Savage Planet: Fate of Fantos
The Brief
Savage Planet: Fate of Fantos is an original property developed by myself and a partner. It features nearly 100 pieces of original fantasy art by Michael LaRiccia. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter in July of 2017. It raised over 500% of its funding goal. Fate of Fantos is a card drafting game with co-operative and competitive elements. Hire mercenaries (called Legacies) with shards from your Citadel and task them to harvest more shards, go to war with a neighboring Citadel, or nominate them as the savior of Fantos. Every turn, players reveal a card from the Trials Deck, bringing a new punishing challenge to the game. Resolve them together as a planet, or watch as rival Citadels struggle to survive. Plan wisely and make every turn matter because Zodraz is lurking in the Trials deck. When the Cosmic Warden is drawn, judgement is passed, and the game is over.Project Details
Client: Imp House LLC Date: June 2018 Skills: Art Direction, Graphic Design, Game Development, Project Management, IP Development View: Fate of Fantos Kickstarter Page
Legacy Cards
Each of these cards represent a different character in the game. All of them belong to a race and each possesses a unique ability that can be played at a certain time. So, I needed to design them to have indicators of this information as well as easy to read text. I wanted to try something different than what is usually seen in card games. Normally, the artwork is limited to a small rectangle at the top, with a rectangle underneath for text and icons. I wanted to have cards that were filled from top to bottom with amazing art, and based on the how the game plays, I thought I could pull it off. What I came up with was 48 unique Legacy cards, all unified by one layout. I worked with a fantastic artist to create the illustrations; I created the icons and the layout.
Labor Cards
There are 28 unique Labor cards. These cards are kept in the players’ hands and create minor alterations to the game play. They are meant to feel a bit generic or less important compared to the Legacy cards. I wanted to keep the layout the same as the Legacy for ease of reading and decided to go with a simple cream colored border to keep them low key. I think it provides a nice vintage comic book feeling that fits nicely into the theme.
Trials Cards
The Trials deck accomplishes two things in the game. It creates alterations to rules and gameplay as well as putting a clock on game time. When a card is drawn, it has immediate impact on the game. So, these cards needed to be laid out a bit different. I went with a landscape layout with minimal graphics. I feel it gives the art a less restrained feel and puts a greater focus on the text.
Rulebook
This document was the cause of numerous sleepless nights, arguments, crying sessions, and grey hair. It was a much larger undertaking than I originally thought it would be. Due to the game becoming more popular and reaching a wider audience than anticipated, it also brought with it gamers from other cultures who spoke English as a second language. And with that came confusion of terms phrases that seem common in one culture, being confusing to another. Which often meant needing to change the phrasing in the rulebook and on some of the cards. Needless to say this was an incredible learning experience.
Box
Since the artwork is such a big draw for this game, I wanted to feature it as much of the art as I could on the box. I chose to keep text to a minimum and frame every side with a black and white stroke. This put the focus on the large pieces of art and enhance the retro comic book tone of the game.
Kickstarter Video
I created this video to explain the story set up to the game as well as give a brief tease the game’s features are. It was featured on the game’s Kickstarter page.
Second Edition
In 2021, I partnered with Mondo to print a second edition of the game for the retail market. This allowed for some of the components to be upgraded and an opportunity for improving some of the graphic design to help users better understand the gameplay and actions.