Cursed Excavations — Card Game Redesign and Brand Development

«The Cursed Excavations» is a card game about searching for ancient Egyptian artifacts, where one wrong decision can bring about a curse. In this project, I transformed an academic board game into a standalone brand, preserving the original mechanics and character personas.

In 2025, I designed a competitive card game for 2–4 players. The player archaeologists collect valuable artifacts while avoiding traps. The original already included custom characters, cards, and packaging. Original Publication

Players choose between two decks: Surface and Depth. Surface is safer, but rare finds are less common there. Depth offers a higher chance of finding valuable items—and more danger. In a single turn, you can draw multiple cards until a limit or trap is triggered. The first player to collect three valuable artifacts wins.

The redesign doesn’t change the core mechanics. It changes the visual communication: the cards, the box, the advertising, and the way the game is presented. I kept the white cartoon archaeologists, the Egyptian ornaments, and the color palette of beige, burgundy, gold, and dark blue.

The core of the identity is recognizable white characters, gold, and dark blue. Burgundy signifies danger and curses, while sand relates to excavations and historical artifacts. Motifs of the eye, ankh, and scarab are used in the symbols and ornaments. The logo is decorative; a neutral grotesque was chosen for the body text.

The box became the central carrier of the identity. It features a large illustration of archaeologists, the recognizable logo, Egyptian columns, light emanating from a discovered artifact, and contrasting corporate colors. This is a conceptual mockup, not a photograph of a mass-produced product.

The visual map system highlights the difference between a safe and a dangerous outcome. The game features terrain, artifacts, traps, and junk; among the artifacts may be cursed items. While the illustrations maintain a unified style, they have received more contrasting borders, textures, and color coding.

Valuable artifacts bring victory closer. Cursed artifacts, on the other hand, interfere with the player’s progress—they temporarily freeze discoveries and force a strategic rethink. Egyptian items become both gameplay symbols and part of the visual identity.