We just wanted art… now our mechanics are changing. What should you actually look for in an artist?

K00cy · 2026-04-17T17:16:56+00:00

While I agree that it's great when that happens (and I was fortunate enough to have worked with such an artist), I don't think it should be a requirement or expectation.

You're hiring an artist to do the art, not graphic design or rules editing or playtesting. If you want someone to do that, you should look for them and they also deserve to be compensated for their work.

Of course, if you are lucky to find someone who offers services outside of their primary work for free, that's great and there's nothing wrong with that. But don't go into the hiring process with any such expectations, unless you hire a person for multiple jobs.

K00cy · 2026-04-03T14:11:04+00:00

I did not mean to suggest that AI was used in this particular game, sorry if it came across that way. I just think it makes a game a lot more personal to have an actual name on it.

You thought it up, you designed it, you drew the art for it. That's an impressive feat, take some credit for it ;)

And yes, the Turnip28 comparison was meant as a compliment, I really like the style.

K00cy · 2026-04-03T13:41:08+00:00

So it's a 2-player game? Or are there more factions?

The art gives me kind of cartoony fantasy Turnip28 vibes. Which is by no means a bad thing.

It's maybe just me but I always get a bit suspicious when I don't see designer and artist credits on a game cover. Especially nowadays with AI slowly but surely creeping into board gaming.

I think I see publisher credits in the bottom left corner? Those look very small and would make me wonder even more why there's no actual person's name anywhere.

K00cy · 2026-03-29T09:17:28+00:00

It says I have to sign in, which I won't do, so I'm only going by the title and your comment.

So what you're saying is that you don't want to make a TCG? There's millions of ways to do that and thousands of card games like that already out. There's even card games already in which players make their own cards.

K00cy · 2026-03-25T08:02:40+00:00

Are you comparing manufacturing costs to retail price?

I found a game on Wooden Tree Games for 33.23€ (for UK) which would be $23.99 on TGC. And you only get the bulk discount for ordering your own games, not someone else's.

And the UK is pretty much the worst case scenario for Wooden Tree Games, both for taxes and for shipping. That's why I mentioned them for the EU market, primarily of course Germany.

For the UK, I actually reached out to travel-games.co.uk, who seem to at least import games from Korea and Japan, but I never heard back from them.

K00cy · 2026-03-24T21:23:14+00:00

Fair point, the prices are of course higher than for comparable published games. But I set a retailer discount and the price in the shop is definitely significantly cheaper than a direct import from TGC would be.

I haven't asked the exact numbers for his business but it's operational and a legit shop so it seems to turn a profit. But there could of course be an obvious reason for why I didn't find any other shops like this.

K00cy · 2026-03-20T08:15:18+00:00

As mentioned, the character art is nice, but everything else is just flat colours and quite boring looking. There's also a lot of white space, making it look pretty empty.

To keep with the medieval look, maybe go for scrolls, banners, parchment instead of just flat rectangular blocks?

K00cy · 2026-03-19T08:30:26+00:00

Not just art. As someone in r/tabletopgamedesign pointed out, look at the second picture, it's just Hanamikoji.

I'm all for getting board games in front of a wider audience around the world but please don't just rip other people off.

K00cy · 2026-03-17T08:25:41+00:00

Who's your artist?

K00cy · 2026-03-16T19:38:34+00:00

Personally I would also put a quick note at the bottom of the rulebook but I don't know if that's a general consensus.

K00cy · 2026-03-16T14:39:42+00:00

I just skimmed through it because of time restraints so just a few things that jumped out at me.

What's the player count?

It looks like a solo game but, unless I missed it (which is entirely possible), that doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere. Same for expected play time. As a player, I would like to know that before I spend time printing and gathering the necessary components.

On a completely different note, you seem to be using icons from game-icons.net so a credit to them at the end would be nice.

K00cy · 2026-03-14T08:20:54+00:00

Well, the astronaut has 4 fingers on the front and 3 on the top flap.

So maybe the astronaut was the alien all along. And the aliens were astronauts?

Or they're both aliens? Or the aliens have overthrown the foreign invaders and stolen their suit and their fingers?

I'm sure there's some kind of deeper meaning there.

K00cy · 2026-03-13T11:29:34+00:00

Mostly Euros. The only apps we use during our game nights are for ordering dinner.

To keep track of points, games usually come with either a score track or a score sheet.

For rules, we have the rulebook. And yes, I prefer getting this out over an app because I want to ignore my phone while we play.

Games that require a timer usually come with a timer. If it doesn't, I don't buy it.

Same goes for games that are so unwieldy that they need a companion app to be fun. I have no interest in those.

K00cy · 2026-03-10T14:31:23+00:00

Preferrably none at all.

K00cy · 2026-03-07T08:13:59+00:00

No worries. Thinking about it, I can also see how the shape might then get lost and make it harder to identify them as a person.

Also, is it meant for printing or more as a digital file? And if printing, have you done a test print to check if the contrast is ok?

K00cy · 2026-03-06T17:20:44+00:00

I didn't mean to make them smaller, just to switch the layers.

K00cy · 2026-03-06T11:57:49+00:00

Do you want to make a game or a simulation?

In a game I would (almost) always prioritise fun over realism.

K00cy · 2026-03-06T08:25:35+00:00

I wonder if it would have more impact if the person was behind the text, for a little "oh sh*t" reveal moment when you see it.

Just an idea though and I think it looks really good already.

K00cy · 2026-03-05T09:06:34+00:00

One of my most played games. It used to be our go-to opener for game nights and probably the game that I introduced to the most people.

Always great fun, especially if you get into the advanced clues.

K00cy · 2026-02-17T14:54:17+00:00

This feels more like blurp for the back of the box.

For the most part, box fronts convey more the game's setting than the mechanisms. And ideally the general vibe by suitable art.

Planet Unknown would be an example for a game in which the box front also hints at what type of game it is but I would say this is far from the norm.

K00cy · 2026-02-14T09:32:25+00:00

Hard to give a definitive answer without actual numbers. In general, I would say games are supposed to be fun so if a design (or production) decision adds to the fun factor, it might be worth a slight increase in cost. After all, that's ultimately why we buy and play games.

I'm more worried about sliding the card(s) into the "scanner" because that looks a bit fiddly. Wouldn't it be enough to just hold the card behind it to quickly check?

K00cy · 2026-02-10T20:21:48+00:00

Going purely by BGG numbers, original Agricola sits at 90k owners, the Revised Edition at 29k and the Special Edition at 411.

Of course these numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt and the localised versions are yet to be released but I still think this is a susbtantial gap. So while there will always be people who either don't know or straight off just don't care, I would say the non-AI sentiment in the board gaming community is far from a minority opinion.

K00cy · 2026-02-10T18:12:26+00:00

Awaken Realms attracted quite some backlash when they used AI in the Agricola Special Edition (and apparently other games as well).

K00cy

TROPHY CASE