DESCRIPTION
Coo is an original tabletop board game (card game, really) design inspired by a random conversation with a friend I had had once upon a time over the idea of pigeons fighting over dropped food at a park. What developed from that simple chat was a cut-throat gameplay experience involving the hoarding and squabbling over of resources, the toppling and manipulation of existing power structures, class struggle and politically-motivated reprisals. And, yes, pigeons.
It was my first ever attempt at tabletop game design and it taught me a great many things about iterative prototyping (the game saw as many as eight different versions), intuitive navigability, the importance of including delight in user experience as well as the value of user testing and feedback. What’s more, the process helped me identify exactly what kind of games I wanted to develop: theme-centric, metaphor-driven gameplay experiences that don’t take themselves too seriously but still offer enough of a bite strategy-wise. You know, al dente.
During lockdown, I was able to take advantage of the fact that everyone was stuck at home and managed to conduct dozens of remote playtests using the virtual environment provided by playingcards.io. And because the environment was a virtual one, I was able to also leverage the ability to perform rapid prototyping and game improvements as well as run playtests in parallel.
The game is still a work-in-progress but, as of the last virtual playtest, has graduated to require the building of a physical prototype to test the in-person game experience. What happens after? Provided the physical playtests pass with flying colors (fingers crossed), the game will be ready for actual production via Kickstarter.
Illustrations created using Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.
SAMPLE ILLUSTRATIONS
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