...26. I told Cole I wasn't feeling it. It just didn't have any humor in it anymore. I started just sifting through old files for inspiration.
27. I came to this old doodle. This was the humor I was missing. I took this image and I made a color pallet to make sure I could make it work with the suit colors I had established. I wasn't ABOUT to change the suit colors!
28. Here's the pallet that all of Oath is illustrated with. To explain how in-the-weeds I was, this file is literally still called OATH_COLORS_MAYBE.jpg
29. I went back and colored art I had on hand. I cheated and used background line art from the Root box cover. Dang. It looked so much more fitting to me. The big DANG was I knew how much work it was going to be to illustrated 200 freakin' cards this way.
30. So I did more cards. I used the background from the "Stand and Deliver" Root card for the background of the Arcane card on the left. Yep. This was it.
31. After that it was kind of a blur. I felt so much more in my element. I got to make the cards funny again. And I'll repeat this: I did this to myself, haha.
32. The rest is history. 200+ unique cards. A massive roll-out play-mat. The biggest box I've ever illustrated. Chicken coins and secret books. I'm immensely proud of #oathboardgame and the patience of my coworkers and @PatrickLeder
the end, unless I think of something else.
...33. Of course there's more! I forgot! The Chancellor was one of the last things we designed! We always knew there would be a way to win and play as the Winner on the next game, but how to do it wasn't solidified in the rules at first.
34. Every character had an Exile and and Empire side, and I figured that would be it.
35. But we needed a way to show who was the chief empire player. One of my ideas was to make a throne. An "L" shaped piece of wood that you could have your meeple ride around on. I still think this is cute.
36. It became apparent that we needed a dedicated piece/board/character. I wanted to make sure ANY of the player characters could see themselves becoming this new character, but there was a problem. See if you can guess what it was...
37. They were all different sizes and shapes! They didn't even have the same number of eyes or limbs! That's when I drew the Chancellor. Just an intimidating mass. Anyone could be under that cloak and mask.
38. The Chancellor has since become kind of an icon of what Oath *is*. They're up in the tower on the cover of the box. They have their own box side dedicated to them.
39. The Meeple is the biggest piece in the box besides the map itself. The change in how warbands worked necessitated giving each color a banner that matches their theme.
40. It is wild to see @TomBrewstErr using this costume to embody Oath is his review, consider the character was one of the last pieces of the puzzle. That's some dedication!
41. To sum up a little. We always talk about wanting to make "someone's favorite game" at work. We don't have to make the best game for every single person, but we want to pour our whole effort into what we make so that *someone* could say "It's my favorite"
42. It means a lot to hear Tom say "It is, by quite a margin, my favorite game"
It's literally what I love most about my work.
43. So grateful to @LederGames that I can do this kind of thing. Here's to the future!
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