Deadnaiadd - Art and TTRPG stuff!

The impact of tabletop games on the environment: Toys and board game pieces that had washed up on a beach : Tracey Williams https ://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/04/monopoly-houses-toy-soldiers-lego-museum-of-plastic-lost-at-sea When producing board games it is important to consider how the creation, production and shipping of your game will impact the environment. Nowadays, a lot of board games include a lot of plastic elements, these can span from tokens, dice, miniatures and even packaging elements such as shrink wrap and card sleeves(Oliverkinne 2020). Most of these elements are non recyclable, which contributes to the ever growing amount of forever plastics, forever chemicals and other pollutants that are released into the environment (Oliverkinne 2020). Not to mention, the process of transporting said games only adds to this with most manufacturing companies being overseas, and international shipping of large quantities of stock having a very high carbon foot...

Hotel (Milton Bradley 1986) or alternatively known as Hotel Tycoon (ADC Blackfire Entertainment 1974) is a Tycoon style board game most similar to Monopoly, but on a much smaller scale (Anon, n.d). The board layout itself is relatively simple, consisting of one flat board with designated areas for hotel development, A track, and a collection of 3D hotel pieces you use to develop your plot of land with as you go (The Lucky roll 2018). The hotel pieces are what make this game so unique, coming from a personal experience of playing this game as a child, i loved the amount of detail put into these pieces and placing them on the board always gave a really fun and extra interactive quality to gameplay. In the middle of the board is a track in which the players will move their cars along on their turn, each tile of the track falls into one of 4 categories, those being the Buy property tiles, the develop property tiles, the build a phase for free tile, and the one free entrance tile. This le...

  Superstore 3000 (Space Cowboys 2024) is a retro-futuristic board game in which you purchase tiles to build the tallest [and most interesting] superstore. It is a 2-4 player game with resource management mechanics coupled with competitive elements (Anon n.d.). It boasts a charming art style reminiscent of retro-futuristic shows such as the Jetsons that fits well with the whimsical theming of the game as a whole (The Dice Tower 2025). The artwork on a whole was something that really drew me to this game, it feels inviting and the overall board layout is exciting to look at. Leading on from this, the board set up of   Superstore 3000  (Space Cowboys 2024) is particularly interesting. You have: Mall element tiles - these are obtained through purchases at the dispenser 3000. Once bought, they are stacked atop the Main entrance tile vertically in conjunction with the requests made by the customers. These tiles are also double sided, with money shown one one side, and a...

 My Notes - Looking at my benchmark research I was inspired by the 7 round gameplay look of Rococo, with there being a deadline on the 7th day. Using this as a reference, I jotted down some ideas of how I might implement this into my own game. Using some ideas, the way my game would hypothetically play would be: - There are 7 days in a week, with a client arriving on the 7th day. - clients have priorities, which are stats they favour the best, get the most points in those slots will award you a higher rating. -The player with the highest score wins. - The client identity and priorities are hidden until the 7th day, Hotel Bunga relies on both time management and an element of luck. - In the 6 rounds leading up to the deadline, Players must gather resources and craft furniture pieces to raise their cave's stats in certain areas. To do this, Players may use either their energy or their money tokens that are distributed at the beginning of the game. - All players have a fixed number of...

 Non Disclosure Agreement - The following Non Disclosure Agreement [NDA], made date : 15/12/2025 , is by and between: Nottingham Trent University, a university registered in England at 50 Shakespeare St, Nottingham NG1 4FQ  (the Recipient)  and Hearthvalley, a studio company registered in England at 6-10 Convent St, Nottingham NG1 3LL  (the Discloser)  1. The Discloser (Hearthvalley), intends to disclose all confidential information to The Recipient [Nottingham Trent University] for the purpose of collaboration in regards to the context of Game development and creation. 2. The Recipient (Nottingham Trent University) agrees upon refraining from sharing information relating to the purpose outlined in section 1. 3. The Recipient (Nottingham Trent University) agrees upon ensuring the confidentiality and safety of information received. Such information is forbidden to be shared with a third party unless said third party is bound by the same Recipient contract. All st...

 VERFACE - VERFACE, or Ver, is a Polish artist and comic book illustrator living in Scotland. They are mostly a digital artist however have created several watercolour and traditional sketches from time to time. Their work features bold silhouettes, strong texture work and a rendering style that mimics traditional watercolour. (VER n.d.)  Their artworks Cretaceous Stickers (Ver, 2023) and Miocene Stickers (Ver, 2023) initially drew me to their art, I found their designs for these prehistoric creatures to be both cartoonishly charming and also fairly accurate even if exaggerated to their real-life counterparts. The strong silhouettes, exaggerated poses and muted colours are both lively and exciting, but not over the top. I feel their artwork can be appreciated by all ages, which is something I hope to reflect in my own work. Ver works in a range of art styles, from their chibified depictions of creatures found in both sticker artworks and their piece  angelology / demono...

Printing and curing - To save on space, I combined my Chitubox file with my friend Francis's file. As we are both creating miniatures this is a very time efficient way to print as it means the print plate only needs to be cleaned once. The print itself took around an hour and a half to complete, after which the models must be carefully removed from the plate and bathed in an ethanol bath to remove any excess resin. Then, the prints are cured with UV light to make them safe to handle. Here are some images of the models before and after being cleaned and cured. After printing, two things became clear - 1- the prints themselves came out great! there was a considerable amount of detail retained and nothing was lost, the supports actually could have been a lot less intense which was reassuring to know. 2 - something happened in the scaling phase, although I had double checked my model stood at 28mm, it appears something was off as the models were in fact very very tiny. Despite this, I ...

  Rococo (Eagle-Gryphon Games 2020) is a resource management board game revolving around fulfilling dress orders for a prestigious ball. You must hire employees to complete tasks for you such as creating and tailoring pieces, gathering materials and hiring additional staff to meet your quota. Your job is to oversee, plan and manage your employees to gain prestige points, and ultimately win the prize of best work in the ball. (boardgamegeek n.d.) What I found particularly interesting about  Rococo (Eagle-Gryphon Games 2020) is its 7 round gameplay (boardgamegeek n.d.), with a deadline falling at the end of the 7th round. I think that this system really encourages players to make good use of their time, the deadline acting as a driving force as opposed to just waiting for one player to reach a certain score. I also enjoy the mechanic of hiring employees to perform certain tasks for you, allowing you to make the most out of your time. There are different kinds of employees with...