Project Biashara

Well, let me talk about one of my new hobbies that is sort of a sub-set of another hobby: designing board games.  I always have an idea or 3 swirling around in my brain and sometimes I try to make them coalesce into an actual game.  I've finished several prototypes but nothing has gone far.  Usually my fast prototypes look pretty bland since I use Autodesk AutoCAD to make them.  But, for one of my projects, I like the idea so much I decided to start with trying to make actual drawings.  To do this I downloaded an image of what I wanted to draw onto my phone and, using a stylus, overdrew the image onto a transparent layer to get a rough line sketch.  I put it into Photoshop to fix my line work and digitally inked them, using different colors sometimes for different type pieces (different companies).  The game is an economic engine based around the Tanzanian economy, it is called Biashara (Swahili for commerce).  Players take control of a company that grows various crops and transports them to other parts of the country or exports them to sell.  Using the money made they either expand their growing and trucking ability or invest in bus/ferry lines, radio/tv/newspapers around the nation, or tourist establishments.  These are how players get points.  I drew icons for the grown crops and the bus and ferry tokens, next week I'll show of the inked drawings.

Bus tokenFerry token

Cashews

Coffee beans

Corn

Cotton

Fish 

Rice

Sorghum

Tea