I (Julian) started developing Wanderlust around three years ago. At that time every one of us three began with their own game which means the first prototypes were always made by the developer.
In this post, I would like to show the different development processes of Wandlust´s Map and I guess you will see when Mahmoud and Xue took over the drawing of the map.
Map Version 1
After I had the idea I started to work on the fragmentation of the continents and the according cities. For that, I took a very simple map of the world and tried to make the routes easy visible as I could. Obviously, it was not close to perfect but I am more of a functional person and for a first draft, it was good enough.
At that moment the map didn´t include any more information than the continents, routes, and destinations.
Maps Version 2
In the second version, I changed mostly just the route connections and added some icons for the three types of destinations to make them also visible for people who didn´t spend hours playtesting. Also, a lot of routes changed. I was so much more fun being limited and forced you much more to think your travel trips through. At that moment the base mechanics and parts of the game were developed. YOu can see the main goal objective cards at the left corners and the three collectibles on the right side.
Map Version 3
The next draft came from Mahmoud and you can immediately see that the is sooo much better at doing this than me. He made changes like the different kinds of routes I didn´t come up with which. Afterward, it was much easier to differentiate the light airplane routes from the others. The visibility enhanced a lot and it got a much cooler and fitting look according to Echos destination cards.
At that point, the gameboard also contained the other cards of the game and a small cheat sheet at the bottom center.
Map Version 4
Between V3 and V4 were a lot of minor changes which led us to our close-to-fine draft from Echo. She cleaned up the map a lot and worked on the different colors. During playtests, people always said they would love to see some small gimmicks. These came in as small sea creatures, ships, and other things to explore and replaced the clouds which made the map a little bit crowded.
Which version do you like the most and which changes do you wanna see in the final version of Wanderlust? If you want to help us, leave a comment!!!