Nights of Fire

Nights of Fire is a uniquely assymetric wargame designed by Brian Train and Dávid Turczi, with graphic design and some illustration by me! I got the opportunity to work with Mighty Boards on a great team that included illustrators Katalin Nimmerfroh (revolutionary cards) and Kwanchai Moriya (box cover). The game depicts the Soviet’s brutal effort to quash the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and employs a lot of really clever, asymmetrical game design choices to convey that historical conflict.

Part of the fun of this project was that this game was a direct sequel to a previous game from this same team. The previous game, Days of Ire, covered the student rebellion that took place several weeks before the events of Nights of Fire, and had a very different tone and style of gameplay. My challenge was to create a visual identity for the sequel that would still connect with the previous game, while at the same time setting it apart and communicating it’s bleaker, more violent tone.

Another big challenge with this game was the rulebook! At the time of publishing, this was definitely the most complicated rulebook I had ever designed. There are lots of different layers to how the game can be played, complication that was addressed with a system of color coding and lots of explanatory visuals. Check it out below.