gaming concepts !
Intro task 
You draw your own version of Larry and the best one is judged by a third party to determine who has the first turn. 
If you land on a heaven spots, you earn a good deed. Good deeds move you forward, rewarding Larry for being a good samritan in life.
If you land on hell spots, you earn a bad deed. Bad deeds move you back or keep you stagnant, punishing Larry for being a miscreant in life.The only thing we notices is we made a rule you had to role exctly the number of steps it takes to get to the end to win which meant we were stuck for quite a while with no one claiming victory.
Making our own board game
I had a hard time thinking about which existing game I wanted to take and turn into a card of board game. The hardest part was thinking of one that had translatable elements and mechanics, as well as one that hadn't been done before. I finally landed on a friendly, lighthearted version of Fallout: Fallout Shelter. The premise of the game is you are the Overseer of your own vault and your job is to build it up and take in dwellers who need shelter and make them happy, training them up to have skills to help out in your vault and to send them out into the outside vault to find weapons and useful items to better equip members and the vault as a whole to be less susceptable to raids and infestations.
Now after planning out the basic mechanics of how the game would work (as seen above) I came across that indeed, a Fallout shelter analog game had been made but I did not look at it one bit as I didn't want it to influence me in the slightest but I will be checking it once I have a solid foundation and I focus more on getting it fleshed out as a finished game.
Update:
The board game very luckily has a completely different premise to mine, your aim is to make dwellers the happiest they can be as you make them do tasks in your vault. So I think I'm all good.
Basic mock up with explanation of the game
Aesthetics/ assets (along with their references)
I started out by drawing up the backs of the different cards I would need. Lunchbox cards, vault boy cards, building cards and dweller cards. I took images of existing vault boy images that I felt best represented the meanings of the cards. They're all placed on the same blue and yellow background referencing the colourway of vault uniform and to keep uniform to the cards.
When it came to the other side of the cards, I used an image of an item card from the game as a template. I made a blank version for regular cards and a version with a cap shape in the middle to put items and characters on to for those sorts of cards to make them more interesting. The card making was the most tedious part of the whole process but well worth it in the end thankfully. With dweller cards I took dwellers I had in my actual vault on fallout shelter (mostly because that was the only way I could get good quality images of them) and cut around their headshots for the image. I included their name and either have them an S (strength for power plant), A (agility for diner) or P (perception for water treatment). For the rooms I also just took images of the rooms in their most basic state (which I had to spend money on you're welcome) plus the lifts and vault door, then put them on a blank version of the card with just the outer border to keep uniform. I also decided with the dwellers to duplicate the cards for the sale of bulking them out as it would just take way to long to keep making individual unique dwellers.
The assets I made for spots on the board were next on the list. I made a few visual changes here as to my rough mock up. Vault boy stayed the same, as did the lunchbox icon. However I decided to use the icon when the radio station locates a new dweller as the icon, rather than the radio tower as I felt it had more substance. I also made the building icon more uniform by taking the cog part of the dweller icon and placing it around the hammer. Ghoul spots evolved from being an almost zombie looking vault boy to actual ghouls and as for infestation and raid cards, I decided to use radroaches and actual raiders to represent them.
The part I was avoiding the most was the board itself. It was something I gave thought but needed to figure out the execution. My initial idea was to mash a bunch of quest building rooms and draw over them, however I knew if I did that along with making all the cards I'd never finish in time. Instead I mashed a bunch of rooms together and using black lines to further section them to make them like square spaces. I took the top of the vault screen where the outside, the door and the dirt inside the mountain are for the top of the board. I placed the four cards as indicators for where to place them underneath and everything was falling together nicely. Until I realised I had another task to tackle, the extra floor I made that was not on my mock up. However in this issue I made a change I thought worked out better. I swapped vault boy card having their own floor to raids having it instead as raids are more specific like the other icons, I then scattered all the vault boy icons where the raid ones once were, as they're a gamble I doubt people would aim for them. The bottom floor I decided to make a floor filled with random positive spots so u got a 100% chance of getting something good on that floor but it may not be what your aiming to get so I think it balances it out well with the other floors. The very top floor is blank and once you've left it it closes itself off and the floor below is the 1st floor and so on, roll a 6 and the floor choice is yours.
I then got excited as my board was finally finished, to make the pieces for both players to use. I got two bottlecaps and painted one red and one blue with the nuka cola logo on symbolising regular and quantum, I also added "rust" to fit the overall aesthetic (and hide my shakey paint job).
I made a separate graveyard board, something that started out as a joke from my mock ups as a lot of dwellers would die but I thought it would be a fun addition. Only problem I didnt have any reference points, only an idea of the artstyle. I made like a dirt background with some splatter effect brushes saving me a headache. I got a Fallout font to say that it's a graveyard and took a skull and crossbones icon from the Fallout 76 map and drawing over it. I drew basic gravestones and drew over an image of a deceased vault boy to go over them, and a black rectangle for the cards to be placed of your dearly departed dwellers. To say I didn't have anything to go off I was fairly happy with the outcome of it.
Assets
Game pitch deck:
I started by figuring out the game I wanted to pitch. My first idea was to carry on from my concept in the first semester where we created a character from a randomly generated name, I thought it'd be nice to expand on it. I zombie game essentially. The second idea I had involved a sort of a scavenging game where you're a little animal in a forest and you do jobs for people and the third idea was a little vague with the idea of being a horror game involving marionettes.
In the end, I decided to go with the idea I had built the strongest foundation of and had the best idea of how it woud look and the story it would follow.
Game genre exploration
I looked at survival horror games, zombie games and hack and slash games to get an idea of the key elements involved in those styles of games. I looked at games like "Lollipop Chainsaw"and "Dead Rising" as they fit the vibes closely to what I was aiming for. I looked at "Resident Evil", "Silent Hill" and "Fatal Frame" for games specifically in the survival horror games to get a firm grasp on what makes a survival horror. I looked at games like "The Last of Us", "Prototype" and "Dead Space" for Zombie games with unique creature designs.
I knew I wanted to make a key component of the game the concept of character customisation playing an important role with the gameplay. I though of different key skills that would relate to survival, ones that would favour well when in an apocalypse. I picked strength, agility, resourcefulness, ingenuity and bravery. I then started to think of clothing styles that would fit, like fitness is agility, so athleisure works well. Bravery would fit with alternative styles as some people think alternative styles are scary. Resourcefulness makes me think of a magpie, like nature oriented so hippie worked well. Ingenuity made me think of militia sort of styles and strength brought to mind a sort of cyber futuristic style, like they have the strength of a robot.
This is where I made some alterations to formally Summer's character, as I didn't want her to just be blonde and white. I played around with different skintones and appearances, I ended up liking the middle one the best as I had a vision of her having a roman nose and the middle would fit best for it. I then tried to decide what hair style she should have, at first I liked the wavyhair with the claw clip, however when it came to doing her turnaround I decided it was too difficult to replicate without her looking different each time. Instead as a result, I gave her straightened, long brown hair.
Throughout all her different outfits, I tried to keep the same base aesthetic of 2000s bimbo and the running colour of pink in her outfits.
Once I had a solid idea of her appearance and hair her body type didn't take much thought as I gave her the same one as her original design from the first semester. I wanted her in a pretty basic, blocky outfit that hypothetically in a game would be easy to animate. I also thought about how if she was in something like high heels and a mini skirt with a tube top she wouldn't survive very long in an apocalypse, I wanted her to be in the 2000s bimbo aesthetic, but not in a hyper-sexualised way.
The concept for the Bravery catagory again with the alternative aesthetic. I thought the first tier could be scene clothing, as it's closest tothe bimbo aesthetic. The second tier I chose mall goth, as it's a little edgier than scene but not fully separate from her style. I tried to use a deep, dark pink to keep the link.
The concept for strength was the cyber sort of robotic style, essentially making her look like a cyborg. I picked form fitting clothing as it seemed to fit best in making her appear streamline and robotic. In the second tier I gave her arm bands and boots with elements to make her look like she had robotic limbs instead of skin. Pairing this with shades and antennas made her look like a casual cyborg. I thought a pale dusty pink would fit with the cyber colour scheme.
The concept for agility was pretty simple, just althleisure and sport clothing, which a lot of bimbos derive their style from anyway. I kept it simple in the first tier with a tracksuit and in the second tier I gave her a tennis uniform as it matches along with one of the weapons. I used a baby pink throughout as it fit the best.
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