My Mapmaking Odyssey
Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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EDIT: Latest addition: Hammer of the Scots 6/21/09
List is now in reverse chronological order.
A continuing look at the maps I have had the pleasure to redesign in some manner. I have always done game maps ever since I created my own map for AH's 1964 Gettysburg, and as a kid even created many of my own games from scratch as The Mahaffey Game Company. No, you may not see any of them. They will remained locked in the vault of my closet forever!!
Okay, sorry. The point is that I have been on a craze of mapmaking over the past few sleepless nights, and I want to keep track of all these projects as I go. It all began last year when I designed my first truly production-quality map for a friend's game "Alexander's Triumph" - on the siege of Tyre. And I've had the bug ever since.
Also, give me suggestions of a bad map for a good game you'd like to see redone - either functionally or aesthetically. So here we go - the work so far:
EDIT: Part II of the odyssey (professional work) is online here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/14844
You can also make an "official" suggestion of maps for me to redux here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/15561
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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A map for Julien Bonnard's new CDG on ancient warfare in the ancient Near East. We put together a nice cuneiform on stone tablet feel here... a little unconventional to use grayscale like that for the undermap, but think it works quite well!
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Here is the map for our near-complete 18-player expansion for FFG's superb game of Martin's novels. You may recall we did a 9-player map a couple years ago that worked quite well, and we've been working on this next expansion off-and-on ever since. The board is about 45x67 inches, and my favorite part in this redux is the calligraphy-ishness of the borders.
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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An alternate set of board tiles that I made for Manoeuvre.
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Been wanting to do something with the Revolution, and this classic seems the logical choice. Hand-vectored the script for the title. Like how the winter quarters spaces and the simple port graphics worked. Turned out a little more modern than originally expected, but I like the effect.
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/124585
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Been awhile since I did a redux. Had the pleasure of meeting Ed Beach at WBC this year and learning Here I stand from him. Kept most of the functional design, but added my period flavor to this map for a truly wonderful game. Few little experiments here, like using variable fonts for each language zone. Particularly like the addition of power names around the edges, including signatures of each power's primary leader. Hope you like!
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/106938
EDIT: Print now available!: http://www.west2productions.com/Mapology/_NEW/Prints.html
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Have been meaning do do this for some time, and finally managed to get around to it this past week. This is an aesthetic redux of John Rodriguez and Martin Broden's work on their 18-player expansion map. ( http://www.civproject.net) The only content change I made was removing the area names, which are unnecessary except for PBEM anyway. For a PBEM version, they could be added back on rather easily.
I don't have the guts to change the iconic design from the AH gameboard much, so I've kept the basic design. Anyway, hope you like!
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Found this game through some random geeklist and know nothing about it - apparently no one else does either - but I did this map tonight while I should have been doing real work. I'm a dork.
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12.
Board Game: Vinci
[Average Rating:7.24 Overall Rank:217]
Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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A quick redo of the Vinci map...
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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And here is my custom "For the People" map. This is probably the most complex I've done by a good measure - took a while. I think it turned out wonderfully, and look forward to playing on it. Hope you like it too!
EDIT: Print now available!: http://www.west2productions.com/Mapology/_NEW/Prints.html
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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And just for fun, here's that Alexander's Triumph map I made long ago...
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
-
Here's a map I just finished for Ted Torgerson's web-published game of the American Civil Rights movement. Stole the map look from my upcomin FtP map
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
-
A new map for Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage I just finished. Well over forty hours over the last three days creating this. I wanted something a little lighter, and loved recreating the best aspects of the map.
I found the original design a little crowded, but as I worked through making my own I was unable to reduce that. I even went to the point of drawing in the picture of Hannibal crossing the Alps from the cover of the game. I haven't printed this one yet, and I may pull back or remove some of these elements before doing so - but they just look cool!
I love this map, and it has easily been the most challenging and rewarding to make so far. And I learned a good deal about the 2nd Punic War on top of it. My favorite part of this is easily the Carthaginian general track. That red sunburst splash is one of my favorite symbols in history, and it looks great on that shield.
Original board:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/89717
A special thanks to Kallen McInerney (Oiler) for pointing me to UNC's Ancient World Mapping Center for a base map.
Hannibal ad portas...
EDIT: This has received another facelift: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/150687
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Crusader Rex suffers from the same atrocities of map design as Hammer of the Scots. Apologies to whoever drew these - they are simply not my cup of tea, though some people seem to like them fine. (What could you be thinking?)
I hammered this map out in less than a day earlier this week, and I love it. My favorite part is easily the focal point created by the seal, title, and turn track. The eastern orientation is the traditional Holy Land viewpoint. My cartography addiction continued over the last couple days with my monstrous project to create...
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/87541
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Matt's redesign of the Hammer of the Scots did a great service to that game. I think this series represents the quintessential spread between game quality and map style. A great game with a truly ugly map.
I couldn't resist adding some Clan Macfie touches to his design, and tightening it up a little to my own taste. This brief work inspired me to turn out another Columbia blockgame map, at astroglide's suggestion...
[i]f00k's board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/118551
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/10212[/i
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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The mapboard for Axis & Allies is entirely too small. The pieces don't come close to fitting well onto the board, especially in Germany. So, I thought to myself: time to make a bigger board. Then I realized it was just plain ugly and my stylistic side kicked in to create this map by morphing NASA satellite mosaics to fit the purpose.
I'm not going to admit how much time I spent on this one, and it's definitely a case of a project not finished but abandoned. But I love it - and it got me poking around to see what other stylistic redesigns people have done, and I quickly found a kindred spirit in Matt Harvey (f00k)...
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/42540
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Last October, we got it into our heads to make a 9-player expansion for Christian Petersen's A Game of Thrones. Which we did.
This required a massive redesign of the board to significantly alter the playing field. This was before I got it into my head to make stylistic map alterations. That came when I got my hands on the 2004 edition of Axis and Allies...
Original board: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/63434
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Posted Sun Jun 21, 2009 9:06 pm
