Senior Capstone: Propagation

After developing the Affective/Mechanic/Narrative framework for Propagation, I began sketching out the game and figuring out how it might work. My initial idea involved each player managing their own set of plant cards using resource tokens, and that concept became the foundation for the rest of the mechanics. With help from my mentor, I created a Game Design Document (GDD) to keep everything organized—it included everything from branding and taglines to the full rules. I rewrote the rules three different times as I developed the game, each version getting more refined and organized. Between each rewrite, I held playtesting sessions to see how the game actually played out and used that feedback to make improvements.

Playtesting was a huge part of the process. I held three sessions with different groups, starting with a simple paper prototype and rough rules. The first session helped identify what worked and what needed to be tweaked, and we even rewrote some cards on the spot to experiment. For the second round, I brought a more polished prototype and focused on testing two different rule variations to see which worked better. My mentor suggested doing both in the same session so I could get direct comparisons. I also created a feedback survey to better understand how players felt about each version. All of this helped guide my design choices later on, keeping the player experience at the center of the process.

I started with the color palette since that usually grounds my design process. I wanted something that felt natural and plant-inspired—greens and browns—but also fresh and playful, so I added in bold accent colors like red-orange, pink, blue, and yellow. I made sure all the colors had enough contrast to be readable and even adjusted them after printing the first prototype to make them pop more. For typography, I tested out a bunch of font pairings and landed on Futura Condensed Medium for titles—it’s bold, clean, and worked well with the more detailed illustrations. For body text, I used Tuppence, which added a quirky touch while still being easy to read. Since this was my first time designing playing cards, I also had to learn how to manage type size and condense text to keep everything readable without losing style.

To produce a fully playable, physical version of Propagation, I had to be intentional about things like font sizes, color choices, and scaling to make sure everything was readable and visually clear once printed. I used a custom board game printing company for most of the components—like the cards, box, and score pad—and adapted my designs to fit their templates for a polished, professional look. For the wilt tokens, I designed them in Illustrator and had them printed through an Etsy shop. As for the resource tokens, I couldn’t find any pre-made ones that matched the game’s palette, so I hand-painted craft tokens myself and packaged them in custom-painted bags. Overall, this part of the process taught me a lot about production—how to work with different materials, printing techniques, and vendors to bring everything together into a final product that feels cohesive and complete.