Today I finally finished what I am dubbing Cutthroat Fruit Merchant v2.2! This version includes a new layout for the player-facing game boards and the economics board (in all the images the newer boards are the ones on the bottom). This is the first time I’ve changed the layouts of these boards since the first iteration of the game! It’s about time.
The economics board hasn’t changed much in terms of general layout or values, but it’s now reprinted in a landscape format, which has allowed for better spacing, particularly for the ship upgrades spaces. When I designed the original board I didn’t pay much attention to how big the cards were going to be. I mostly just needed something to designate the upgrades’ availability. In v2.2 the ship upgrades have a designated space to hang at the bottom of the board and are the appropriate width for the card. Success I say!
We’re also getting pretty darn close to full color coordination. Just waiting on some dice to come in!
Meanwhile, the player boards got a much-needed overhaul! In similar style to the economics board, the player boards originally had everything just crammed in as best I could. I’m no artist, nor am I a graphic designer, but I needed something that would work. And these worked fine for the early stages of the game. Boy they sure were ugly.
The new board, which is still pretty ugly, now has better spacing for literally everything! I changed the total gold value for victory from 100 to 50 as the game was running a little long and this allowed for a dramatic adjustment to the scoring track. Though, ultimately, the scoring track will probably be added to the main game board.
The cargo layout was changed so that additional cargo holds are right on their associated cards and there is only one cargo hold on the player board, which means all of their spaces are now big enough for the gems we’ve been using as tokens. This wasn’t a huge issue, but it’s nicer now!
And last, the piracy card spaces were made bigger to accommodate the size of the piracy cards. Who’d-a thunk it?
I also reprinted the main board. I originally forgot to add in the fair wind arrows so I had to draw them in by hand. What a rube I had been!
The printed board has been an exceptional upgrade to the game. The first board was hand drawn onto a vinyl mat, which meant it had to be frequently redrawn before playing and that got old quick. Also, now the ports all have names so that’s added a lot of extra flavor!
Even more exciting is I ordered an actual game board to be printed for continued testing. This should make it much easier to bring the game with me when traveling!
That’s all the exciting news I have for now. We have to get back to testing and start extending our games to additional folks for feedback. I’m excited to see how this performs in the next few games!
Tastefully Done Gams 
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