You’re almost ready: You’ve written your game. You figured out the appropriate safety tools and mechanics. You’ve done your multiple rounds of editing, and your playtesters have given you great feedback. Your revisions are complete. As far as you can tell…
You’re done. Your game is ready to go. Except for one thing…
Graphic design.
Now, we all know the old adage of “don’t judge a book by it's cover,” but let’s be honest: When it comes to things like games (and books, and movies, and and and) we sometimes tend to gloss over ones that don’t appeal to us. We all have our personal design aesthetics that we like, and there’s nothing wrong with that! And frankly: Graphic design isn’t for everyone. It can be really challenging, especially if it’s all brand new to you!
Here are some of my suggestions for you, if you’re new to game design and aren’t sure where to begin with putting your game into a graphic format:
Look at other people’s games that are in similar theme to yours. If you’ve got a space game, look at other space themed games. Fantasy? Find some dungeon crawlers. Warm and cozy? That’s a big niche right now, and there are tons of games with that vibe. There are games out there already with every aesthetic design you can think of, so don’t be afraid to look at what other people are doing and use that information to figure out what you like (and, more importantly: What you don’t like).
Talk to other game designers, and your playtesters. It can be really helpful to bounce ideas off other people in the game design space, along with the people who know your game. My playtesting group has been incredibly helpful (and vocal, in a good way) about sharing their thoughts when it comes to my cover designs and font choices and, while I might not always listen, their feedback is invaluable. Lots of game designers also love to talk shop, and are happy to help each other out - If you need someone to review, or give you a vibe check, drop me an email and I’ll give you my thoughts!
Canva is an incredibly valuable resource. Literally all of my games have been designed through Canva, and there’s a reason for it: Even in its free version, the platform is dizzyingly robust, offering the ability to provide designs for book or ‘zine covers in many different standard sizes or clip art elements or photos for background, and much more. They also offer affordable printing services, as well.
A subpoint here is that there are also many other free and valuable resources available for use out there, depending on what you’re looking for. Unsplash is great for royalty free photographs, and Itch.io has a huge amount of resource heavy asset packs (D&D related, comics-themed, or maybe you need a specific font type), many of which are free to use.
Once you’ve done your research, the best thing you can do is go with your gut. You know what you like and you know the vibe of your game, so put the two of those things together. Take your time: There’s no rush!
And remember: Do one more round of editing before you publish - Don’t be like me and have your game printed with a spelling error.
If you’re new here and you like this post, you can check out the others in this series via the Game Design tag. Be sure to scroll all the way down and sign up for our newsletter - A biweekly round up of our posts, games we’re playing, and other such fun things. Thanks for checking us out!