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Selected work — Game & product design

The Pyramid.

Designing a complete board game experience, from concept to production.

A board game inspired by ancient Egypt, designed from concept to production. The project combines game mechanics, visual identity, character design, illustration and information design into a complete player experience.

The Pyramid — the complete game laid out: illustrated box, modular tile board, character, trap and tomb card decks, player pieces, dice, coins and the rulebook
The complete game — board, cards, pieces and rulebook

01 — Overview

One world,
built to be played.

The Pyramid is an original board game project inspired by ancient Egyptian mythology, exploration and strategy.

The project began as an idea for a thematic tabletop experience and gradually evolved into a complete game system with its own visual identity, characters, illustrations, symbols, cards and supporting materials.

My goal was not only to create a functional game, but also to build a cohesive world where mechanics, storytelling and visual design work together to support the player experience.

Client
Agames
Role
Game design, visual design & worldbuilding
Deliverables
Concept, cards, rulebook, illustration, production
Year
2026

02 — The challenge

A lot to learn,
fast.

The challenge was to design a game that feels easy to understand while supporting multiple mechanics, card types, symbols and player interactions.

That meant focusing on:

  • Visual clarity
  • Consistent iconography
  • Information hierarchy
  • Thematic world-building

03 — My role

One project,
every discipline.

This was a multidisciplinary project where I was responsible for the complete design process:

Game concept

Core gameplay, player progression and game structure.

Visual identity

Art direction, colour palette and design language.

Illustration & assets

Characters, environments, props and iconography.

Card & rulebook design

Layouts focused on clarity and usability.

Production

Preparation of printed assets for manufacturing.

04 — Designing a world

Everything from
the same place.

One of the most rewarding aspects of the project was creating a believable visual universe. Every element needed to feel like part of the same world:

  • Characters
  • Symbols
  • Architecture
  • Environments
  • Cards
  • Packaging

Rather than creating individual assets, the goal was to build a cohesive visual system where every component supports the same world and player experience.

The Pyramid box cover — the title on a scroll above a winged scarab, a step pyramid flanked by statues of Horus and Anubis, and a sandstone city with a sphinx and temple entrance below
The box cover — the whole world on one lid

Building the Pyramid

The game board is built from four modular levels stacked to create a physical pyramid. Players gradually climb towards the summit while navigating traps, tombs and secret pathways.

The four levels of the game board shown apart — a large base ring of tiles marked Start, traps and tombs, two smaller rings above it, and the single summit tile on top
The four levels, taken apart
Close-up of the stacked levels, showing the Up and Down tiles and the arrows that carry a player between one level and the next
Up and down, from one level to the next

Gameplay Flow

Players climb through four pyramid levels, encounter traps and tombs, collect treasures, and compete to reach the top.

Board details

  • Tomb fields
  • Trap fields
  • Up fields
  • Down fields
  • Treasure
The assembled pyramid board seen at an angle, with a red line tracing the route from Start, around the base ring and up through each level to the summit tile
One route to the top, traced
Close-up of a gold coin resting on the summit tile of the pyramid, surrounded by trap, tomb, up and down tiles
The treasure, waiting at the summit

Rulebook design

Designing for clarity
and accessibility.

The rulebook was designed to help new players understand the game quickly. Visual hierarchy, illustrations, icons and gameplay examples were used to simplify complex mechanics and improve the onboarding experience.

The Pyramid rulebook, pages 2–3 — the goal, setup, building the pyramid, pawns and cards, voting cards and shuffling
The Pyramid rulebook, pages 4–5
The Pyramid rulebook, pages 6–7
The Pyramid rulebook, pages 8–9
The Pyramid rulebook, pages 10–11

The rulebook — spread by spread

The character gallery of The Pyramid — twelve illustrated characters on labelled cards beneath a ‘Character gallery’ scroll banner: Anubis, Horus, Netjerikhet, Tutankhamun, a temple official, a court official, a slave worker, Nefertiti, the God’s Wife, Ra, Cleopatra and a statue
The full cast, on one page
The props and relics gallery of The Pyramid — a canopic jar, trap spikes, a sphinx, a seated statue, the winged scarab, and a set of relic symbols including the crook and flail, sun, eyes of Horus, ankh, scarab and winged sun disc
Objects and symbols that furnish the world
The environment gallery of The Pyramid — palm trees, lotus flowers and pottery, temple pillars, desert rocks, a set of sandstone buildings, and the pyramid seen from the outside and at its entrance
The world around the game — from palm trees to the pyramid itself

Board Iconography

Custom iconography system developed for navigation, hazards, rewards and progression.

Twelve board icons with their meanings — normal field for a safe step, two icons for moving one level up by voting, arrow for up or down, rock slide for one level down, landing field for levelling up, tomb and trap for drawing a card, and the top where the game ends
Every field, and what it does

Card Design

Shuffling

Shuffle all the 5 stacks of cards and place these on the side of the game board face down.

The five card types side by side — Special Card, Vote Card, Tomb Card, Trap Card and Member Card — with a fanned stack of cards beside them
Five stacks, one visual family

Action cards

Choose your colour, then fetch the pawn and character card in that same colour.

Character and action cards in six player colours — red, white, blue, green, yellow and black — each showing a god or pharaoh such as Horus, Netjerikhet, Tutankhamun, Anubis, Cleopatra and Ra, with the turn options listed beside them and the card backs alongside
One colour, one character, one set of moves
The assembled board with a blue pawn on the Start tile and the matching blue Tutankhamun action card placed in front of it
Pawn and card, matched by colour
The six action cards laid out beside the game box, each outlined in a player colour — red, green, yellow, white, black and blue
All six, beside the box

05 — Information design through play

Complexity,
made approachable.

Many of the design challenges resembled challenges found in digital products.

Players need to:

  • Learn quickly
  • Understand symbols
  • Navigate information
  • Make decisions confidently

This required careful consideration of:

  • Visual hierarchy
  • Iconography
  • Layout systems
  • Readability
  • Information density

The goal was always to make complexity feel approachable.

Information architecture — image coming soon
How symbols, rules and cards are built up

The process

From concept to production.

The Pyramid evolved through multiple rounds of prototyping, playtesting and refinement. Each iteration improved the gameplay, visual language and overall player experience until the project was ready for manufacturing.

  1. Concept
  2. Prototype
  3. Playtesting
  4. Iteration
  5. Illustration
  6. Production

06 — Reflection

Designing complete
experiences.

The Pyramid demonstrates how game design, storytelling and visual communication work together to create engaging experiences.

Throughout the project I developed and refined a complete design system including board mechanics, illustrations, iconography, packaging and printed components.

More than a board game, the project became an exercise in designing a coherent experience from concept to production.

The project reinforced the importance of building cohesive systems where every element supports the player experience.

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