First off, we are blown away by the level of support everyone has shown for this campaign. We knew we wanted to share a new shiny version of Innovation with the world, and we're incredibly excited at how many of you are here to help us do just that. We've been a little quiet during the campaign (Gen Con recovery will do that!) but we've been hard at work on a variety of things.
Art & Design Updates are coming to Innovation: Ultimate
Hey there Innovation fans! My name is Robert Simmons; I'm the Art Director for Asmadi Games, and I wanted to share an update on some of the progress art-side we have made since the launch of the campaign.
When we set out in earnest to create the Innovation: Ultimate box set, we were determined to give the overall game a visual refresh and update that would be worthy of the tremendous amount of work Carl and Chris have put into fine-tuning what we feel is the definitive edition of Innovation. To that end, we have been carefully iterating on a number of new and reworked design ideas for the cards' layout, typography, and overall presentation to not only make the game easier to play and visually digest, but to be even more pleasing to look at laid out on the table. So let's preview those changes, shall we?
Illustration by Sarah Farooqi
As you can see, we've completely reworked the back of the Innovation card to feature a full illustration as well as moved some components around for gameplay ease of use. For our illustrations, we are focusing on architectural drawings and schematics that represent the theme and time period of their respective Age, to tie into the theme of, well, Innovation! Each Age will feature a distinct illustration of an iconic motif from its time, with the color treatments dependent on the expansion pack the card belongs to. Expansion cards are also clearly marked with their respective logo icons. Furthermore, the Age names and numbers have been reconfigured to make tucking for the purposes of scoring (vertical) or achieving (sideways) visually distinct so there's no confusing one for the other when things get shifted around on the table. We feel these updates make the game even easier to follow, and also more visually striking.
We've also continued to iterate on the design of the card fronts. One of the benefits of running this longer campaign is that we have been able to gather and consider a huge amount of feedback, and it's been extremely valuable! As a result, we made the decision to remove the checkerboard pattern from the cards to improve visual clarity of all the information you have to digest - we know there's a lot of it. We still found a little space for some additional visual flair, however, with some schematic linework around the border that is also themed to the card's respective Age. Demand text is bold and visible from anywhere on the table, so you always know when one is potentially in play.
In all, we feel we're well on our way to a bolder, even better looking Innovation. We like the shape the cards are in, and we'll continue to work on them. Keep the feedback coming and let us know in the comments what you think! We hope you're all as excited as we are about these new upgrades.
