The Art of Rainbow Flip & Slide
Now that Rainbow Flip & Slide is weeks away from landing on my doorstep, I thought it would be a fun exercise to go back and look at all of the art iterations for the game. The tiles went through more versions than I can count on one hand: Two illustrators (three if you count me), one big material swap and an ungodly amount of hours of nudging clover leaves "just a little". Here's how the art evolved over the process of first idea to the finished product.
(If you are curious about how the game design evolved with all of the false starts, resets, playtests, and mechanics that didn't make the final cut, I wrote about that here.)
Version 1 : Abstract & Bold
The original idea for the game was a tile laying game. Players take turns placing tiles into a shared space in rainbow order,
My vision was that the game would be bold and vibrant and the main "design" element was to provide a hint for what color tiles connect to each other.
Version 2: Still bold, but featuring the Rainbow Rabbits brand
Somewhere along the way, I decided that the game should be more closely tied to the Rainbow Rabbits universe and use the same artwork, so I called up Ryan Noonan who had helped with the Rainbow Rabbits rebrand the year prior to bring this new game to life.
BUT, between the creative brief and final delivery, my idea of the game continued to evolve. Ryan's art was cute and definitely consistent with the Rainbow Rabbits universe, but it didn't fit what the game was becoming. That was 100% on me...I started the art process WAY too soon. The game wasn't ready for art, it was still being developed. I decided to pause on any art until I felt like the game was closer to done.
Version 3: Leanne and the clover patch
Several months, playtests and refinements later, the gameplay finally felt like it was the experience I wanted to create. It was easy to teach, but thinky to play. There was just enough player interaction to spark playful little outbursts. And the games were ~15mins, making it a good contender for quick little game sessions.
I was finally ready for art again and I started working with Leanne Markle. Her style matched the vibe in my head almost exactly, and once we figured out she was a St. Patrick's Day baby and I'm a four-leaf clover savant, the clover patch became the heart of the whole design.
Leanne's first draft was gorgeous and very intricate. It was starting to have the organic feel I envisioned.
Iterations
I think the best way to show what happened next is ALL of the variations that have occured since that first draft from Leanne:
Original design from Leanne. Really beautiful and intricate in a larger format, but when scaled down to tile size a lot of the details got lost.
Second pass - less shading on the design, the clovers pop more, BUT...
I learned that printing on wood means $$$ per color, so I mocked up what it could look like with reduced # of colors (and also tested heavier outlines just because)
Second mockup softening the outlines. At this point I had asked Leanne to pause on any updates because I was trying to solve the print on wood problem and I didn't want her to keep iterating until I had a clearer picture of the restrictions.
I abandonned the dream of printing on wooden tiles, but wanted to test adding more whitespace.
And also test dark outlines.
I finally re-briefed Leanne. This was the "final" version she delivered.
I kept refining from here though because I wanted the clovers to connect better to the color-sides.
Maybe the corner leaves need to be bigger!
JK, tone it down. Approve "pre-production" to start
Receive pre-production and realize that with cutting there can be slight variations from the guidelines which can make a tile look very silly in it's current state. SO, finally finally, added a bigger buffer, no corners and a faint pattern to keep the feeling of "organic".
This iterative process wasn't just with the back-side of the tiles, I also had to do it with the color-side (red and blue for example):
What did I learn?
When I think I am ready for art, I am probably not.
When I am working with a new material for the first time, I should understand ALL of the limitations and constraints FIRST before making any design decisions.
I am also probably a designer's worst nightmare and I am sorry for that.
In the end, it was all worth it because the end product is a million times better than that initial idea!
