I’ve been working on this tabletop game off and on (mostly off) for a few years. The original was a project for DigiPen that I had to create within 4-6 weeks. It’s a total mess at the moment because I’m deconstructing and reconstructing different parts, but I’m trying to push through and get it to a place where I’m satisfied so I can hold some helpful playtest sessions.
Tonight, I didn’t really feel like making words go good, so I focused more on the visual stuff. Sometimes it’s nice to take a break and just focus on the artistic part of design. How the content is presented, especially with the tabletop market as saturated as it is and there already being a few very established role-playing games, The Dark Waters will need to be unique in appearance to stand out. I also want my playtests to enjoy reading the content as well. On the left is the first iteration of my layout; on the right, the original. SUPER NOTE that the content is not final and I simply took whatever was in that original document since I’m not working on this section right now.
Believe it or not, it only took me a couple hours to create a master spread and arrange this content using InDesign. I think I spent a good half hour looking for the header font. This layout also brings some of the feeling I want into the game… I want more mythical and mysterious, maybe even alien-like, mermaids. This is not a Disney game. The blue-orange palette brings a livelier vibe than I want, but I can experiment more as I learn more about graphic design, and my goal was for it to stand out without a header bar. It’s better than just plain, white Microsoft Word…
Aviva Schecterson 