Graphic and Layout Design, Game UX.
Agents of SMERSH was designed by Jason Maxwell and is published by Everything Epic Games. In this 1-4 player cooperative game, players take on the role of elite spies, traveling the world in search of Dr. Lobo and his deadly agents. The new Epic Edition refreshes all the previous content and expansions into one epic package raising over $300,000 on Kickstarter.
I was engaged by Brieger Creative and Quillsilver Studios to design the layout for the game's core component: the encounter book; a 369-page book with over 1500 encounters that players use to progress the game’s story. I later brought back to design the rulebook layout.
Results
“Page borders are color-coded by region, which matches to the board and to the encounter card that players are using for lookup. Each set of 5 encounters is on a single page, so if you are looking for encounter 01.5.5, you can quickly find page 01.5, then find encounter 5 within that page. This made the book slightly longer, but the extra pages were worth a significantly improved player experience. We saw lookup times drop significantly in playtesting, keeping players focused on the story and moving through the flow of the game.
As a whole, the new updates bring a cohesive style that serves to highlight the gameplay information while maintaining a rich, consistent feel that supports the thematic universe of Agents of SMERSH: Epic Edition.” - John Brieger
Case Study from Brieger Creative
1500 Encounters. 400 Pages. 1 Epic Story.
The original encounter book was a dense set of numbered encounters, and I was tasked to design a new layout to make it easier to use.
To enhance the player experience, I broke up the content into a major encounter per page and designed a graphic system of colour-coded sections and icons that match the location on the board and instructions from the encounter cards.
My redesigned example spread in the Epic Edition.
Example spread for the previous edition.
Clear Instructions with Style.
After designing the encounter book, I was brought back to design and layout the rulebook keeping in line with the game’s new visual style.
