My game projects that need art (and possibly more)

[JTagmire]

I have a handful of game ideas that could use some help with the artwork. Here are two of the more complete games.

Wasteland
This is a tile laying game that is about 90% complete. I would like to self publish a limited edition of 100 copies and see where it goes. It has placeholder art and needs some real art. There are 9 cards: Bridge, City, Road, Oil Rig, Military, Field, Farm, Forest, and Power Plant. These images sound really boring, but I think of the style of Power Grid. The Power Plants in that game have a cool fun style and it works. (http://stereotoads.org/!/pg.png) Part of the mechanic in this game is to build a fully functioning network of cities using tiles. Sometimes you will need to demolish something you already built so you pull in the military to create a temporary "wasteland". You can also do this to screw over your opponents.

Unnamed Zombie Game
This is a board game about 70% complete. The intention for this game is to make a high quality prototype and start to pursue publishing options. Boards and boxes large enough for the boards are super expensive, so self publishing is tougher than normal. There are options though. This game needs artwork for the two characters, Human and Zombie, board art, logo, and possibly a box mockup. I can handle some of this, but definitely not the Human and Zombie characters. This game is a simple human vs. zombie team battle, but the mechanic allows zombies to spread like crazy if the humans don't wipe them out.

If anyone is interested in collaborating on either of these, I'l give you more details. Thanks!

[Colossal Cockhole]

J, do you have pdfs of the working protos/rules that I could look at/play with? not sure I can do much regarding artwork, but am definitely interested in learning more about wasteland

[JTagmire]

Sept 6, 2010 8:46:59 GMT -5 @Colossal Cockhole said:

J, do you have pdfs of the working protos/rules that I could look at/play with? not sure I can do much regarding artwork, but am definitely interested in learning more about wasteland

I'll get one together for you, definitely. Right now it's just scraps of paper with notes, hand drawings, and hand written rules. Any help is appreciated.

[Suzanne]

you would help me mightily by providing a really sketchy drawing/MS paint of how you want to format the grids. Having trouble putting together a mental image, but totally interested

[JTagmire]

I actually found an image for the game. I totally forgot that I made these in Photoshop and printed them out. Mike, I'll post the rules ASAP.

The images will be in the middle area of the card, just as these are. The background can go behind the text, but the details need to be in the middle area. The cards will be square just as this. The Road and Bridge need to be top view just as shown for gameplay but all others can be any view.

Here's the image. It's about as good as I get when drawing.

[JTagmire]

I have two other projects that are almost ready.

Guitar Game
This is a board game about 50% complete. The intention for this game is to make a high quality prototype and start to pursue publishing options. It's very art heavy, but I think it's the most marketable game idea that I have. The board is shaped like a guitar and you go around trying to form a band (by auditioning musicians). Once you get a whole band, you travel up the neck to 3 judges and all players bands are rated in a few different ways. The art needed is mostly the band members. Guitarists, Bassists, Singers and Drummers in multiple genres. I was thinking about doing just line art, and maybe just headshots to keep it simple (and make it able to print on colored cardstock - think monopoly chance cards). The board is designed, but will need some flavor too. And finally need a logo, but need a name first.

Spider Game
This is a board game about 50% complete. The intention for this game is to make a high quality prototype and start to pursue publishing options. The board layout is complete, but needs to be drawn by someone better than me. The board is shaped like a spiderweb with a spider in the middle. You are an insect going around saving other insects, and trying to avoid the spider. The insects will be game pieces, but the spider and web needs to be artwork. There may be some cards as well with some related art. This is a fun one, probably for all ages, but definitely not just for kids.

[grug]

None of these jump out as well suited to my style, especially if you're pursuing commercial publication - though if you think otherwise, I'd be happy to give one a go.

[JTagmire]

I'll post more details about each game and post the last few pending games as well. I definitely walk to work on something together, but if none of these feel right, something else will come along.

I'm not exactly pursuing commercial publication on all of these. If these were all card or tile based, I would definitely go the self publishing route. I'd rather self publish forever than have to pitch something to people. I'm so bad at it and don't have anybody around ho is good at it. But since these are mostly board style, I may try the games out on thegamecrafter.com, or dig deeper into the self publishing side of things and get a quote on some boards and boxes. I know that it's a huge investment though, so there are going to be corners to cut. Some can be made without the boards, but the boxes still need to be there. I can majorly cut corners on that, but I don't know how people feel about cheap boxes.

[JTagmire]

Spider Game Update:

I worked on the spider game over the past few days. The board idea is really simple. I'm going to post it below. The web (and spiders legs) create the path on the board. Each corner (where the line goes beyond the web) will be a stash area, where players hoard all of the items they collect in the spider web. The circles represent each space that you can land on. I'd love for this to be really awesome looking, but I'm obviously not capable of it. The prototype version I made is about as good as I can get. I was really proud of it too..

Here's the image.


Imagine the web being white with a dark background behind it. This will define the movement paths. The circles would also be really defined as the movement spaces, but they don't have to be exact circles. They can be more rough and natural looking though.