by Maxime Morin
First Contact
In April 2022, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/28651/catch-up-games“>Catch Up games thought of me to make art for one of their future games, designed by Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat. Of course I knew Catch Up games by name, and I owned a few good games from them, so I was extremely happy they thought of me!
Back then, the design was still called “Reverse Adventure”, a card game in which each player was a traveler. The game was set in a peaceful, dream-like and timeless universe. The project looked cool, and I was quite intrigued by the idea of the game. It was quite original with its reverse scoring!
“Reverse Adventure”, an early prototype of Faraway
Now, I had to see what kind of art direction they wanted and whether that fit with what I could do. I got acquainted with Clément Milker, who would be a constant contact throughout the project, and Benjamin Treilhou, the art director who would manage the project’s art.
We met, and I discovered the inner workings of the game; we discussed the kind of art that I had already done and what could match the game‘s tone among those. I like to try different things from one project to the next, if I am able to, but I felt one of my personal projects had drawn their attention. It was a series of two-color mini-frescoes filled with weird characters I drew with pen and ink…and sometimes with a touch of watercolor to give them more volume (1 – 2 – 3 – 4).
I also sent them another piece of art, as an example, a thing I had tried a long time ago and that I never finished, but at that point, I wanted to drive them to a vector art rendering style for multiple reasons…
Vector and hand-drawn inspirations for Faraway artwork
Using Vectors?
I started a first wave of graphical research. I initially wanted to provide two different renderings. I sketched a few characters, and for the first rendering, I decided to color using vector colors. (Yes, I was insisting on this…) At that point, I thought this type of rendering could work as the game oozed an old-school RPG vibe (imagine the 1990’s Final Fantasy entries) with a lot of characters handing out quests (in speech bubbles) — and I hoped that this approach would be kept as the project seemed quite the challenge!
In terms of what we had to do: 68 cards (in four families, each tied with a biome), and 15 to 20 characters we would duplicate, changing a few accessories and colors. Then there were “hideaway cards“, as they were called back then; these cards would reuse the landscapes of all four biomes with no characters on them. This was a bit strategic, but it would save considerable amounts of time! It would be easier for me to duplicate elements, and most of all to correct mistakes. Here’s a good example with that awkward character I could fix when I moved to the coloring stage:
Translated annotation: Graphical test in progress… character visible from head to toe?
Vector research for Faraway
Translated annotations: Graphical test in progress… character cropped at the chest?We could almost add the figure of a moving character in the sceneryExample of a “City” landscape
For all four biomes, I thought about two ways of picturing them. For the first idea, I thought of a kind of decor seen with a front/side view, a landscape you saw and explored from one end to another…and why not an entry and exit point, as in Mario Bros. I tried to put a thread through the art, like a beeline that went through the card and touched the resources it gave; we had a big red flower (a Rafflesia) instead of thistles — or pineapples, if you insist on calling them that! The cards were 70x70mm, and I thought the content would be clean, as this square would have to contain a lot of information.
Long live vectors! Thank you, AI — and by that I mean Adobe Illustrator and not generative artificial intelligence, mind you!
Research for “pathways” across cards (concept)
Translated annotations: Cartography concept, maps with an “entry” and an “exit” on each side in order to form a path, to “connect” areas together and to “picture” the traveled road.
A bit like old-time video games, a concept with “tunnels”, to get from one “world” to another like in “Mario”.
Hand-drawn research for Faraway
Translated annotations: Concept of “narrative” graphics: here the visited area is somehow “told” (with images) by a character. It could be “swarming” with intertwined elements.
And emphasize the relevant resource in some way.
Hand-Drawn
Of course, for the second approach, I was going to follow their recommendations – I didn’t want the project to stop there for me, right! I used the sketch of a second character out of the eight I had already designed. I traced it using a light pad to get a black-and-white version done with my pens. This was more time consuming — and more demanding since it was more difficult to correct mistakes after you’ve made them. However, the slight imperfections of hand-drawn have their own charm…
I scanned the drawing and colored it using Photoshop. For the landscape, I created another concept, a kind of map with connecting paths that formed the journey of each player. In my version, I still had “doors”, and I should have removed them, but the idea had been brought forth, and that’s what mattered.
I sent my two proposals, my two renderings, with my fingers crossed. We would see…
Hand-drawn research for Faraway
Translated annotation: Sketch: example with a “scenery” concept
After they had received my initial research, all three of us met and – as I had expected – the hand-drawn version beat the vector approach. Clément preferred the hand-drawn aspect, but also thought the vector version had attractive features, whereas Benjamin performed a clean takedown on the vector version. This verbal German Suplex went like “This looks bland like an insurance company ad!” or some such, and the vector version of the art was never to recover…but we had such a laugh. Thank you, Benjamin!
I left Adobe Illustrator for a good while, and I must confess that with hindsight, the choice was rather grounded: The art direction would be bolder, warmer, less usual – and all of that was great. The real start of the project was given: We couldn’t back down!
Landscape by Fragments…and More Fragments
First, I designed the look of all four areas. We kept that front/side view, and we set aside the map and its paths. Now we had mountains, mushroom forests, towns, and rice fields. Clément envisioned a wide continuous panorama for each biome, and we would use a cropped version of it for each card. With seventeen cards per area, I was not sold on the idea and thought some parts of this great panorama, when cropped out, would lack detail, depth, or even just character…
Research for the four regions
Translated annotation: Visual concept of panoramic sceneries (Benjamin’s idea) which would be “adapted / cropped” on all cards belonging to the same area.
This is why I thought about instead drawing a series of assets I would use to compose each panorama, assets that we could reuse whenever we saw fit. This would allow us to adjust the background more easily as needed, taking into account the size of the foreground character and where it sits in the card.
I composed a background with only a few cards to see whether my idea of having a threaded journey across all eight cards could work if they were placed side by side. I tried to add rocks and hills as flat panels to create a continuum between cards – that way, they could work as a frieze. I liked the idea, but we wouldn’t keep it in the end; managing the landscape was a hassle, and this graphical “trick” was unnecessary. Furthermore, most of the time the cards will be placed in two rows rather than just one!
Assets for the mushroom forest biome
Documentation and Hidden Resources
Step by step, I made progress on all decor elements for all biomes, but I was kind of stuck on the rice fields biome. It seemed impossible to have enough varied compositions for seventeen cards. After discussing it, I suggested opting for rivers and forests instead. That was how we solved the landscape diversity problem.
Research for rice fields/waterfall/rivers biome
Translated annotation: Rivers/Waterfall instead of Rice fields? There’s also the “Cities” approach?
Research for rock desert and troglodyte cities biomes
I had to absorb a lot of documentation to take inspiration from real landscapes. (Mother Nature has already invented everything!) There are incredible rocks in Chile’s Atacama desert, and this would be the main inspiration for the “desert mountain biome”. I often use Pinterest for this kind of project; I create moodboards with pictures for reference. Vegetation, rocks, mushrooms, rivers, and strange villages from all around the world, I have saved <a href="https://in.pinterest.com/maximeillustration/ref-new-game-cupg-ra/” target=”_blank” class=”postlink” rel=”nofollow noreferrer noopener”>more than six hundred pictures for this project!
Obviously, I used few of them in the end, but taking in those pictures allowed me to keep a general feel to develop the game‘s style, and that way I was able to give each area as much quaint character as possible.
The task was quite long, but things took shape, little by little. I assembled my elements to compose the landscapes of each of the 68 cards. We also decided to have the resource(s) of the card in the art as well. They are present as gameplay icons in the top right corner, but can also be found in the landscape. Squint and look for them – some are incredibly well hidden!
Translated annotations: (up arrow) In progress…
(right arrow) It might be redundant to have the resources pictured in the scenery, “right next” to the symbols of these same resources in the final layout? (it also makes the card pretty busy, there’s already quite a lot of information on it!?)
(left arrow) Two resources in the scenery, not easy. I should try to “hide” them a bit more if we go with this concept…
Research for hiding resources in artwork…and examples
Layout and Characters
At the same time, Benjamin and I tested different ways of laying out the cards. We ended up with a box in the bottom with the color of the biome. It acts as a support for the characters, but also harbors the icons of the quests: goals, fame points, etc. We also have a frieze in the center of the card with a specific pattern. Colorblind people can identify all four families with them, and this will be used for some quests as well.
Research for “pathways” across cards
Translated annotation: Unfinished character which probably needs to be redrawn for a cleaner inking.
Research for card layout colors
Translated annotations: 1st version (“Chromatic unity” for each biome)2nd version (Variety between the bottom of the cards and the illustrated upper part)
Research for character placement
For the iconography (exploration duration, pictograms, etc.), we tested multiple things, from streamlined glyphs to pictograms that reused part of the art and art style. That choice was the final one.
Translated annotations: A few experiments in vector (which I dropped)
Version of symbols based on a drawingDrawn resource to be added in sceneriesFloating Stone (Energy milestone) (“Rune”)Flower (“Regent of the vegetal world”) (Thistle type)Qilin(s) (“Breath of Oniri”) (Purify Air)
Symbol aloneSymbol with frame
Early (top) and continued (bottom) research for icons
Translated annotations: Resource SymbolsBiome SymbolsMisc. Symbols (Time, Points, etc.)
Resource Symbols as “Glyphs” (last attempt):“Drawn” Resource Symbols (new version):Symbol styles to pick from
Number Frame + Concept of Sun & Moon symbols (Bonus on cards 20-40)Update: Yellow instead of Orange!Font change! (no copyright)victory Points symbolsUpdate: Yellow, no texture
Compass symbolSymbols for cards “families” (using the pattern from the friezes)
The Denizens of Alula
The universe of the game was a bit dreamlike and otherworldly, and I was able to create characters like I wanted! I sketched a lot of things so that we could keep our favorites. We had envisioned drawing fifteen or twenty of them and creating variations around them to reach our total of 61. (Seven cards in the game have no character on them.)
Research for characters and their colors
To be honest, I didn’t want to add that extra load of work…but in the end, I figured not having 61 unique characters was a missed opportunity! Instead of spending time drawing headdresses, staves, or other accessories to dress up my characters and have them be present in three or four versions, we decided to work on the existing sketches (whether satisfactory or rougher) to create all of these imaginary people!
While designing and drawing them, I created a kind of guide for characters, depending on their goals, and I gave each group a little nickname. I designed them so that each category has a recognizable element to it.
• GUARDIANS (flat points): often with a weapon or a fighting stance
• MERCHANTS (points for a resource)
• FLOATERS/NOCTURNALS (points for nighttime cards): float above the ground
• TRAVELERS (points for sets of four biomes): with a ring floating above their head
• EXILES (points for a single biome): depends on the biome they are from
• TWO-HEADED (points for two biomes): two heads, one for each biome
• FARSEERS (points for clues): all blind
Translated annotations: x17 “The Guardians” (Warriors)Note – With or without a prerequisite: fixed VP > This card = X VP
x16 “The Merchants”Note – With or without a prerequisite: X VP bonus for each collected resources of this type
x7 “The Floaters/Nocturnals”Note – With or without a prerequisite: Each collected “Nocturnal” card (20-40) > each = X VP
x4 “The Travellers – Dreamers”Note – For a set of 4 cards of different colors = 10 VP
Translated annotations: x3 “The Nostalgic Exiles”Note – Each card of the indicated color = X VP
x9 “The Indecisive Ones (Two-headed)Note – With or without a prerequisite: One chosen color out of two > each card of this color = X VP
x5 “The Farseers”All blind but thanks to their “Staff – Familiar” they can detect Compass symbols to navigate. Collect compasses and you’ll be rewarded!)16 Compasses (3 of which on the “Nocturnals” cards (20-40)Note – With or without a prerequisite: For each “collected compass” > X VP
Regarding the colors of each of the four families and those of the characters, we tested myriad colors. The project overextended a bit, time-wise, and I had to take care of other projects for a while…
Fortunately Benjamin took over and covered for me until I was back to wrap up the game!
The Cover…No, Covers!
The cover also needed a lot of iterations. Benjamin and I had tried overcomplicated things: keeping in mind the inverted scoring, we thought about a logo you could read in two directions, a box with two sides, a day half and a night half, a mirrored logo — we thought really hard about this!
We eventually went for something more straightforward and ended up with the cover you know. We chose our little floating character with a hat, selected their background, Benjamin made the logo, and the project was nearing completion…when, one day, Benjamin said that Clément thought we should have four different covers for the French release of the game. Now that was a cool-as-beans idea!
This little extra was really worth it. We made four covers, one for each biome, and I must confess this is an amazing showcase for our work!
Illustrating this superb game was a great project, with a great team. Kudos to Johannes and Corentin for such a great game, and thanks a lot, Clément and Benjamin, for inviting me on this journey!
I’ll stop yapping now as I have a few <a href="https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=faraway” target=”_blank” class=”postlink” rel=”nofollow noreferrer noopener”>games to play on BGA. (Still trying to beat my all-time high score of 106 points!)
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