#vanrydergames

[ben-tuite]

Reiko from Final Girl painted. These are so tiny! Painted March 9th, 2023 by Ben Tuite. #BoardGames #FinalGirl #BenTuite #MiniaturePainting #TabletopPainting #BoardGamePainting #VanRyderGames (at Chapel Hill, North Carolina) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpoKSGmuyrX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[rjames22]

The Big Score is on kickstarter! (Fully Funded in under 24 Hours!)

The Brute

The Brute started off as “Eddie the Brute” hailing from England. I was inspired a lot by “Barry the Baptist” from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, so if he looks familiar that’s probably why lol. The Bosses were designed with the idea that they’re always in their domain. So seated in their offices, or where you would typically find them. The background should reflect the Boss, as it is an extension of them. The Brute has a rustic wood grain office, musky with cigar smoke and dimly lit. Its a place for him to meet and intimidate potential employees and partners. He would use the low light to make himself look bigger in size, like a bear in a cave. I had the most fun with his facial expression, and his money colored tie. As he was the first Boss character I designed his illustration was used for a number of mock up concepts. The early Boss Card Concept, (which looks terrible next to what we officially used lol) An idea for special “Boss” Job Cards, which only featured Boss Art, not location art and functioned like the “Job Cards” This concept was scrapped. The Big Score is on kickstarter! (Fully Funded in under 24 Hours!) Support the project, reserve your copy and see what stretch goals we have in store! ;)   Check me out on: Facebook

[thetrashmanda]

View this post on Instagram

10/10 would buy more! Check it out at @vanrydergames ! #gna #vanrydergames #captive #rpg #chooseyourownadventure #gaming https://www.instagram.com/p/BzBTmdCD8-9/?igshid=1juc4ubroszm

[rjames22]

La Loba (Second Boss Character Unlock) La Loba started of as La Vibora for the Viper, I think we swapped it to La Loba because of the innuendo (if you don’t get the innuendo congrats your brain is purer than mine) I liked the idea of a Latin crime lord someone street level with a rowdy unruly gang. Similar to “9″ in Stranger Things Season 2. Her code name started of as “The Viper” when translated so I gave her a big long snake sleeve tattoo coming out the mouth of a “Dia del Muerto” styled skull on her shoulder. Sort of like the Mexican version of  the “Dark Mark”from Harry Potter if you will haha. We decided on a female to increase the female count on the roster, also (females are more fun to draw anyway) But with her inclusion the cast is about 50-50 in regards to male and female bosses. So yay variety! I really enjoyed giving her that sickly fluorescent lighting, making things look sort of greeny blue in color. I wanted her “hideout” to look and feel like an abandoned building in Centennial City that her gang would have taken over and made their own. The Big Score has been Successfully Funded on Kickstarter! We’ve made out Goal and then some! La Loba being just one of the 5 stretch goals we managed to unlock! Just want to thank everyone for their support! I personally cannot wait for my copy, I’m so ready to play this game! Check me out on: Facebook

[rjames22]

Money Chips So these were fun to work on. I wasn’t sure if we could do rectangular shaped chips, but once we established that we could I was totally excited. I liked the idea of the cash looking like actual dollars at least in shape.  The Vault Chips had to look different from the regular chips. This was so that it would be easier to differentiate which chips go into the vault and which don’t.  A lot of countries have color coded dollar bills, so i decided to follow suit for the game as well. The color helps to differentiate denominations and helps you to keep track on how much cash your opponents have ;) The Big Score is on kickstarter! In case you missed the deadline there will be an opening for late pledges and upgrades, and they count towards our very last stretch goal as well, so check it out! Check me out on Facebook to see more of my work

[rjames22]

The Bank Box & Busted Tracker The Bank The idea behind this set piece is to feel like you’re robbing a bank. “Hand in the cookie jar style” The artwork had to wrap around a cube so that mean’t 2 unique sides mirrored and repeated.  The Busted Tracker The Busted Tracker is made up of two illustrations and informative graphics. The original concept had it in a sequence of “Cops Alerted” “Cops and SWAT raiding” then “Behind Bars” We ended up skipping the middle sequence as it made the tracker very busy looking, which was undesirable. So instead we kept it as “Cops en route” and “Busted”  The En route illustration was challenging. Night scenes with lots of light from various sources can be challenging for any artist. The tracker was one of the last pieces I worked on for this project so fair to say a little bit of wariness factored in as well. The Busted illustration I genuinely had a lot of fun with, especially the tattoos  The Big Score is on kickstarter! In case you missed the deadline there will be an opening for late pledges and upgrades, and they count towards our very last stretch goal as well, so check it out! Check me out on Facebook to see more of my work

[rjames22]

Loot Design

The WANT Factor This was an important aspect for designing these items. I wanted the designs to be shiny and bright and exciting to look at. For a game about heists and thievery what good would it be if the loot in question wasn’t desirable to look at?  Diamonds, Artifacts, Gold and Silver  These were pretty straight forward. Especially the Gold and Silver bars. A Jewel is a Jewel, so the only thing I had to figure out was shape and color. 

The Artifact The most challenging of this lot was probably the “Artifact” As its a pretty undefined term. Figuring out what it would actually be was tricky. I explored a bit of what it could be back when the idea was for Cards as the loot. You can see Dinosaur bones, a Vase, a Framed Painting, A Sculpture, Arrow Heads etc.  What ever I decided, had to make sense to be found in various “locations” at least to me, as the designer. So that ruled out Dinosaur bones (in my head) It also had to be exciting to look at. It had to trigger that want feel. So that ruled out Arrow heads and Vases. Because who cares. I felt like if I were robbing a place, I really wouldn’t care about arrow heads and vases. I thought about my own trips to museums in the past and how little I cared about things like arrow heads and ancient artifacts from pre-history. I also recalled seeing many vases of varying embellishment and I can’t describe to how little brain memory space I have allotted to each and every one of them. Sculptures. Hmm. Maybe theres something there. Definitely not Modern Art though, so the initial thought of “sculpture” was scrapped. What about something that looked mystical. This is when I started thinking about Billy Zane, and how much of a cool dude he was.... (Hahah) Because he made “The Phantom” and I remembered being young and watching that movie and loving it. You Might be able to see where I’m going with this  Long story short, I thought “YES”. Something that looks ancient but also mystical, and something that could exist in duplicate form and wouldn’t, as a result be devalued by having multiples. Something that people would want to collect. So could randomly be found all over a city, and more importantly something people would want to STEAL for themselves. The Data Drive    Oh Data Drive. Most challenging item to design in case you couldn’t tell by how much art was around it. How do I make a hard drive look desirable?  The designers had the idea of a 2 Part item. So each half was worthless without the other. That’s great, but it doesn’t help make the idea exciting. The first idea was having the two pieces snap into each other. The action of puzzle piecing the only item in the game that works like this could be exciting, the challenge came in from making it work visually, and the act of combining the two pieces producing a visual payoff that was satisfying for the player. So that’s where the idea of a double sided chip came in, where after combining the two pieces you can flip over the chip and get a more appealing visual (i.e an open hard drive) I had the idea later to make the drive a safe, that would literally be opened to reveal physical money, but that idea was scrapped. Instead we returned to the actual hard drive design with “digital money” as the gimmick, like Crypto Currency. The Big Score is on Kickstarter! We are doing Great, we just reached our 4th Stretch Goal with 1 more day left in the campaign. Head on over, back the project and reserve an early copy of the game! Check me out on my Facebook to see more of my work. 

[rjames22]

Today is the official last day to back The Big Score on Kickstarter!

With that in mind I decided to blog about the item that’s featured on our last stretch goal:

The Jack of All Trades Token

This guy was a tonne of fun to work on. I’ll be 100% honest here: I’m sad we had to cover up his features with a hat and glasses. I loved his look T_T. But the character called for a great sense of anonymity, so it had to be done. But yeah, it was a big “baby kill” for me. But that said, I’m really pleased with his design.

    I wanted him to be an older looking man, serious, grizzled, mysterious, after all, he’s the specialist in this game. He can do it all. He’s the guy you call when you’re in trouble. So he had to look experienced with a look that commanded a lot of respect, you’d think twice about crossing him. Strong silent type and very good at what he does. I think having him in Black & White greatly assisted in accomplishing that feel, and served doubly well when having the different colors associated with the jobs surrounding him, so he has no colors to muddle the “read” of what is essentially a “Wild Card” token. If we reach our last stretch goal of $50K the basic cardboard chip he’s featured on will be upgraded to a high quality Poker style chip. A fitting upgrade as you will need him in the game when your proverbial “chips are down”

The Big Score is on kickstarter!

In case you missed the deadline there will be an opening for late pledges and upgrades, and they count towards our very last stretch goal as well, so check it out!

Check me out on Facebook to see more of my work