GOTería – When Two Famous Games Collide

On May 19, 2019, eight years of our lives came to a close as millions witnessed the series finale of the global phenomenon that is Game of Thrones. After a seemingly eternal two-year wait between seasons, the Lord of Light finally bestowed us with the conclusion of the bloody saga. Emotions ran high at CultureSpan. We knew we had to pay tribute to such a powerful story for making us feel alive.

THE PROJECT

Because Game of Thrones fascinated us and meant so much in our adult lives, we decided to look into something that was equally as iconic from our childhoods. As we delved into our memories, we agreed on the one game we all played where key decisions were made — La Lotería.

La Lotería, Spanish for lottery, is the traditional Mexican game of chance and plays similarly to Bingo. The main draws of La Lotería are its colorful tablas (boards) and cards featuring a rich assortment of characters and imagery ranging from the mundane to the fantastic.

MERGING THE TWO GAMES

Connecting the colorful fasntasy of Game of Thrones with the Lotería cards was an interesting process in and of itself. With such a diverse cast of characters, merging the show’s lore with the game should have been fairly easy, right? Not entirely.

While not exactly a brain-busting task, we were determined not to take the simplest path. We spent several days debating on imaginative ways to mix a Lotería card with an aspect of the show without resorting to the painfully obvious. Some of the show’s characters and their qualities proved to be more easily adaptable than others. Because of the posing in some Lotería cards, certain GOT characters were an ideal fit.

Additionally, the symbolic imagery of some Lotería artwork shared traits with several characters and aspects of the show. Such is the case with The Night King, The Unsullied, Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow becoming La Muerte (Death), El Soldado (The Soldier), El Borracho (The Drunkard), and El Valiente (The Brave One) respectively.

However, we ultimately decided to take plenty of creative liberties. The card of El Mundo (The World) typically features an Atlas-like character carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Our spin on this iconic card was recreated by way of one of the saddest characters and moments in the show’s history — Hodor pushing back against the horde of White Walkers. A fitting tribute – we thought.

El Diablito (The Little Devil) was reserved for someone so despised throughout the series. The traditional card features a slightly comical Devil with a trident in hand. While there were plenty of outright wicked people and monsters throughout the serie's course, no other person fit this description better than Ramsay Bolton, complete with his despicable grin and stare. Sorry Joffrey, you’re so despised you don’t even deserve being considered.

One of our own creations is La Mala Copa, featuring Cersei Lannister with that smug, condescending face. An informal mix of two words — mala and copa or a bad cup (of something you drank). It’s meant to describe a person who’s known for being irritable or insufferable when they drink; a bad drunk to put it simply. Cersei is the perfect mala copa; her vile and careless actions have elevated tensions to catastrophic proportions.

Other pieces also had subtle changes to them. The El Árbol (The Tree) card was redesigned to feature one of the massive, grisly-faced and red-leaved weirwood trees from the forests of the North. Our 
El Pajarito (The Little Bird) features a Three-eyed Raven and the El Gallo (The Rooster) card features a fierce-looking Drogon, one of Daenery’s dragons.

These are only a handful of the cards we actually created, but there were many that were left on the drawing board. These included La Mano (The Hand), El Invierno (Winter), La Botella (The Bottle) and La Navaja (The Needle). Can you guess what these were based on? We’ll leave it up to you.

OUR WORK TAKES FLIGHT

Leading up to season 8 of GOT, the hype was definitely real. So after a mad race to complete artwork prior to the final season’s premiere, we posted our first four cards on March 29 with the remaining cards released with each new episode.

We had some concern about the social media reaction; after all, we were dealing with a passionate topic. We were wrong. Reactions on our social media were overwhelmingly positive. Some of them even suggested we actually print them. So we did just that.

We produced several sticker packs with our GOTería imagery and decided to return the favor to our supportive social network by giving them away for free. We even shipped a few to out-of-town fans!

THE END OF AN ERA

After all the buzz and hype, Winter came and left and it was…divisive to say the least. Our team was certainly torn about the ending and there was much discussion about our own individual expectations for the saga that held our attention for nearly a decade. We’d even gotten a little bloody by organizing an agency-wide deadpool in which we tried to predict who would live and die in each episode of the final season.

The winner was none other than our Senior Art Director, JC Hernandez of House CultureSpan, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms, Winner of the CultureSpan Deadpool and Protector of all Artistic Integrity.

If you think we got a little excited for Game of Thrones, wait until you see what we do daily. This is just a small sample of the passion, madness and energy that goes into our work here at CultureSpan. If you want the CultureSpan team to help you with your next project, from transcreation to creative concept development, hit us up! Our little birds will be in touch.