Six roles
A heist needs a planner, someone to get in, someone to see everything, someone to make the impossible possible, a forger and a back-up plan. That became Selim (the Brain), Adriana (the Cat), Lena (the Ghost), Céleste (the Alchemist), Rafael (the Merchant) and Marcus (the Captain).
We tried more roles than we kept. A getaway driver, a corrupt detective, a money launderer and a smuggling captain all made the shortlist. We merged the lookout into the hacker and the disguise artist into the forger, so every crew member does something nobody else can.
Backstories with a motive
In a deduction game every suspect has to be plausible. So each backstory ends with a reason to take more than a share:
- Selim planned it and thinks the biggest share is his.
- Lena saw the whole night and needs money to expose the firm that fired her.
- Adriana was alone with the prize for three minutes.
- Marcus sends money to the families of the soldiers he lost.
- Céleste wants her family's perfume house back.
- Rafael is the only one who knows which piece is real.
Read them all on Meet the Crew.
Finding the style
We tested more than a dozen looks, from toy-like 3D to linocut posters, before settling on painted noir: gouache brushwork, dim light, modern clothes, and each character's colour carried by one strong piece of clothing. It reads at thumbnail size on a phone, which matters on a card 90 pixels wide.
One colour each
Every crew member owns one colour, used on their clothes, their token and their card. We chose the six so that people with the three common types of colour blindness can still tell them apart, and the game never relies on colour alone: each token also has a portrait. More in Colour-Blind-Safe Game Colours.
The cards
Every crew member, method and location became an evidence card: a painting in a cream frame with the name in bold condensed capitals. You'll see them in your hand, on the case log and in the answer panel when someone shows you a card.
