So I originally opened up Illustrator to write up a rulebook and design some laser cutter files that I would then be able to take to the local makerspace and cut out of plywood. But then my designer background got carried away and started having far too much fun.

Full disclosure I did use AI (CoPilot) to generate some of the initial images, then I brought them into Illustrator, traced them out, added the hex clipping mask and extruded them using the 3D tool. I still very much intend to go back in and hand draw all of the tile designs. But for the sake of getting a long way quickly, this kickstarted everything off and away.

You can see in the below literal screenshots that I was actually up to version 3 here before I started taking the photos to share with a few close friends:

I do need to be very careful with visually different tiles to counteract if someone is colourblind. I’d love for them to be engraved so they could be highly accessible and determined by touch alone.

Likewise, during this time when adding the dice to the game pieces key, I realised I really want them to be pips rather than numbers.

Fun fact, the resources are just 1/6th of the initial rectangle tiles.