Lombard's Labyrinth Old Board Designs

When I started to work on my board game Lombard's Labyrinth, I needed to make a playable version to play test it.

The first version started off with me drawing all the tiles out by hand on a large poster board, and then I had to erase them all when the game ended.

The second version was a hand-cut and glued version that was 2ft x 2ft, which couldn't fold up. This version I used for a few months.

The OG board for Lombard's Labyrinth

The third version is the first picture shown, which was designed to fold in half on each side, so it's really a 2-part board. It was also cut on a Cricut machine and took 2 or 3 passes each time before it cut through. I used this version for years until I got my newest version. By this point, I had no idea what the board would look like for the final version. I was so used to a blank board.

Then I started to consider that the art first was the stone idols, since it's a labyrinth, I figured it would look good; however, the space between tiles didn't give enough space for details. After some time, it started to look too dark and didn't feel like the clean and final version I wanted for the game. I then thought of a cool idea for what if the game was designed like something you'd find in a tavern in my fantasy world of Crosantten. So the next idea was wood, where food and other items would be scattered around.

That's when the final version was designed. The artist who worked on it was amazing, but I had no way of getting it on my prototype. I got a copy of the art printed at my local Walmart, and then I had someone laser cut it out on masonite board, then I cut and glued the art onto the pieces and attached them to the backer board.

The Final Prototype

Making a prototype is not easy and definitely takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Once it's done, though, playing with it feels so great. It's crazy to see how far my game has come.