CONCEPT DESIGN, GAME DESIGN, GRAPHIC DESIGN, ILLUSTRATION, USER RESEARCH, UX DESIGN
Personal project in development since 2017
Originally my self-initiated project @ The Glasgow School of Art
Sika Säkissä is also translated into english as “Master Butcher”
It is the 1500s in medieval Britain. The master butcher sources the best animals he can find. Unfortunately, good meat can be scarcely found these days and many a good man has had to resort to slipping in anything they can source to make ends meet. Sometimes this doesn’t quite do it, and the competition can get heated. The butcher calls his apprentices to his aid: “Ho! Runneth to the oth’r butch’rs shall thee? Playeth thy dissemble’ry on those folk and reap the reward.” The farmer’s market is opening for business, don’t let the other butchers catch you lying!
‘Master Butcher’ is a quick card game of deception and business, where players assume the role of a butcher in medieval Britain, trying to source and sell meat for maximum profit at the farmer’s market. However, good meat is scarce and to make ends meet one might have to resort to selling bad meat instead. Every turn the players attend a farmer’s market, buying meat from each other and waging whether others are telling the truth or not. Is the meat in the sales bag actually what they say it is? The butchers have apprentices that can run errands for them and play trickery on other butchers, thus sabotaging their pursuit of success.
This game is currently a work in progress in collaboration with Turkka Taipale. Initially I came up with the concept, the story and made all the illustrations. I’ve arranged play testing sessions both alone and with Turkka. Together we have developed the rules and gameplay and even released a small batch of games for a test audience.
