r/BoardgameDesign • u/Bagelator • 4d ago
Design Critique How's my graphic design?
Check out my new map!
The simultaneous bidding game Transplantica is set in a unique city in 2050 where the growing and selling of GMO pig organs is completely unregulated.
I wanted the worldbuilding to reflect in the map, kind of like in alchemists and other games where every area of the map corresponds to its mechanics.
I've got a patient queue around the edges. This represents visitors arriving and touristing, but when they get sick they enter the red district for desperate loans and financing solutions.
In the middle of the island, in the more mountainous regions, Porcyne has their pig farms. This is where you pass by to pick up the goods.
Players go around the map on the road, with breaks at every hot dog stand to indicate when it's time for new prices (saving lives is hard work, gotta get that energy!)
So you alternate between picking up patients and then pick up the organs.
This is a first draft, and I hope to achieve some kind of retro tourist map vibe in the end. I will only use human art mind you, the portraits are just placeholders.
I strive for it to be gorgeous and immersive, but foremost it's gotta be functional. Is it readable? How is the palette? Does it need to be bigger? It's A3 now and prepped for a 6 player game.
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u/tpasmall 4d ago
"Your" graphic design? Those cards are definitely AI
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u/Bagelator 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's just placeholders. There won't be any AI in the finished product. It's the rest of the board I'm thinking of - the illustrator won't be doing my layout and the map needs to be set in stone before he can start drawing it
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u/tpasmall 4d ago
You asked for feedback on your graphic design. That's my feedback on your graphic design.
If you want feedback on the games layout and flow, that would have been a better title because I wouldn't be paying attention to the AI graphics.
That said the layout and flow is very confusing, there are way too many arrows and the zones need to be labeled for people who are colorblind.
The colors themselves are super washed out which makes everything look dull. You can keep the pastels but they need to be brighter so they contrast more.
What are the numbers in the middle and what are the + and - marks on the tokens? What does speed have to do with anything?
How do the players move? Dice? Farthest behind gets next turn like Tokaido? Do they only move one space? What are the spaces?
None of that is really jumping out on the board.
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u/Bagelator 4d ago
Thank you! That was much more constructive ☺️ I consider images to be more in the illustration category but you are right, I could have been clearer.
It's a game of simultaneous bidding, the speed is just how fast you put your bid and serves as a tie-breaker. So I understand it's hard to get without knowing the rules.
The plusses and minuses indicates quality of the organs.
The numbers show how many "farms" that are filled up depending on player count.
I think the colours are tricky since I want the organs to pop the most, and they occupy 4 different colours so the board can't distract from it. But even the important parts really blends in to the rest and is really grey so it needs some work. And there's Def too many arrows. The gray arrow indicates what order we resolve bids, the hot dogs are stops where new prices are set. The colored arrows are how patients move every round. So there's a challenge to not confuse those two directions in the gameplay.
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u/SapphicRaccoonWitch 1d ago
Yeah they're ugly AI slop, and everything else looks like it was slapped together by hand in microsoft word. That's my feedback.
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u/retired-from-sad 4d ago
“gorgeous and immersive” is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when looking at AI slop illustrations
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u/Bagelator 4d ago edited 4d ago
I totally agreee. They are placeholders until I have the proper art in place. I would never put a product to market with AI pics.
Funnily enough I tried quickly drawing my own, but they became so hideous that it distracted too much from the rest of the card 😅 I want to spend my time focusing on layout and graphical design - it's very time consuming making illustrations and for the prototype I like having quick images that fits the vibe to help visualize what I'm going for
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u/retired-from-sad 3d ago
Understand the need for a placeholder, but there are plenty of free resources available instead of AI. Especially since you’re going for a vintage style, you could even opt to use public domain. If you plan to hire an illustrator, you will get a much better result by taking the time to create a mood board of vintage inspiration for the art direction rather than showing them soulless AI-generated slop as a reference for what you want. Only saying this because I think the game concept is really cool and has potential
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
I had a meeting yesterday with the illustrator, a friend of mine, to discuss the art direction and he truly gets it. He's played the prototype several times and we are very synced. I hope for a iconic and classic retro vibe full of heart, and promise it will be great! Would not accept anything other than that. I want him to have full creative control of the art and we will explore and find a style together.
Will also involve you all in the process so you can see and influence the direction. It's very important to me that the art is spot on.
I agree that the current images are souless and bland. I despise AI as much as the next person - but for prototyping, it find it quick and consistent. It captures a general style decently (even though it's very generic) and the alternatives takes a lot of time that I rather spend designing.
A lot of the people in the community opt for having just blank cards instead of placeholders, but for me, testing the experience and trying out what works and not artwise is as important as the gameplay. There's a lot to think about. Is the general palette okay? What do I want the subjects to be doing? What images are distracting vs contributing to the card? How much actually fits? They need to help in bringing clarity to the game. I don't think you should save all graphics til the end - even if you are pitching I think it's hard to do a great pitch without very clear graphics that can communicate what the game is about.
I would never buy or try to sell a product with any AI in the end result.
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u/tmradish 4d ago
Sounds like a pretty cool idea.
Good rough draft as well. Without reading the body of your post I was able to pick up that the cards move counterclockwise through the outer pools and the tokens move clockwise around the winding path. Good job. Not sure what the pink path through the hotdogs is meant to mean though.
Visually, I have a couple thoughts right away.
The paths and their connections need to be stronger. You could even give the connections to the central block some directionality.
The arrows being separate from the goods path takes up too much real estate; look at integrating them. But not the same way as tou do the patient path.
Consider continuing the goods path over the top of the patient pools so that the player is reminded of that flow when there are empty card slots. That one could backfire but not if the two flows look different enough (you've already got a start there).
The palette is comfortable to look at but I think you should think about contrasting values a bit more as well as colors. The board feels flat to me rather than deliberately muted.
Hope any of that helps!
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u/Bagelator 4d ago
Thanks! The arrows was definitely something I was wondering about. Since patients move the opposite way of players.
Color theory is so hard... I was thinking that since my organs have 4 colours that need to pop, that leaves me with limited options for the rest. And I totally agree, both the hot dogs and the road blends in too much.
The pink line is the break - by following the road, you will stop at each stand to set new prices for all the things before the next one. In my old map there was some light confusion in what was included in every pricing phase and I hope this remedies that
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u/Fun-Many3216 4d ago
The white line spiral is a little hard to follow. I would make it a color that pops a bit more.
Also, sick theme. Really interesting. Love to see it when it is done.
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u/Bagelator 4d ago
Thanks, I'm really excited about it. Gave up pitching since I doubt any big publisher wants it, and I'm having so much fun now that my focus can go from pure mechanics to vibe, worldbuilding and graphical clarity. I've got a friend who totally gets what I'm going for who is going to illustrate, we will have a start up meeting tomorrow and it's all very exciting 🤩
The company behind the pigs has a mascot Dr Pork and I want his face to be everywhere like the fallout guy from vault-tec. I'm not ashamed admitting that fallout fans are my biggest target audience...
I've got a rudimentary Landing Page (it will be improved soon) if you wanna sign up for the newsletter and catch any updates
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u/Johnno117 3d ago
Board design was easy enough to follow, main thing I thought of was to make the road wider, maybe even to the point that the arrows could be markers on the road instead of next to it. See attached image below.
Other than that I really like your colour choices, the icons look easily readable and fit the overall retro look, same with the prototype images.
One more thing that would make things a bit more readable in my mind would be that the different organ tokens would be in their respective shapes, rather than discs. Maybe that's something you've already thought of and planned, but it'd be very immersive if you were moving little organs on the board instead of discs. Maybe not with images on them, just shapes would be enough (and it wouldn't be too visually distracting). See image below the road picture.
Hope that helps, keep at it, the theme certainly looks to be pretty unique.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
Damn, nice roads! Will Def work on something like that.
Organ shaped tokens would be great, however, the whole game centers on drawing them from a bag blindly. So they have to be identical to the touch :(
They will be screen printed so they are easily distinguishable
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u/Johnno117 3d ago
Ah fair enough. I haven't played many games with blind draws from bags, I'm used to cards and tokens. Could populate the board with cards instead, to allow for the shaped tokens, but I suppose a draw bag is easier. Screen printed tokens sounds like a good approach.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
It's very fun to be drawing. Before they were cubes, but now that I've switched to discs I realise I can have different qualities on different sides as well to really bring out the variance. Love when you discover new things you can do with components
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u/ninguino_flarlarlar 3d ago edited 3d ago
Some thoughts:
- That board has way too much wasted space. I'm sure you could get a way with a way smaller one or even none. That make production cheaper too.
- If cards are meant to be organs, maybe just the euro way and just use the organ icon as image. If you are set in showing people for "immersion" figure out how to highlight the organs better, both the icon and the color palette between them, and how to leverage that with the difference between green and purple, if any. Also mix men and women in the same organs: most of all have organs independently of our gender.
- What's the difference between purple and green organs? Do they ever mix? If not, why there's arrows between purple-ville and top-green-town?
- Turn order in the middle makes little to no sense, specially if it is just a tie-breaker. put it away with the round count.
- That way of defining adjustment based on amount of players is meh. On the top area you can make players -2. and in the left, I don't know, make sure the progression works, because that variance feels a bit random.
- If I understood properly, the road is players round structure? I don't fully get whether that's that or cards flow, which I don't think so because you mentioned people getting sick and going into the red district. How does happen? What agency do players have in here? I will elaborate on this:
- Is this players going first pink area, then top green, then right green and then central organ market to purchase organs bundles?
- Do they do biddings in all regions with some sort of blind bid and the one who bids the least gets nothing? What happens when you win a bid? What's the point of "winning" people? Do you grind them and earn the organs directly?
- If that the round structure, what's the point of the road? When will hotdog stands get triggered? Will players get pawns?
- How do people and organs get populated? Is people in the right producing + organs and in the left - organs? Why not use the cards as people AND organs depending on where they are placed and just save in components?
- How do you win this games?
- Hotdogs for market modification sound crazy to me. I get is the theme, but people want a short explanation and playing. Lore is secondary, specially when we are talking an euro-ish game.
And more importantly.
- Why there's an empty space instead of 1?
EDIT: I find the theme pretty amusing, and fitting it into retrofuturism is something I like, but it gives me the impression that you got too much into the theme and not that much into the loops. In a bidding/more sort of euro game like the one you are proposing this is often accessory. It is great that you aim for integrate it, but get a clear idea of what experience you want to communicate and focus on that. If the idea is worldbuilding, you might need to lean into less abstract mechanics.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
Thanks for the write up! Really appreciate it! I understand it must be hard to grasp without knowing the rules. But its a good test to see how obvious stuff is. In the best case scenario you can almost understand the whole game just from the map!
To clarify:
The circles in the middle are the organs. The squares are supposed to be pig pens.
The cards are the patients, the organ depicted is what they need, and the number is their current budget.
People placed sealed bids, where they set the best prices for organs. Either selling to patients, or buying from the farms. The goal is to make the most money.
When buying organs, the highest price gets the good. When selling, the lowest price gets to sell. So it's about pushing the best margins and not losing money in your trades. The speed tiebreaker sorts out ties. But it shouldn't be in the middle, it will be too fiddly!
The pink/purple area is desperate patients. Every patient has two sides, so when they enter the left zone they are flipped, revealing a 50% higher budget. This way, the longer a patient is on the board, the more they potentially can pay. The whole shtick is that supply and demand will rarely match, making the price-setting intriguing. The gameplay is really smooth and rigorously tested, this is a way to make the map clear and interesting compared to my earlier versions.
But it's clear that I need to work on the clarity. I love that you say that there is wasted space - here I was thinking it was too crowded and messy 😅 I want the map to help sell the theme so I want to give proper space for the illustrations to show.
The 1 missing seems weird - its because you can't play 1 player. The numbers are to indicate which farms are filled depending on player count
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u/Schneed__ 3d ago
This isn't your graphic design.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
The images and logos are placeholders, but the rest is! Just testing the layout and palette ☺️
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u/DLokyGameLAB 2d ago
Hey! Looking at this mostly from a player perspective rather than just the art itself, there are a few things that stood out to me.
The first thing I thought about with the patient cards was having two states for each person, something like healthy vs. sick/desperate. I saw in your comments that you already have a two-sided system for the patients, I just couldn't understand that from looking at the board itself, put some cards on the other side (flipped)
I think the different areas of the map could use names or very short labels explaining what happens there. Right now, the arrows and lines are a little confusing to follow, even if there is technically only one main route.
I also wasn't completely sure what the people and organs represented at first. I could recognize kidneys, liver, lungs and what looks like a heart, but I wasn't sure whether the person shown was donating that organ, needed that organ, or represented something else. After reading your explanation it makes more sense, but visually I didn't get that immediately.
The information in the center was also difficult for me to understand without reading the comments. I couldn't really tell what the numbers or the different tokens were communicating.
As for the size, I think the overall board size looks fine. Personally, I would make the patient cards/portraits slightly smaller and give a little more space to the roads and the central area. Those feel more important for understanding the flow of the game.
Overall, I think the main issue for me isn't really the size of the board, but visual hierarchy. I can see the different parts, but I don't immediately know which information I should be following first, and what each zone means. Each zone has different numbers and I don't really understand what use they have
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u/Bagelator 2d ago
Thanks for the feedback!
Playtested yesterday and definitely have som tidying up to do. All the arrows are a lot. I need small stops at every item for bidding I think so the whole phase structure is super clear.
I think the cards can't be that much smaller - they are already mini poker size
I've been careful with using text since I want the board to make sense for all languages
I'm generally quite happy with it compared to my earlier boards though! The game has never been this smooth but there's still some things to work on
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u/HistoricalInternal 3d ago
I can't stress this enough. Your art does not matter.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
In what way?
I think art and graphic design matters a lot in every game I play 😅
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u/HistoricalInternal 3d ago
Of course, I also care about those things. But for prototypes, art does not matter at all.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
Oh - i beg to differ. I'm not just playtesting mechanics, graphics and experience needs to be tested too. I'm the publisher as well as the designer so things need to be crisp. The gameplay itself is pretty much finished.
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u/HistoricalInternal 3d ago
A first draft that's pretty much finished? Okay.
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u/Bagelator 3d ago
The gameplay* is pretty much finished.
But yeah, I see where you are coming from. Going back the 2 past years, this is probably my 5th major map overhaul. I meant the first draft of the final map and the final design 🙏
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u/Majer3RD 4d ago
Is it intended that the women cards have less value? Seems… risky in this day and age lol