Disclaimer: I love wargames and I’ve spent way more time than I should playing Shadowrun. Imagine my joy when O.C. Presley, known wider as Opti, one of my favorite Shadowrun devs, invited me to join his brand new company in their first project – a cyberpunk wargame!

I have so much luck when it comes to being invited to absolutely amazing projects, not going to lie.

Being the main graphic designer hired for the game, I had a privilege of doing not only the book layout, but also the packaging and graphics for the highly successful Kickstarter campaign.

It is the Year 450 by Neo-Babylonian Reckoning. The city of Neo-Babylon is a mega-urban monstrosity: a towering city serving as the world’s exemplar of arcane, technological, and consumerist materialism.

Beneath Neo-Babylon, a vast Undercity hides the unwanted and undesirable. Unstable magic, outdated tech, and the constant stream of garbage from the overcity have become invaluable commodities.

The Undercity is lawless. When Neo-Babylon collectively refused to offer food, security, or a sense of community in sufficient quantities…that’s when the Gangs stepped in.

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The Rulebook

The plan for the rulebook was clean: make a fun and gritty, but perfectly functional layout that blurs the line between cyberpunk and grunge. Conveniently, these are both aesthetics I personally find delightful. ‘Urban’ is right there in my name.

Even though the world of Undercity is dark and full of problems, there is hope – and the design had to ensure it shows. We went with strong colors, bold fonts, and eye-catching contrast, carefully balanced to keep everything easy to read and comprehend.

If you want to check it out, a free version of the rulebook (full basic rules!) is available right here!

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The Packaging

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The Campaign

I love seeing our clients succeeding with their crowdfunding campaigns! So far, we have 100% of successfully funded campaigns behind us, and with each new one, we’re learning more and more about what makes it click with the audience. It was a massive pleasure to see Gangs of the Undercity smash through stretch goals – we’ve been updating the campaign page a couple times a weeks, and the new content was being unlocked and new graphics needed.

Take a look at the campaign on the Kickstarter page!

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The project is now in fulfillment (delays caused by the pandemic mess up even the best laid plans), but the digital version of the rulebook has been available for a while and getting very positive reviews. Give it a try – the game is miniature-agnostic: take your favorites, make a gang out of them, and have fun!