Haywire Heist Board Game

Date: 2014 – 2015

Role: Game designer & writer, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, 3D Modeler, Layout Artist

Art Direction by: Dermot MacCormack

About the project:

Haywire Heist is a strategy/cooperation board game with a Cops and Robbers theme. The game is inspired by both classical and modern mystery genre fictions and characters.

The premise of the game is that the players are split into two groups, the Thieves and the Investigators, and the gameplay occurs during a heist at one of six art museums. While the Thieves attempt to steal their target and escape, the Investigators have to set up traps, collect clues to uncover who and where the Thieves are, and ultimately prevent them from getting away.

Design Approach:

Haywire Heist features a stylized illustration style with bold, inked outlines, flat rendering with subtle marbled textures that balance an antiquated atmosphere with a lively, modern personality. The traditional, earthy "museum" color palette blends with the environmental elements, room layouts, and card art with the much more vibrant colors and designs for the playable characters. In other words, a style that encompasses "old meets new." Likewise, the typography uses a traditional serif to provide contrast to the contemporary illustration style. 

Game box and pieces

Museum Layouts & Room Boards

This board game uses a modular room board system with eight base tiles featuring the various art and antiquity wings of a museum. Different confiurations of these tiles allow for a range of difficulties and a unique play experience for every game.

Core Rulebook

Due to the complexity of the game, a multi-page instruction booklet breaks down how to setup, play, and win the game. The rulebook features additional character illustration and illustrated callouts to help guide players to find important information.

Character Illustrations, Cards, & Figures

The six playable characters, three from the Thieves team and three from the Investigators team all have a unique primary color and starting trait points. The character cards help players keep track of increases and decreases to their stats, incrimination, or accusation as various tools, strategies, or suspense cards come into play.

Tokens, Dice, & Game Cards

Even the smallest game pieces can change the whole course of a game. Each turn a player will roll a custom-sided dice that match up with various game cards they can draw and play. And each team can access a unique set of color-coded strategy and tool cards.