game re-design: hammer of thor

Hammer of Thor was originally printed in 1980. It is a massive sprawling game purported to be playable with up to 362 players. The original designer Joe Angiolillo deserves attention, at the very least, for the incredible amount of research that went into the game and for an attempt to combines practically every detail of Norse mythology  into how it plays. Unfortunately the game was also subject to the printing techniques of the time  as well as a very obtuse rule book. Consequently I don't think anyone ever really played the game.

In terms of my own work with re-designing older games, tearing them apart to see how they function and then rebuilding them, this was definitely the Mt. Everest of challenges.

2 months of work, nearly 2Gb in design files, 655 cards in both color and grayscale versions, 1561 counters, 2 maps each 22" x 28" as well as player aids and I was eventually convinced to rewrite the rule book, fixing a host of typos, consistency errors and structural issues to make the rules more comprehensible.

In the end I am very satisfied with the job I did. This game definitely made me scale some new heights in my ongoing life and education as a graphic designer and designer of game graphics.

Eagerly awaiting my shipment of cards from Hong Kong now so I can give the game a try.

the 2 versions of the map used in the game. the cards will sit off the board next to the half circle icons, completing the circular form (a design element used throughout)

samples of all 18 decks of cards from the game