Concept & Development
The concept for this game came from a terrible sunburn. My skin has always been pale and extremely sensitive to the sun. While I was sitting around unable to move, I decided to make better use of my time and think of a funny game based around the concept of vampires and sunburns. I had handwritten a base set of instructions that would be tweaked as I went along.
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The general gameplay would be almost a Catch 21-style game where each player would attempt to get a perfect tan. Each player would select a character card to give them resistance and a weakness to one of the four light types: natural, U.V., reflected, and party. If a player overshot the goal and got a bit "crispy", there would be cool-off cards to counteract the damage, looking for the symbol of either your character or a set of all 4 to be able to activate the effects.
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The concept was there, now it was onto sketching & further development.
Creating the Cards
Once the gameplay was fully developed, it was time to move forward with the card creation. A total of 157 cards would be needed.
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4 Light Card Sets (x64) - One set per character
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Natural Light: Sunlight, Moonlight, Fire, & Bioluminescence
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U.V. Light: Camera Flash, Lamp, Fluorescent Tube, & Circle Light
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Reflected Light: Mirror, Polished Silver, Glass, & Prism
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Party Light: Glow Stick, Rainbow Globe, Blacklight, & Strobe
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4 Cool-Off Card Sets (x64) - One set per character
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Peeling​, Sunscreen, Cold Shower, & Aloe Vera
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Compulsion Cards (x20)
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These would be used to steal other cards from other players. The power is dependent on how many are played at once (up to five). ​
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Character Cards (x4)
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Players will select their characters at the beginning of the game to establish resistances & weaknesses to various light types.​
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Final Card Designs
Meet the Vamps
The Instruction Manual
The Instruction Manual was designed as a brochure-style fold-out. To add a bit of humorous detail, I turned the first flap into a tanning bed with a watermarked smoking effect.
3-D Elements: Box & Play Pieces
Due to a short time frame, I had to outsource the creation of the box. I had given a base idea of what I wanted, a coffin-shaped sunscreen bottle, and it came out better than I could have ever imagined. They had also created sliders based on previous specifications.
While the box was printing I was given a general dieline to go off of to create my labels. The labels were made using a standard sunscreen bottle as a base, even down to the "game facts" on the back of the box.
Play Ready
