Tales of the Arabian Nights

12 Jun 09

12 comments

Over a year has passed since I began work on it, and a couple of hundred hours, several hundred dollars worth of book research, and over 400 emails later, I finally have a copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights in my hands, direct from the printers. It should be in the shops early to mid-July.

So my readers can experience the joy of opening one of these big heavy boxes (about 3 and a half kilos!) for themselves, I made this little sequence of photos documenting the process. Sorry I can’t hook up the ‘fresh from the printers’ smell for you as well.

I’ve been designing for a couple of decades, and there are only a few jobs in that time that have demanded as much hard work, creativity and dedication as this one. The printers did a great job; the matt-finished cover with gloss UV-varnished logo and illustrations looks wonderful, and René Bull’s stunning 1912 illustrations look better than they have in print for many years, which I hope is a tribute to the man’s talent. It was with a great sense of relief that I opened the box to find all the game components as high quality as I’d hoped. Best of all, the whole design hangs together beautifully and gives the game a distinctive ‘feel’, that I hope is something quite different from the usual run of games being published these days.

Sure, there’s a few little things I’d like to tweak, and I’ll hopefully get a chance to do so in future print runs. But now, it’s finally time to let this baby go out into the world! Tales of the Arabian Nights is published by Z-Man Games, and I’m really hoping it’s a big success for them. Quite apart from the work I put into it, it’s a very fun and thematic game. There’s a 300-page book in there, chock-full of adventures in the old ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ style. For gamers who love a story, this is a real treat.

Thankyou to Dan Harding for his excellent illustrations, Eric Goldberg and the other writers for creating such an amazing game, and Zev Shlasinger of Z-Man Games for the opportunity to redesign it. I hope people all over the world enjoy playing this game, and for at least a little while forget all their cares and worries and disappear with their friends into the glamourous, fun, exciting world of the Arabian Nights …

Board & Miniatures Games Tales of the Arabian Nights

The Legend of Robin Hood

03 Jun 09

8 comments

Much like everyone I know, my workload is a little light at the moment. That probably means I should take the time to update my business website, do a bit of ringing around, work on new business strategies, right?

Wrong! I think I’ll recreate an old Avalon Hill game from the ’70s from scratch!

I became aware of The Legend of Robin Hood when I saw a review of this little-known 1979 gem on Gameshark and thought it sounded just like the kind of game I like. I was about to buy a copy on Ebay when it struck me that the game was pretty simple—board and counters—and that it really could do with a graphic revamp anyway. As if I haven’t got enough in the way of personal projects on my plate …

So, after a couple of weeks work in my spare time, here it is—a complete remake of the game with a new large board, large counters, a double-sided rules summary and double-sided play reference sheets.

As Barnes pointed out, this is a game that really relies heavily on theme, so I hope you’ll agree this revamp makes the whole game experience just that bit more immersive and enjoyable.

I have no idea of the current copyright status of the game—possibly it has reverted to the designer Joe Bisio. Of course this is a completely not-for-profit project, done without permission. The illustrations I used on the board and counters were originally by Stanley Herbert and taken from England: Book 1 The Medieval Scene by R.J Unstead (A&C Black, 1963), again without permission. They have that ‘Boy’s Own Adventure’ feel that I felt worked really well for the Robin Hood theme. Oh, and the logo is a shamelessly modified version of the title screen from Errol Flynn’s 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood.

You can download the new version here. Enjoy!

Board & Miniatures Games The Legend of Robin Hood