Real quickly, for those who aren't familiar, print and play board games are just what they sound like. You download the files, print them out, glue them to thicker paper or poster board then play. The thing about these games is that while they're cheap and fun to play, they aren't really graphically pleasing to the eye. For the more popular games like Zombie Plague there are people who took the time to make very nice redesigns of things like game pieces and the cards used in the game. Using this as my inspiration I decided to make a proper looking instruction manual that would look just like the manuals that come with board games now. The instructional manual that comes with the game is just a PDF with text on it. Easy to read but with a board game like this it doesn't really help you get in the "mood" for being chased by zombies.
Below is my example/template/folding dummy/manual I'm emulating. It's for a great game called "Arkham Horror", based of the Cthulhu Mythos started by H. P. Lovecraft.
As you can see, the manual has a three column layout, with a half inch margin and about an eighth of an inch gutter. It's dimensions are 11" x 11". Replicating that in InDesign shouldn't be too much of a bother. The biggest thing I noticed while studying the manual was that it used a lot of picture. A whole lot. But this game is also the size of your dining room table (literally) so it's somewhat understandable. My manual doesn't have a million little pieces that I can pepper through the document so I had to get a bit more creative with my pictures.
I decided to follow basic newspaper-like rules when figuring out where the text would go. The Arkham manual followed similar principles and it looks good. Also note, this manual is 24 pages long, which is ridiculous for a board game. It's not uncommon for more advanced games, but it's a pain trying to figure out how to play that first game. My manual should be around eight pages long and with larger text, maybe 14 or 16 points so it should be it a decently quick read front to back. I talked to the print at printing services and we decided on Mowhawk #30 paper (the same kind used in the Arkham Horror manual) and I'd be using 4 color cmyk for my art and anything in InDesign would have to be pantome process.
The vectors and textures that I ended up using came from quite a few sources, the cover and pages came from the Lost & Taken blog. Things like the people, splatters, weapons, zombies, scribbles, and the hand prints on the cover are from the GoMedia freebie blog and a $10 pack pack I ended up buying cause I like them. The screaming man came from http://www.all-free-download.com/ and the man with the gun came from http://www.freevector.com/. There are also pictures that are used as examples of the game board itself and some of the cards used in the game. These were made by a user named 'Flytrap' on the website Boardgamegeek.com. He released it as part of his redesigned Zombie Plague: 10th Anniversary Edition.
Here is the first version. I tried to make something that was like a manual or a journal. The page textures had some random scribbles on them so I thought it'd be good as like someone slowly going crazy while these zombies took over. The cover is suppose to be something that immediately grabs your attention and sets the mood for the game. I initially wanted to have a little story in the background by making each page have a journal entry of a man slowly going crazy before he kills himself but due to time constraints and the fact it'd look too crowded, I decided to just condense it into two pages and use it as a 'notes' page. That way I can kind of display it as art. I followed the Arkham Horror template and made an 11" x 11" manual that had three columns with a half inch margin all around, eighth inch gutter and an eighth inch bleed. All my background art is CMYK, as is most of my vectors, some are grayscale.
I tried to keep everything decently uniform, blocking off awkwardly lengths columns and putting them in a box or adding a piece of art to keep things balanced. The roll chart was made in illustrator as is where most of the vectors were altered. I also tried to keep the pictures relevant to the text that it was surrounded by which I think went pretty well. During the peer review the class had very few criticisms, just thinks like too empty space on one side or something that could be with a simple design change.
So, here it is, this is the version that is going to be printed out.
UPDATE:
Over the weekend I got a call from the printer. There were a couple things I wasn't aware of while reviewing and submitting the file. I wasn't told that saddle stitching required the document to be in multiples of four (because of the way the fold and the document (usually) works, having anything less would basically cause a random extra or blank page). Also, the machine they do these types of jobs with can only print out in 9" x 9", so I would have to scale everything down. Since I had a deadline I asked what could be done to keep the book in its current form. I was told I could do a coil bind and keep it 11" x 11". That sounded good to me so the job went through. This is what it looked like when I picked it up.
I think it still looks good with the coil binding. The colors turned out well. As did all the graphics and text. There was just one problem I didn't take into consideration....
I never thought to redo the file to take into account the gutter of a coil bind. Because of this my text was way to close to the inside of the page. This was on all of the pages. Also, on paper some of my margins looked like they could have been a little tighter.
Game art page
Graphic
Notes page with the "mini-story" of someone using the manual and going crazy. This part turned out really well and is probably my favorite thing of the whole book.
The class like it as well, everyone thought it looked cool and agreed that the textures I used for the cover and pages helped add to the feel of the game. The biggest suggestions (aside from the text margins) was to see how it would look in a smaller or more "book-like" spread. Or if I had the time and money, make it like a fake journal or manual. It's something I might have to consider.
This project was a blast, despite the pressures of it being our last final project. Everything we've done led up until this point and all my teachings shown while doing this project, the image quality, my workflow, my creative suites skills in general, have all noticeably increased since this class. To finish off this blog, I want to talk about my overall thought of this class, briefly.
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