How I Designed a Game Around Streetwear

Geometric Eye was the first design that I drew for the Teemill store. I had no idea what kind of store I was building, other than sustainable. I knew I wanted it to be different.
At that stage I was cycling between everything from 90s retro symbols to geometric animals with no decisions. I knew I wanted to use my old art.

The first design, the geometric eye sketch and printed version.

Redesigning 20yr old characters

I took some of my old characters, drawings and sketches and put them in the store. I didn’t have a reason why. Some I redesigned slightly, and some I kept the same.

These became Logic, Tenet, Ultraviolet and Sun Eater.
Gradually, as I added more art, illegible to all but to me, the world was emerging.

Their stories were unfolding.
The characters were evolving and before I knew it I had a psychostasia judge,  a slightly too experimental planet builder, an intergalactic backpacker who stopped by for the music and bubble wrap and an intergalactic star maggot who is happily munching on dying stars.

Unfortunately, that last one is heading toward ours.

Mapping game to garment

That was really the easy part. I researched different ways games communicate rules, worlds, progression, player behaviour, consequence and more, across wildly different games and media, and then figured out what my existing world could mechanically do.

What happened to sustainability?

I leaned heavily into sustainability messaging those first few months and discovered then that sustainability on its own wasn’t going to move the needle. I had to make it worthwhile. Mean something.

One of the biggest things we do is circularity. And it’s one of the last things we do as people.

So I built recycling into the game twice. In play, Recycle undoes your opponent's last move. Outside the game, the same idea continues through the clothes: scan the QR code in the care label, return the garment when you're finished with it, and it goes back into the system to become something else.

I’m not claiming I’ve solved the problem, but I am trying to make participation part of the thing.

Alternate Reality Streetwear Game

The clothes are the artifacts. The cards are where you play. The comics are where the characters come alive.

Different parts of the same world.

Game to garment

The cards and the artifacts (clothing) are now coherent. The final designs are being added over the next few weeks.

Next, I'll be finishing the cards and working on getting them into the hands of our testers.

If you would like to test the game, you can find out more here.