When the Microgame Competition came around, I saw it as an opportunity to challenge myself on multiple levels. My games generally run a bit too long and use overly expensive components. So I wanted to make a game that takes less than 15 minutes to play. But there was another challenge I added to myself that would finally make all those art sets people got me for various christmas's worthwhile and that's learning to watercolor.

 

The game design itself when largely without a problem as a black and white prototype was crafted within a matter of hours. The biggest imbalances came from a few of the Limited Editions not being interesting and the Quests being 4 points instead of 3. This meant, no matter what, acquiring a quest was a point gain whereas I wanted the winner to possibly miss out on most of the quests. But next came the bigger issue and that is the art aspect.

 

The lineart was a simple affair and easy to transfer but it wasn't under I started actually painting that I realized how much of a task I set before myself. You see, some of the characters, like the Thief, were the most detailed and I tackled them first. Hindsight, this was likely a mistake as I made some areas of the paper too wet which created clumping (You can see it in the final art if you look really, really close). Learning to control the saturation of the paint was also a long tasks. While some characters took longer than others (King, Ranger, Berserker), I averaged out 7-10 hours per illustration and since this was a learning process, I took longer than it really should have. The game boasts 25 unique illustrations.

 

Yes, this means Percival Thistlewood's Incredible Dungeoneering Dolls features my first ever attempt at painting with watercolors (and painting in general, I barely dabble in). It's no small leap to say this is the most beautiful game I've ever produced. This is such a beautiful game that I created a bigger art version found in the Tarot Edition. Both versions are identical but any changes can be found in the FAQ downloadable on both of the games pages.