This is the second in a three-part retrospective series on Far Away. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore the development of Far Away and the lessons learned along the way.
When I first started working with Alex, I had just started graphic design school. He offered me some cash to illustrate Drink! And we’ve been working together ever since. As I learned more in school, I was able to do more at Cherry Picked Games and it’s obvious with the progression of our games. Far Away was our largest and most challenging mission yet.
As two explorers on a mission, we had to wear many hats. We utilized our time in the same HEX and worked diligently when communication was sparse. We did our best to establish a well working base and complete each mission to the best of our ability but there are many challenges hiding in the vastness of space.
Creating a game is an iterative process. There’s really no way around it. As you develop, things will change. You’ll remove stuff you thought you needed and add things that challenge the systems you’ve already put in place. You’ll go back and forth on things that no one will notice, and other things will work out better than you could have planned. It will be a moving target, but the best you can do is stay organized and plan ahead to try to minimize repeated work.
Far Away was an ambitious project. There are hundreds of components as well as many sets of icons and illustrations. For our two-person team, I was in charge of the visual aspects of the game. The colors, icons, illustrations, and card design all need to look as if they belong together. We want the game to be immersive and everything should feel like it’s part of this world.
It was tough, since there are so many retro-space themed games already out on the market, we had to find a unique way to tell our story. What I really loved was the bureaucratic Federation Alliance. They are not an evil corporation, rather just neglectful and cheap. This idea played heavily into many aspects of the game including the visual style. I wanted everything to feel like an old Macintosh that’s been sitting in some classroom for the past 20 years. So, instead of white, shiny components, everything is a yellow-gray. The colors of the icons are muted, and everything feels a bit dusty. You feel like you’re being given old equipment because, what else can you expect from the same corporation that doesn’t provide you with a radio?
Color is a great way to organize and show things that belong together, but not everyone sees color the same way. In order to make sure our game is accessible as possible, everything also has an icon. I have a love-hate relationship with icons. They’re great when they simplify an idea, but when there are too many it’s like learning a second language. Nobody likes flipping through the rule book to figure out, “what does four squiggly lines mean,” so we tried to keep it to what was necessary. Icons that represent HEXes are hexagonal and their colors match what resource you’ll find there. Creatures have their own set of icons that represent their diet, pack size, and where they prefer to live (also hexagonal icons since it refers to a HEX). As we continued to expand the universe of Far Away, we had to be strategic of how we used icons.
For me, a game with so many pieces would be intimidating. To help alleviate some of the stress new players might feel on their first voyage through space, components needed to be intuitive to use. We considered how people played the game and moved the pieces. We made mats to help organize the cards and play tested many iterations of the game. For example, while you only have 3 moves, your board has 4 spaces for your turn-tracker. In play testing, we found that people were setting the tracker off the board in between rounds. Players needed a spot that indicated 0 moves had been made. It seemed obvious after we had added it but hadn’t occurred to me designing it on a screen.
Alex and I always like to inject as much humor as we can into a game, without being too gimmicky. I love finding opportunities for this sort of “flavor text” in the small details. I think this is a remnant of Conspire where we hid as many things as we could all throughout. Sometimes it’s an inside joke between Alex and I, or a significant date hidden in a barcode but mostly they’re just little things that we find amusing. It’s always fun to find an Easter egg and it’s fun to hide them, too. I hope that players continue to discover these hidden jokes as they play, making every time just as fun.
There’s not really one right answer when it comes to designing a game. It’s a living organism that evolves over time. The game you start with may not look anything like your final product, but that’s a good thing. You can’t know exactly how everything will turn out, but you do your best to make something that looks cool and plays well. And if you’re like me, you have just as much fun designing as you do playing.
— Jake