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Visual & Design Anthropology
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Building the world and mechanics
Translation: Welcome
We designed the game world to be a suburban dystopia set in 2040s Britain. The game follows suburban citizens as they try to overcome social isolation by exploring beyond their neighbourhood and building a social movement.
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We wanted to create a game world based on a feel of isolation created by sprawling carbon-copy neighbourhoods so we 'modded' the randomly generating tile map from 'Betrayal at House on the Hill' to give the players the feeling of exploring unknown territory. Players must work together by exploring the city and meeting in secret at the community buildings to join forces and gain influence tokens.
We also developed obstacles to overcome. Players must avoid police who are out to stop protests. There is also the constant threat of climate disasters that can be triggered by rolling a double.
We tried out our ideas using the 'Betrayal at House on the Hill' board and objects to get a feel for the game.
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The map tiles establish the feel of the game world so we spent a lot of time adjusting them to get it right.
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In the end, we decided a birds eye view which still kept 3D perspective was the best choice to make the map easy to explore but keep the feeling of actually being there.
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The game world represent what we called a ‘pseudo-utopia’: a dystopia which on the surface looks utopian e.g., perfect tidy streets which hide deeper systemic issues. We decided to use the promise of a new city as the aesthetic inspiration for the game. The board for the game was designed using 3D architectural software to give it this essence.
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Translation: About
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