution:
- A simple and elegant dungeon tile design that hints at the elegance of TSR’s blue Dungeons & Dragons maps of old.
- Information is conveyed through colour as well as iconography to easily distinguish and reference the different monsters from adventurer and ally tokens. (With the added bonus of being as gender neutral as possible!)
- Character/item tokens were replaced with mini cards that contain all the relevant stats, rules, and gameplay information on them.
- Stats from the tokens were moved to mini cards (colour-coded as well as having the icons for easy reference) to simplify the tokens, to increase immersion in the game, allowing for a more elegant design, whilst introducing the possibility for new scenarios and difficulty levels to be easily introduced, by printing a single scenario card instead of a whole set of tokens.
- Dungeon tiles were given a wall around the edges to make a dungeon feel constrained, entrances were given a light source from them to aid tile orientation, and the monster spawn points were changed from numbers to more thematic runes/symbols.
- 6 double-sided Letter/A4 printable pages for home printing.