Ascension - Consumer: don't judge a book by its cover. Publisher: the cover's artwork is important

I have now been able to play three different deck building games. Those are Dominion, Thunderstone, and Ascension. I very much enjoy Dominion. It is one of my favorite games. Thunderstone I have only played once, and I remember it being okay but not great. I just played Ascension for the first time.

I usually like to comment on a game's mechanics. That is what really makes a game great, and it is what I most enjoy evaluating. I can't really comment on Ascension's mechanics except to say that it takes at least one play through to get the hang of it. In that one session I've had with the game, I started to understand how the cards played together and how the rules were different than Dominion. However, I did not understand it well enough to attempt even the most basic strategy. Nevertheless, if you have played Dominion before, the game does not seem too complex, and I expect I would understand and strategize much better the second time around.

Part of the reason I couldn't get the hang of Ascension right away, though, was that I was distracted. I wasn't distracted by much outside of the game; I was distracted by a part of the game itself: the artwork. The artwork in Ascension is horrible. To demonstrate, let's start with some of the game's better artwork.

Ascension pictures come from Image gallery
for Ascension at boardgamegeek.com

Have you ever seen the anime show Inuyasha? I have only seen bits and pieces of it, but the element that always seemed comical to me was that he had a giant sword. This enlightened hero card reminds me of that, and in my opinion, the card looks ridiculous because of it. That was one of the better cards too.

Now take a look at this one:

All I can think when I see this card is that it looks like something some of my friends could have drawn in junior high school. It hardly looks like that of a professional. Now, I understand that even professional artists will have different styles and some might look more "cartoonish" than others. However, this does not look like good art with a different style. This is simply amateur art that looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old. I don't mean to be mean in my hash criticism, but it really is bad.

Now compare the artwork with the Dominion card on the right.
Now that art (on the Dominion card) is truly professional, beautiful artwork.

Why do I care? Certainly, as even a want-to-be entrepreneur, I can appreciate the cost difference between a low-level and high-level artist? Yes, I do understand the wish to save money on art. Especially with your first game, one would want to get it to market as cheaply as possible. Start making money a.s.a.p. Once some money is made, they could reprint the game with better art. I certainly hope that is what they plan to do.

They need to revamp the art because the artwork sets the scene. That is why I care. When one plays a game with a theme, they want to be drawn in a little. It is not to the same extent that a book would draw one into another world, but they still want the atmosphere to be created in their imagination. Theme is fun and popular because of the worlds it creates and allows one to participate it. With bad artwork, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to be immersed in the game world.

Remember: I said I was distracted by the artwork. That is not good. I should be entranced by it. When I spend the game thinking about how terrible the artwork is instead of trying to learn the game, the artist and publisher have failed. The publisher has especially failed for letting the game be produced with such artwork. Whether one likes it or not, books and games are judged by the cover, and I would not be surprised if they lost sales because of the poor artwork. I know I certainly wouldn't buy it because of that; so, it costed at least one one sale.

So, the "moral" of the story is: Find a way to get decent artwork cheaply and then improve the artwork when you do a reprint. That is fine. However, don't have your nephew's 12 year-old friend do the artwork just to save a few dollars.