Designing a medieval board game from the 21st century.

Platforms: iOS Publisher: Space Bears (Self published)

It’s one of those games that looks rather simple, especially with that dashing Letterpress-like art, but hides loads of depth.

— Pocket Gamer Expand and fortify your kingdom to take control of the board. Defeat your opponent by capturing their king.

🧑‍💻My Role

I designed the entire game as well as the whole user experience of the app (interface, navigation, game feel), including the visuals and animations. The iOS app was built with the help of a former coworker and friend handling most of the programming.
I handled the marketing and business side of things, showing the game at various events in Europe over 2014.
I also incorporated and ran a company for managing the costs and revenues specifically associated with this game.

📝 Key Takeaways

Constraints are a powerful creative tool.
Prototype with the fastest, lowest-tech tools you have to iterate quickly and throw away things that don’t work as early as possible.
Don’t communicate release dates on your side projects unless you’re already done. It’s even harder to meet them than usual work.
It’s hard to keep digital products alive over time with the technical landscape shifting so fast. I’m currently working on fixing the game to re-upload it to the App Store.
Time can also be an ally. With more than 4 years between the start and release of the project, I had the chance to take a real fresh look on major design issues more than once and actually make leaps of progress.

Taking a side project all the way from a simple idea to a released commercial product.
We paid close attention to making the game as accessible as possible throughout design and development (more on that below).
This headline.
People making their own versions of the game before release, and even years after.
The critical success of the game 👇

Featured in the “New Games We Love” and “Pay Once and Play” categories on the iOS App Store.

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