My Hero Academia · The Forrest
Overview
A thematic board game where three heroes collaborate to rescue Bakugo while a fourth player controls the villain. It's a 1-vs-3 asymmetrical fight, designed, balanced, and physically built end to end.
The whole thing was produced by hand: laser-cut wooden tiles and a grooved board to match the forest theme.
Contributions
- Game design. Core mechanics and an asymmetrical combat system pitting three heroes against one villain.
- Playtesting. Ran sessions to refine balance and keep all four seats engaging.
- Production. Built the board and tiles with 3D printing and laser cutting.
Card Design
Hero card · before (left) / after (right)
From manga to readable
The first hero cards leaned hard on manga-inspired art from My Hero Academia. Great for fans, but noisy for new players.
So we moved to a more universal layout: clearer structure and a high-contrast black-and-white palette so the text reads at a glance, whoever is at the table.
Board & Tile Iteration
Laser-cut tile grid (left) · tiles seated on the board (right)
Paper grid → wooden board
The initial design laid paper cards into a 6×6 grid straight on the table. It worked, but it was slow to set up and awkward to manage.
The revision moved to wooden boards and laser-cut tiles that are durable, tactile, and on-theme. The board was cut with grooves to hold the tiles, so setup and pack-up got far simpler.
Engraved board (left) · full set-up (right)
A built object
Finishing it as a real, laser-engraved object made the theme land. The forest stops being art on a card and becomes the board you play on.