Featured Work
09 / 20
Naval Nexus
Art direction and board game design for a student-created pirate treasure game brought to full production.
About
Naval Base Secondary School came to us with a board game they had built themselves. Designed by students and teachers around the theme of treasure seeking, pirates, maths, and algebra, the prototype had a clear idea at its heart. Our job was to take their vision and turn it into a fully produced game they could proudly call their own.
Overview
I led the art direction and design for the project, working directly from the students' rough sketches and descriptions to develop the visual language of the game. The theme was pirate and deep sea, with the core gameplay pulling players from the outer edges of the board toward a central treasure island by creating and solving equations.
The students had already conceptualised an abyss at the outer areas of the board. I developed that further, introducing kraken tentacles sprawled across the outer corners of the play area, reinforcing the sense that players were navigating dangerous waters to reach the treasure. It gave the board a visual anchor that made the gameplay geography immediately readable.
Beyond the board art, I handled the box packaging design and card designs, and conducted material research to determine the best physical experience for players interacting with the components. The game's meeples were 3D printed ships, a detail that gave the finished product a tactile quality that matched the craft the students had put into the original concept.
