Currently, I’ve been working on a tabletop game design project. The plan is an 18 card solo game where you work as a barista, making different types of drinks to fulfill orders and collect tips. Overall, it’s a small project (think an indie game jam style game) but I want to challenge myself to put as much effort into the process as I can.
So far, the mechanics are working how I want them to. Playtests with my friends and family have gone very well. At this point, I’m working on writing the rulebook, and I have a friend helping me edit and revise it. The graphic design itself is functional, and for a print and play style game, I want to keep it low-ink. Of course, all of these things can be improved, but they’re at a point where I can shift my main focus towards illustration.
As of now, all 18 cards have the same illustration.
In the end, I want each card to have its own unique illustration that reflects the in-game attributes of the card. For instance, a card that has a lot of ice icons on it should be an iced coffee, a card that requires a lot of cream should be a latte, etc.
18 unique illustrations is a lot, and I don’t have a lot of time, but I can also reuse a lot from scene to scene. I can model and shade different types of cups, drinks, and materials, then mix and match them to my needs.
I’ve never played that game, but looking at screenshots, I can see that the game also makes use of highly detailed textures with toon shaders and outlines. So I see what you mean
The biggest change I made was the lighting. Originally, I wanted to make the lighting different for each card to help differentiate them, but when I looked at them all together I noticed how visually jarring it was. So I made it consistent across all of the images.
