Phase Five

Our most recent iteration of Sunrise City has been extremely fruitful. As we push for the finishing touches on our components, we’ve shifted our focus less on making larger design changes that have marked previous iterations. Instead, we’ve tightened our existing mechanics, and further developed the look of our rules and cards. As we stride ever closer to a finished product, another important milestone that we’re aiming for is actually publishing the game.

Applying to the D’Source Challenge and the School of Design IMPACT grants, showcasing the game at DePaul’s Game Festival, and finding ways to publish Sunrise City are some examples of the team pushing the project to the finish line. As an edutainment game, our focus is toward spaces which teach their audiences (typically children) about issues in engaging ways, using play as a way to ‘hook’ their attention into the issues at hand. Obvious choices are social studies classrooms, after-school programs, libraries, and anywhere else that seeks to raise the next generation of conscientious citizens.

One of the most notable changes has been the further development of our assets. Our rules document has gotten a drastic overhaul after being taken out of Google Docs and brought into Adobe InDesign for a more professional polish. Our original print-and-play prototypes have been upgraded into as close to a final copy as we’ll get this quarter; it took a few tries to get Component Studio to cooperate but all of the cards now fit within their bleed lines. Attached below: a before-and-after comparison of the disaster cards. Previously the red border was placed at the bleed line (and most likely would have been cut off when put into production). The border was made thicker and the icons were slightly scaled down to balance out the decrease in size.

Attached below: A screenshot showing the back of the disaster cards with the cut overlay enabled. The white “base” of the card is entirely within the safe zone while the red border is safely within the bleed margin.