Mumbai Hustle: Street Legends

CLIENT

TYPE

Academic Project: Board Game Design

YEAR

2025

BRIEF

Mumbai Hustle: Street Legends is a board game inspired by Mumbai and the everyday people who keep the city moving. The challenge was to turn familiar Mumbai experiences, characters and the city’s constant hustle into an engaging game that had its own story, world and gameplay system. The game needed to feel recognisably Mumbai while still creating a fictional world that players could explore and interact with.

CONCEPT

The game imagines a futuristic Mumbai in 2050 where the city is glitching, zones are falling apart and time is slipping. Players take on different Street Legends and work through the city to collect Hustle Points before the timeline resets at 9:05 AM. The game is built around a simple goal: teams must collect 10 Hustle Points and complete their journey before the city resets.

VISUAL DIRECTION

The visual direction grew from Mumbai’s everyday life — its streets, local trains, typography, people, buildings and constant movement. The moodboard explored gritty textures, vibrant colours, hand-drawn visual styles and references from Mumbai’s visual culture. These were combined with futuristic and glitch-inspired elements to create a version of Mumbai that felt familiar but fictional. The intention was not to create a generic futuristic city, but to imagine what Mumbai itself could look and feel like in 2050.

SKETCHES

The sketching stage explored the world of the game through characters, environments, symbols and gameplay elements. Character explorations focused on turning familiar Mumbai archetypes into playable personalities. Different forms and visual approaches were tested to give each character a distinct identity while keeping them connected to the same world. These explorations became the foundation for the board, cards and other game components.

VISUAL SYSTEM

The selected sketches were developed digitally to establish the final illustration style, colour language and visual system. The character designs were refined alongside the board, cards and supporting assets so that everything felt like part of the same game world. The gameplay system was also developed alongside the visuals, with the board, zones, characters, cards and Hustle Points designed to work together rather than as separate elements.

FINAL GAMEPLAY

The final game combines storytelling, strategy and character-driven gameplay. It was designed as a 2–6 player team-based experience that can be played in approximately 30 minutes. Players move through the futuristic city, interact with different game elements and work towards collecting 10 Hustle Points before the timeline resets. The final visual language uses hand-drawn illustrations, vibrant colours and gritty textures to balance the energy of Mumbai with the futuristic setting.