How do you start designing a complicated game board like moral conflict 1941?
The most important thing is to have a good graphics designer at your side. Stefan Kolmsperger put my ideas into practice.
I knew what the board should look like but how should I get the idea in a form that can be printed? First Stefan found a map of the world in the internet and it was printed in back and white on a big roll of paper. At least I now had the land and the sea clearly marked. The countries as they are today where also to be seen.
With this print out I was able to put my ideas to paper. The following pictures show how we progresed to the final board.
At first we didn't know what the optimium size of the board should be. We started with a large print out and while play testing the boards constantly reduced the size till finally deciding on 58.5 cm x 120 cm for moral conflict 1941. This is very compact when one considers the complexity of the game.
The final data for the first board was used as the starting point for the other moral conflict games. We didnt have to go back to the beginning and were able to have new bords designed very quickly in the same high quality graphics.
The size of the moral conflict 1940 board could be further reduced; as there where less territories and sea zones.
- This map was marked with the territories and sea zones for moral conflict 1941. Stefan the graphics designer could now know what to input into the computer.
- The first print out of the board was in black and white on a large roll of paper. There where many small corrections to be made before we were ready to move to colour.
- The big question was what sorts of playing pieces can be used for the play testing with the prototypes? The brigthly colourd mosaic stones proved ideal and were readily available.
- We were soon into playing with the mosaic stones on a colour board.
- Also the Pacific game was soon being tested.
- When we had numbered the sea zones, the submarine location charts were tried out.
- By the 4th of October 2010 we had this game board. We kept thinking that we it couldn't be made better but the many ideas in the pay testing sessions proved us wrong. The final version can be found in the MC 1941 description.