When we first approached MAGE Company regarding our services, this was not exactly what we expected. Prior to its publication under MAGE Company, Aether Captains is a print-to-play game with their own extensive lore. It is a vastly different project from what we are normally used to and for that, we agreed to work on it.
While there are human characters to be designed and illustrated, the stars of the game were the steampunk airships that popular the skies of their world. There were two grand naval warships, HSS Dominion and HSS Dauntless. They were the good guys of this world. There are also the rag-tag bunch of air pirates and smugglers with their smaller but still deadly airships.
These are the concepts that went into designing these steampunk airships by Lim Wei Lun and Tan Hui Tian. It's described to be steampunk with a touch of anime.
After the concepts were approved, we went on to illustrate these airships into action and life for both the playing board and the box cover.
These ship designs are then adapted into the playing dice for the game. There are four versions for the ship starting from the absolutely pristine form to the uttery wrecked version with minor and major damaged looks in between.
These are the designs for the Kickstarter exclusive ships!
Beyond the ships, we did the designs of the various lands within the Aether Captains world. Of course, these are featured as the hex-tiled playing board for the players.
As it turns out, there are characters within the game too! Here they are! (Excluding 'Bad Weather'). They are dice images by themselves and have different effects on the player when they come into play.
CDS also did the steampunkish, victorian designs for the player's board along with the layout for the rulebook.
This is the final game cover. The logo and overall design was also done by the CDS art team.
The Kickstarter for the game went live on 18 Apr 2016 and lasted till 9 May 2016. In total, it raised 61,215 USD, more than 300% of its original goal of 25,000 USD. We will be looking forward to playing the game for ourselves!
Account Management: KC Ng
Lead illustrator and graphic designer: Tan Hui Tian
Illustrations: Lim Wei Lun and Antonio Low
