Leviathans Primer Development Continued…

It’s been several months since I’ve discussed the Leviathans Primer. I covered it pretty thoroughly in my last blog, discussing what I wanted to see detailed and why. However, with the Primer in layout and about to head to a final proof to catch any last niggles, I thought it appropriate to cover some more angles.

It may be because I work in the industry, but I’m not so sure…I’ve had these tendencies for a long time, they’re simply refined over the years. Regardless, when I crack open a new box game or a new book, it’s a visual feast to my fan/professional senses. It’s not just the text, or art, or the game system (if there’s any), but it’s the binding, the weight of the paper, the quality of components, the graphic design, the colors…heck, I even get excited with a vacuum tray in the bottom of a box if it’s designed to really fit the components and to make it easy to use during re-peat game play (one of my all time favorites in that regard is the game La Citta). Can’t tell you how many strange looks I’ve gotten over the years in book stores as I’m smelling a book, fingering pages and checking glue on endsheets and smiling at the obvious love and care I see a company pour into a product.

How does that apply here, you may be wondering? Well…I try and take all of that joy and passion I have for every aspect of production and try and ensure our final products meet that. And with Leviathans I’m really trying to up-notch-kick-it.

So back to the Primer, once we bang on the text and I come up with the concepts in my head of how I want to see the text presented on the page (which I then have to transpose into lots of notes…not easy sometimes), you hand it off to the graphic designer and he works his magic. And if he’s really good, he not only blows the future community away…but he blows me away as well. Even after all of these years, I delight in seeing my notes turned into a wonderfully executed piece of art, or a graphic design.

Catalyst has a fantastic team of graphic designers that I flog all too often: “no, just add in another paragraph into that already laid out page…in a sidebar graphic…and make it look good.” And they always come through (albeit often with choice words tossed in my direction).

In this case Matt Heerdt has been at the helm of developing every last piece of style and graphic design you’ve seen to date…and doing a fabulous job at it. This has been a long, long process (and there’s several months still left) and he’s matched me step-for-step when I push him to create something new and cool.

Below is an excerpt out of the Leviathans Primer. I love it because it encapsulates much of what I discussed in that previous blog. It’s the opening page to the French section, it’s got some wonderful “personal tone” dialogue, and it’s all wrapped in a fantastic set of graphics that instantly places you into our alternate history 1910.

This next preview is from the “Flash Points” section of the Primer, where we discuss what’s the hottest spots around the glob for potential conflicts. This is another great example of the designer craft in the map, section tabs and the great paperclip.

It’s also a good example of work in progress, as I’ve already provided some comments back to Matt that I’d like to see an additional sidebar attached to the map that lists all the country’s names, with corresponding numbers. I think if players want to use these maps to create fun and cool “in universe” scenarios, country names are a must…and of course there’s 6 map excerpts, so such a request is not easy and will likely increase that section’s size by a page to take all of those additional sidebar graphic elements into account (that flogging I mentioned above). So what you see here is close to final…but ultimately will be even cooler in the final production.

See ya next duty shift!

Randall