Colors for your board game figures

Hello guys and girls,

Today I’m going to talk about the colors of board game figures and what you should be aware of when choosing these for your own games.

In my opinion choosing the right colors for your board game pieces is very important because they represent a big part of the board game experience.
 
I'll try to take you through some of the factors that may affect your choice of colors for your components.

Some of this may also rely on component details, shape and material - but I'll have to take that up in another post. 
 

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1) Realistic look?
If you're going for a realistic look it's important to use colors that lie close to the real colors of the objects the board game pieces are portraying.

A fine example of this are Axis & Allies and Memoir '44 that are using earth-like colors. They've struck a fine line between realism and “what's possible”, as we all know it would be impossible to play the game if all troops/pieces were wearing green camouflage, which of course would be preferred on most real battlefields ;-)
 

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2) How many pieces and how easy are they to spot on the board?
One other thing you also have to take into account is how many different colors you’re looking for.

Yea, it may sound a bit odd when there’s so many colors to choose from, but you've to remember that some colors may also be heavily represented on the board itself which means it may not be wise to use them on figures as well.

Remember
The smaller the components get the harder it is to differentiate dark colors.
 

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3) Patterns?
So what about patterns on the components? This could be an option if you want colorblind people to have a fair chance playing your board game.
This could also be a "easy" way to differentiate the components from one another and from other games in general....

Remember
This would probably have to be done with stickers or an extra layer of paint in post production etc. - I haven't heard of any cost effecient ways of creating color patterns in molds.
 

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4) Indie production?
When doing indie board game production - there's usually one problem - money/funding!
Therefore you might want to stick to the genuine colors like black, white, red, blue etc. which is produces “en mass” by most suppliers.

Just remember that colors affect gameplay and therefore changing them might give you or solve problems - when people try to understanding your game.

You can try to search the web for color studies and see what colors that match each other etc...

There's only one way to go about colors - try them on for size!

Until next time - Happy gaming :)

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