Very, very nice! And I think the city names would probably look fine when blown up on a big board.
The only small suggestion I would have is to put a little colored dot at each city. Without that, it might not be immediately obvious what the triangular pointers are there for. [I speak from experience. When seeing those colored triangles coming off of some of the city names on your map, I almost wrote a post asking what they were. Luckily I stopped to check the original map first. I had forgotten that it has them too, but the dot makes their purpose more obvious. Or maybe I'm the only slow one here....]
BorderCon 101 - Bring the fun, bring a smile, grab a game from the pile. Place the Meeple, play a card, swing your sword and kill the guard! So make the trip, don't be docile, look for details on my profile!
I love the foreboding nature of the board - great thematically and it looks classy too. Great job.
not complaining or anything, but do you have any higher resolution? I really like the design but I don't think it'd be easy to make with the pixelage you have. Is there a bigger design? What program did you make it with?
As for minor fixes, I noticed that Washington is missing an "h" and that the blue disease cells in the cure area could use some more color (like the red and yellow have). And I agree that the cities could use some dots. As for the triangle thingies, I'd just desaturate them a little so they don't catch the eye quite so much.
I realise that New Zealand is not on the original Pandemic map. This is no reason for it to not be on a fan-made one. Of course I don't want there to be a card for it - don't want any of Australias nasty germs thank you very much!
In the spirit of spellcheck above... Ho Chi Minh. And I have a suspicion that the place is named Ho Chi Minh City, but you'll want to double-check that.
I see another problem though: New York City's arrow is pointing at Niagara Falls/Lake Erie rather then New York City's actual location (which is about 350 miles to the southsoutheast).
"'A grey man,' she said. 'Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?' 'What if I am? It seems to me most men are grey.'" -- Lady Melisandre of Asshai and Ser Davos Seaworth from A Clash of Kings by G.R.R. Martin
A small part of a 17,000 pushpin video game art project I was involved with.
Several of the arrows are mis-pointing. Baghdad needs one, and I'm not sure Tehran is geographically accurate either.
Also Los Angeles and Mexico City are noticably off.
Thanks everyone. Now I'm making some of the corrections which you suggested and if it's legally OK I'll upload a larger version... Seriously is it OK with the copyright law to circulate this board?
If it's all right with copyright law to post hi-res pictures of the ACTUAL gameboard (see Stone Age), then it's definitely okay to post your own fake boards. Post it.
Sir, if you are calling Peter a Plagarist I shall have to ask you to step outside! The only thing willow is good for is in the manufacture of cricket bats! :-)
I'm glad you uploaded it again and it passed the geekmodders this time. When I was modding, for some strange reason it was declined. And now 167 people have giving you the thumbs up for it!!!
- Placing card decks next to each other leads to sloppy players knocking cards over when drawing.
- Both decks on one side of the board means the player on the North side always has to reach across the whole board, whereas the South player never has to reach. It makes for a less physically comfortable and psychologically isolating game for the North player, who is already burdened by the requirement of reading the whole gameboard upside down.
- Placing the Infection track so close to the Infection card piles and on the outside of the gameboard will almost always hide the Infection disc from the already beleaguered North player's view, and may partially hide it from view of the East and West players. Put it on the inside of the board, and give it a slight bit of space away from the piles.
Aesthetic/tone observation:
The typography for the word "PANDEMIC" on the original board (all capitals, black on red/orange/yellow) conveys a strong sense of urgency. The typography for the word "Pandemic" on this board (mixed case, bland font, simple white) conveys a sense of peace, calm and strength. Is that the tone you intend to set for this game?
Judging by the size of the card rectangles, the board isn't big enough. Overcrowding is one of the problems of the original board; ironic that a game called Pandemic should suffer from an overpopulation problem.
This board is immediately appealing. I like the idea of placing both decks next to each other, although I agree that it may lead to card stacks getting messed up, and the infection marker being blocked from view.
I also agree with others that the city fonts should be changed. The lettering is too thin, and the thin black borders around the letters do not do enough to differentiate them from the background. I believe that the less fiddling and photoshopping with these fonts, the better. Obviously the words can be read, but they could be more readable--as they stand it takes more effort than it should to read the words.
Overall, this is a really cool board. Z-man has excellent games if not always excellent graphic design, so I think this is a pretty cool improvement.
It looks great but at the risk of sounding like a pedant... Whilst you have corrected the spelling of Sydney on the country it is still mis-spelt on the arrow from LA.
"'A grey man,' she said. 'Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?' 'What if I am? It seems to me most men are grey.'" -- Lady Melisandre of Asshai and Ser Davos Seaworth from A Clash of Kings by G.R.R. Martin
A small part of a 17,000 pushpin video game art project I was involved with.
I love the design, but the fact that the arrows don't point to where the cities actually are would annoy the heck out of me while playing.
Also, the arrow for Los Angeles is on top of the star, unlike all the others. You might want to move that down a level.
I like your board so much, I'm trying to print it and use it!
But at 3000 x 2121 pixels and 225DPI, it'll be around the size of a regular sheet of paper, won't it?
Am I wrong? If not, can you post a size appropriate for me to take it to Kinkos and make a nice-sized game board without pixelation/distortion? I know, I'm being spoiled. =)
Either way, this is a very creative technically well-done piece of work. Good job! ... and my fiancee is a graphic designer, so I know good stuff when I see it! Now, if only I could get her to work on game boards for me instead of marketing ads...! ; )
Thank you for the good words, man. Just ask her nicely to resize it or click on "fit to page" option on the printer which you will use. The board is designed for 2xA3 paper size. When anyone has printed a copy of the board, please post some pix to papa to see his baby :-)))
That's because it's NEW. Not everyone has heard of it yet.
Actually New Zealand's never been on the Pandemic board because when the secret govt starts spreading there real life pandemics NZ is going to be the safest country on the planet, hence it is not represented.
I know I'm late to this conversation, but I'd like to see a "zero" circle on the outbreak track.
Also, I see what the guy who cited the "lack of urgency" in the title logo is getting at, but I don't really think that's a problem. Overall, this whole design oozes urgency, I think. Though I do agree that the red cross next to the "c" doesn't work.
But generally speaking, this is pretty impressive aesthetically.
