Alan Moon’s The Gathering of Friends is coming up next month and I’ve got a big-box game to show to some of the publishers in attendance.

I hammered on the design for this one heavily last year and, while it’s in great shape rules-wise, my old prototype is getting pretty ragged. I figured it was time to make something nicer and more presentable for the con.

I do my layout work in Adobe Illustrator. For this prototype, I wanted to add some artwork to the cards to give them a little more flavor. I found a great set of Ancient Rome-themed illustrations on a clip art website, and borrowed a handful of the most appropriate images. They’re a little more “cartoony” than I’d envisioned, but they’ll do for a prototype.

I’ve got the cards laid out and uploaded to TheGameCrafter for printing. Below are a couple of examples. The first is the main card back and the second is a sample influence card. I’m pretty happy with how they’ve turned out. I hope to finish layout on the remaining game pieces this weekend – I can’t wait to see the professionally printed results.