I reached out to Brother Ming Games when I received an email about Genshin Tarot Volume 2, the follow up to one of my favourite games of last year, Genshin Tarot. I don't think I've ever had an email replied to so quickly, but Brother Ming came back and suggested a shoot for his latest release, Re;ACT, as Volume 2 wasn't going to be out for a while.
Given I'm such a fan of his games - and Re;ACT had been something I'd had my eye on for while - I jumped at the chance.
The Master Artists
Re;ACT is a gorgeous 1 vs 1 duelling game where players take on the role of a Master Artist and build up interplaying reactions that - and this is the beauty and strategy of the game - unwind in reverse order, allowing you to influence (and react to) the game board in ways that can impact and derail the other players strategy.
With the variety and different play styles of the Master Artists being such a core part of the game, I wanted to ensure they were in the spotlight of any photos I took.
With these particular images, I wanted the artists to literally be in the spot light, so positioned the character cards and lighting such that the eye is drawn to specific artists within the crowed - and focused mainly on the Calligrapher due to that character being a central art piece of the box, and for rather moving reasons that Brother Ming goes into in the instruction booklet.
The asynchronous nature of the Master Artists is one of the stand out features of how the game plays - each artist doesn't just play different, but has a completely unique set of components and rules that make each duel a completely different experience depending on who you're playing.
I really wanted to highlight this, so created images of each artists - not only showing their unique character art and master piece, but the different components that come with each one.
Adding a little flurry to each one - the calligraphy brush for the Calligrapher, the books for the Story Teller - give each a slightly unique spin too.
Gameplay In Action
The game has a lot going on - one really nice touch is that each character box comes with a complexity and difficulty rating so you know what you're getting into - and I wanted to capture that through providing images of a game in play, in this case between The Tagger and The Tattooist.
I really wanted to capture two things with these images - the way in which the re-act chain builds up (it takes a while to get used to, but once you do, you can really strategise your moves) and the amount of options available to the player.
By showing a completed chain reaction, a master piece being completed and the range of cards available, it really gives the viewer an idea of just how many options they have.
Setting Up The Shoot
When you first unbox Re;ACT there is a lot going on - and my initial reaction is usually one to panic and assume in about 10 minutes I'll be surrounded by components I have no idea how to use.
But Re;ACT does something that I wish all games like this would do. It provides individual character boxes that, once everything is popped, fits everything for that character - from the cards, the tokens and the acrylic stands.
Honestly, after shooting each of the characters they were nothing but a true god-send. Without them, I know I'd have been sitting in the middle of a mountain of tokens and cards, quietly weeping to myself...
And I love neoprene maps - I have a few custom ones for games like LotR LCG - but trying to get them to lay flat for a photoshoot is usually quite the challenge!
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