For the last 6 months I’ve been working as the graphic designer and illustrator for the hidden-identity game Secret Hitler. The game is currently in it’s last 24 hours on Kickstarter and has received an amazing amount of support and interest. So, it seemed like now would be a good time to share some of the graphic design and illustration that went into the game.

I had planned to write about the visual development of Secret Hitler in a way that would draw a clear line from the project’s start to it’s conclusion. However, in trying to articulate that process, I found myself cutting out dead ends, experiments, and bad drawings. With Secret Hitler I haven’t just had the chance to work on a fantastic game, but also the opportunity to take my time doing so. As a result, I’ve generated more work than I typically would with a project this size. Hopefully sharing a largely unedited selection work will offer more insight than a narrow artificial one.

I picked a selection of components that I feel changed the most (and in the most interesting ways) throughout developement. I’ve roughly sorted those categorically and then again chronologically. Some of the work I did was ineffective, but interesting. Some of it was effective, but didn’t make sense with the game. A lot of it was just not very good. In one way or another all of it steered the game to where it is now, even if it didn’t follow the straightest path.

PLAYER ENVELOPES

The first version of the game I worked on replaced the small manilla envelopes of the earlier prototype with miniature dossiers. These contained your identity, tips on being a good (or evil) player, general game rules, and a removable party membership card.

Overall this proved to not work very well.

Because they were stapled booklets, if a folder was accidentally marked (as was the case with the Hitler identity, where anxiety would cause players to fidget so much they’d rub the ink off the cover) it could ruin every future game by identifying a player’s role. It also became clear that players were so protective of their secret identity that they wouldn’t flip open the booklet to read the rules or tips.