Nile Imtiaz | Portfolio

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Nominated for UCSC Games Showcase 2021

Roles: Designer, Artist [Solo Project]

October - December 2020

Assets created in Adobe Illustrator | Game developed in Tabletopia

Design Notes:

For this project I wanted to design a tabletop game that carries the same sense of customizability that player equipment in RPGs have, but placed into a science fiction setting, emulating the experience of being on the crew of a spaceship, scavenging for parts and constantly repairing/upgrading/swapping out parts on your ship.

an example of each type of part card

In a typical RPG, the player has slots for different types of gear that they can equip (usually pieces of armor like helmets, chest pieces, boots, etc.), and the player’s various stats (attack, defense, speed, health, etc.) are impacted by their gear loadout.

In Spacecraft, this system is replicated through the use of ship parts, which come in three different types: the bridge, the frame, and the engine. While RPG gear tends to carry multiple stat bonuses, ship parts each only have two stats, an HP value and a stat value specific to that type of part. The stat that each type of part has is thematically connected: bridges have attack values because the front of the ship is what tends to have weapons; frames have defense values because they are literally the centerpiece of the ship and act as a sturdy core chassis; and engines have movement values, which is self-explanatory.

The goal with these choices was to create a streamlined and easy to understand hierarchy for each type of part; this is also very clearly communicated through the game’s visuals: each part and associated stat has its own consistent iconography and color-coding.

Another important design aspect of Spacecraft is its tactility. This was necessary to capture the “spaceship crew” feeling, and pairs extremely well with the RPG gear slot inspirations. Even though this is a digital game, the cards themselves are designed to fit together very satisfyingly, making use of Tabletopia’s magnetic “snapping” feature that accommodates this feeling, and the board itself is designed to enhance that with designated placeholders for each card.

a player's section of the board

the Mecha Shark card

Another really fun part of designing this game is coming up with the cards themselves. During the development of the game, I constantly had great new ideas for part and action cards that tied a gameplay function with visual theming. One of my favorites is the Mecha Shark card, which is a bridge with a special ability that deals extra damage during someone else’s attack. It’s meant to represent the idea of smelling blood in the water and rushing over to participate, and was really fun to both design and draw. It’s also one of three “mythical” cards in the game, meaning it has a particularly strong ability and to compensate has fewer copies in the deck (also an homage to RPG tropes).

Gallery: