Pixabay.com - A Great Place for Free Gaming Artwork

New Millennium Box Artwork

While I take pride in my artwork, I know a better option when I see it.

I found this artwork on Pixabay.com, which is a good place for free images under CC0 Public Domain. Although the site does have some limitations. And while no attribution is required, I like to include credits in my designs.

My own design on the previous box just wasn't the best design for the game so I took a shortcut. This new artwork (by ActionLiz) conveys the look and feel of most board games and gives the feeling of being inside the action as opposed to looking at it from a distance.

It fits Millennium's central theme and it adds a bit of curiosity to the game, which is what you want in a good design.

I thought of digitizing my own city on Photoshop but that would take time I don't really have at this point so I'm lucky to have found this artwork, which happens to be just what I wanted all along. I did modify it somewhat by adding ominous clouds and a flock of birds over the logo. Otherwise, most of the original artwork is intact.

What are the chances that I change this artwork again? Not likely but I know I'll tweak it a bit more even though I think it works as is.

As you can see, the first version of the box is bluer and features a flat skyline, which doesn't work as well as a view from above or inside the city streets on the new box, which offers a better perspective overall.

If I ever manage to sell enough games and Millennium becomes a commercial success, I'll certainly invite the artist for an interview.

As of now, this game is just in my imagination and I'm slowly teasing it out into the world, one frame at a time.

Right. Good luck with that.

One thing I can say about that is if your game is engaging and fun and meaningful to players in some way, your marketing will be much more likely to go viral (at some level) that can hopefully generate orders through word-of-mouth referrals.

It's all about strong publicity but your product has to be great or exceptional and even controversial. Controversy about the game or its designers never hurt anyone as far as I know. As they say, even bad publicity can convert into sales.

And for what it's worth, that's mostly a good thing.

Play on, Dream on!

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Aside:
My main struggle with any game design is to make it engaging, fun, and meaningful. That's the perfect trio in my book for any game (for adult audiences) to succeed at some level. And it's the hardest thing to accomplish because everyone's interpretation of these three ideas is different.

But you have to cover all your bases. That's the challenging part and if you can get through that (and dozens of other criteria) you're on your way to launching a popular game.