Would you accept this? (Image question..)

[eyerouge]

(0. Developers & nerds wanted, as usual.)
Project >> http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics

1. What do you prefer - the artwork with drop shadow or without drop shadows?
Please compare and share your thoughts. (Yes, the third pic has no drop shadow on the artwork. The other two have.)



2. Will re-using unit art work for the instant/magic/events?

Yes or no? Since we lack art for "instants" we've decided to give this a try... but I'm not sure if it's a turn off or if it would work. In most CCG:s art isn't re-used on different cards. However, because we use Wesnoths great art we seem to be out of options since we only have arond 120 art pieces. Look at the shot below and share your notions...

[Trevor]

Will re-using unit art work for the instant/magic/events?

NO. Art is iconic. In addition to flavor, you need distinct art to allow people to use it as an icon, a short cut instead of reading the card's whole text every time. You could have the same little picture of an archer in the corner of every archer card which would act more like a symbol, but you would still need full art for each card. There are many CCGs out there that you are competing with. If yours doesn't have art that is up to par, no one will play your game.

Generally, your cards look cool. I have a few suggestions, though.

Put either clearer symbols around stat numbers on cards, or put little letters next to them.
Look at how Decipher's LOTR and WOTC's Star Wars labels stats. If you make a symbol to define each stat, then you can use this in game text.

Take a look at this card form Magic's portal set:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4212&type=card

Be careful on your syntax and never leave things vague. Elvish Druid says reduced to half. You need to say if it is rounded down or up.

In general, a lot of your syntax could be improved. It should all be in complete sentences, with reminder text if possible. Think of it also more like computer syntax.
Final effort says "Creature loses 1 Life Point. Unmark creature." I think it would be better if you phrased it like so:
"Target creature gets -1 Life. Unmark that creature." The action card works by first choosing a target, then doing an effect, then doing other effects as long as there are any. This clears up rules questions, such as whether it is a valid target, and what order the creature loses life and then becomes unmarked. Also, if a creature cannot become unmarked, it is still more clear that it still loses 1 life. If you worded it "Target creature loses 1 life and is unmarked" it is less clear if the action would simply fail.

Your naming on those cards is rather vague, which can hurt you later on. For example, you have a card named simply "Ranger". Later on, you can't make any other rangers. If you make a new ranger later on, you would have to give it a specific name, and then it would seem odd if one card was "Ranger" and another ranger was named something different. To fix this, you should really try to avoid generic names. Rename your first ranger card to something like "Ranger of the Woods" or "Ranger of Silverpine" or something like that. It is both more flavorful, and you don't paint yourself into a corner.

I think you might want to include full art in the background of the art section instead of it being a cut out. When you show the character in the world, it makes them seem more connected to it. The artist you have is nice, but you may simply need more art than 1 person can do. Make sure other art you add isn't too far from other art stylistically, or at least not so in an unpleasing manner. With the current art, I think it might even look good if you filled in the background with stock scenes, like a forest or something. For me, cut outs just don't do it.

I think you could also slightly reduce the size of the stats section on the bottom, increase the text section a tiny bit (and get room for flavor text), and make the art section a tad bigger.

The banners on the top right of the cards seem to be covering up more of the art than needed. Maybe shrink them or make them more tapered. Whenever you have just a plain number, it looks like it is an area where improvement could be done.

[Trevor]

I like how your vanilla units (those with no abilites) have a large art section. That's slick design.

I don't like how the card names are all over the place. I especially don't like how, as you have things now, the card name is bound by the picture. Card text, which is critically important, should never be bound by mutable things like card art.
Some card types run onto the second line, and some don't. That's bad design. You solve this by getting the card image out of that box. You can maybe put another stat in the box, like a set and rarity symbol, like Magic does.

Also, you should have an area of the card for legal and collector info. Like copyright X and 1-001, which is card set and number.

I like how you assign flavor labels to abilities, but the rectangle symbols next to them are rather clunky.

I also suggest you have more color schemes than just the one shown. Color schemes, separate palettes and textures, make a game a lot more visually interesting. All the cards you have shown look too similar in style. Faction is a good thing to show with a different palette. Class would also work. If all the cards done are elves, and thats why they look similar, then that makes sense. If you made an orc, and it had the same colors, it would be lame. The importance of different (and common) palette designs should not be overlooked. They are perhaps the most visually apparent aspects of card design.

If you refer to http://lackeyccg.com/ccgdesign.html,
Compare these 3 sample cards:

It's clear that the first 2 are both character cards, but of different faction. And the second 2 are both of the same faction, but one is a character and one is clearly not.

Here is an example that shows a design that allows for vanilla cards to simply omit the text box while everything else is the same.

[Trevor]

I know you like gimp, but I think you just cannot get the same quality of finished product as you can with Photoshop.

[eyerouge]

Trevor:

Thanks for a lengthy and well put answer Trevor! It was very appreciated and I've read it several times

Will re-using unit art work for the instant/magic/events?

NO. Art is iconic. In addition to flavor, you need distinct art to allow people to use it as an icon, a short cut instead of reading the card's whole text every time.

I agree on this point and I was afraid somebody would write exactly as you did. I believe, like you, that players learn to recognize the cards by looking at their artwork. Even if they don't always necessarily remember the exact wording of the card they will on most cases know what is going on and get the big picture by just looking at the artwork (not because the art in itself is informative - in 80-90% of the games it is not in any way - but because they use it as icon, as you wrote.)

What's striking here is that I posted the same question on a board game forum and everyone was okey with it. Given they're boardgamers and people in here are more geared towards CCG:s, it's still interesting seeing the different answers and thoughts. I also think board gamers standards are waybelow what CCG:ers expect when it comes to artwork - board game people are more used to crap art and more abstract layers than CCG:ers probably are. Then again, maybe it has something to do with the age of people as well, as my guess is they are not equal in average/median in the two populations.

Since the problem you described is a serious one I tried to fix it. Here is what I came up with:



The available solutions to the icon-is-lacking-problem with our (lack of) resources are:

1. Only re-use the art once. Meaning each unit is also found on one event card.
2. Use it on up to 3 different event cards, but somehow make them look different.

In the linked picture above  I have done an attempt at 2 in order to maximize amount of cards we can produce with current available artwork. I honestly believe it solves the problem. In particular I think options 3 & 4 does it the best. (1 is a problem since you have to look at the stats containers color AND also look at the card art in order to deduct which card it is, and 4 I find "cluttery".. but I guess that remark is subjective...)

By looking at the cards in suggested solutions 2 & 3 a player would easily be able to use the graphics exactly as icon, while it's at the same time still symbolic. (Druid only has caring loving events, etc..but red druid is only found on one card, while purple is found on another... and alltogether there are really only 3 diff coloured druids in the whole game. And yes, I know the colours can be chosen wiser, nevermind them, it's concept. )

Would you agree on that the above solves the problem?

...you would still need full art for each card.

There are many CCGs out there that you are competing with. If yours doesn't have art that is up to par, no one will play your game.

/../

I think you might want to include full art in the background of the art section instead of it being a cut out. /../ For me, cut outs just don't do it.

I won't pay for new art until I have a solid game with a good rule system. For me thats the main challenge as developer. Once that's in place I'd happily start with swapping out the re-used artwork for unique for each Event-card. Until then the art stays as it is, especially as nobody helps me out by paying for this.

Reason isn't that I don't agree with you or wish it was so, but simply a matter of resources: We have legal art work of 120 or so units, meaning all artwork we have is depicting a creature of some sort. This explains why we don't have "event card art" etc, my original post and the problems associated with all of this

It also answers the issue with the cut outs: There has never existed any backgrounds - the images as you see them were painted that way on purpose. Personally I agree with you that putting them in a context would give them more life etc, but there's little I can do about it as the art is what it is. With that said, I also believe it's a matter of personal preference - even if the context remark is valid, I think cut outs may work just fine in a CCG.

(Graphically, any CCG can turn you/me on or off. We all have tastes and preferences and many players would perhaps be turned of by a fantasy themed game or by cut outs or by a resource handling system etc no matter how good the rules of the game were. If cut outs prove to be a real issue making people run away from the game just because of them alone, then I'd have to start paying for new art ofc...)

Matters also get complicated by the fact that we're creating a legal game with no commercial goals, which is licensed under the GPL.

Put either clearer symbols around stat numbers on cards /../
Take a look at this card form Magic's portal set:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4212&type=card /../

Whenever you have just a plain number, it looks like it is an area where improvement could be done.

This is a really interesting topic, one which there is plenty to say about.

For starters, let's mention the apparent: WotC removed those icons. Even if they were in that set they are not to be found in modern revisions of MTG. Why is that? I wouldn't know, haven't done any research, but I'd love to know the answer.   

Personally, and this is yet another aesthetical subjective opinion, I think the symbols you refer to on the MTG card you linked don't look appealing and don't make anything at all easier. On the contrary, I'd even go as far as describing them as "clutterish".

MTG has but 2 combat stats: Attack/Defend. Using the syntax x/y seems easy enough for anyone to learn. Even the order if logical - "first" you attack, then you defend. Hence I'm happy MTG didn't keep the symbols.

Symbols become more interesting when there are many stats and standard re-occuring stuff that can be summed up by them. Maybe best example is "tap" or "mana"-symbols.

There is also a very thin line between over and under usage of symbols: I have seen CCG:s with a zillion symbols, which almost makes playing the game a matter of decyphering, and some that use none what so ever which forces players to read plenty of letters time and time again when they could be summed up with a nice symbol.

Question that is begged here is when and for what should a CCG dev create symbols?

(Let's peak at MTG. There are very very few symbols: Generic mana, coloured mana, tap... and what more? Could/should there be more of them? For what? And what reason?)

Summed up: I think I might adopt symbols to a larger extent than currently used in WTactics. Right now there is only a "mark" (tap) symbol, but you might have a point that it's under usage. I guess it depends on how the cards and rules will look like when they're complete.

Be careful on your syntax and never leave things vague.

Totally agree. The cards are just concept, but you have a point in the requirement of refinement while developing. Wording is a real hell which I don't look forward to... 

Your naming on those cards is rather vague, which can hurt you later on.

The complete game will only have about 120 - 150 units, and about the same or trippe amount of event cards. Because of that and no planned expansions this shouldn't be an issue.

Reason for the generic naming in contrast to individual is that the units already exist in a well established universe where they have exactly those generic names (with a few exceptions that have personal names, which in our case would be translated into unique leader characters etc).

I think you could also slightly reduce the size of the stats section on the bottom, increase the text section a tiny bit (and get room for flavor text), and make the art section a tad bigger.

Agree that I have to take a really good look at the proportions of things.

Main design idea with the very huge stats was that they should be visible without having to pick up the card or coming much closer to the opponent by leaning over the table. That, and the fact that even if we did make the card text bigger the card would still have to be picked up to be read, spoke for at least having something on the card which is used all the time easily readable without effort from the player. In our case it became the battle stats.

I have a hard time evaluating this when in front of a computer and seeing the cards on a screen where they're huge and look good. Will do some print out tests and also visibility tests in normal lit rooms etc. Plenty of stuff that needs to be tested on this front, and I'm sure it can improve in various ways.

I don't like how the card names are all over the place

I'm not sure I follow: It exists in 2 different positions - either at the bottom of the art (unit cards) or at the top (event cards) and relates to the 2 different templates used.

Card text, which is critically important, should never be bound by mutable things like card art.

I'm not sure yet if the card names will be important, really. If they are you're correct - they should never be obscured by art. What probably will be more important is the creature types (not seen currently on the units, but will probably be there).

Some card types run onto the second line, and some don't. That's bad design.

I'm not sure I follow: How does that differ, in any way, from the fact that some cards have 1 line of text and others have 2 or 5 in their main textbox? All(?) CCG:s have a set textbox size, and they fill it after each cards need. A unit with many abilities would cover more than 1 line in it's box.

Maybe I've misunderstood you here... 

but the rectangle symbols next to them are rather clunky.

Rectangle is actually symbol for a tapped (marked) card. Not apparent, agree, but makes sense once rules are read. I believe all symbols used should be very easy on the eye and have unsophistacted geometry. (The MTG circle with a number is a good symbol measured by my criteria.)

I also suggest you have more color schemes than just the one shown.

Agree. Will do. Faction will be shown by different colors that will vary in namefields and the cards border, and each faction will also have a different card texture.

You're right that the cards displayed have all been from the same faction.



(nevermind the blue text, wont be there)

Also, the game has pre-defined strict factions and usually a card only exists in one faction. I'll maybe also add faction symbols to the cards if the colour/border and texture isn't enough.

I know you like gimp, but I think you just cannot get the same quality of finished product as you can with Photoshop.

Since the game is GPL and I want to keep it as open as possible I won't use commercial software. If I do, then future developers and contributors would be bound by certain file formats and software, programs which usually cost hundreds of gold coins This way anyone can get the software we use, almost no matter what platform they happen to be on.

Except for that pragmatical reason there is also an ideological/ethical - I won't willingly support i.e. Adobe for a number of reasons.

You're right that I like GIMP and that it's been used , although main work is done in Inkscape. I believe both programs are very capable. To be honest I don't think any CCG creator would fail accomplishing anything by only using those two tools. I think the problems with my design are derived from me, and not the software. (Yeah, look at that, I'm self-critical ) Or did you have something in particular in mind?


Again, thanks for the honest input. Hope you don't mind the long reply, just felt it was called for when you took the time yourself to give so constructive feedback. Think it was very helpful, as designing a CCG is really hard and there is a lot to think about. Forums like these are invaluable when properly used.

[Trevor]

Trevor:

Thanks for a lengthy and well put answer Trevor! It was very appreciated and I've read it several times

Will re-using unit art work for the instant/magic/events?

NO. Art is iconic. In addition to flavor, you need distinct art to allow people to use it as an icon, a short cut instead of reading the card's whole text every time.

I agree on this point and I was afraid somebody would write exactly as you did. I believe, like you, that players learn to recognize the cards by looking at their artwork. Even if they don't always necessarily remember the exact wording of the card they will on most cases know what is going on and get the big picture by just looking at the artwork (not because the art in itself is informative - in 80-90% of the games it is not in any way - but because they use it as icon, as you wrote.)

What's striking here is that I posted the same question on a board game forum and everyone was okey with it. Given they're boardgamers and people in here are more geared towards CCG:s, it's still interesting seeing the different answers and thoughts. I also think board gamers standards are waybelow what CCG:ers expect when it comes to artwork - board game people are more used to crap art and more abstract layers than CCG:ers probably are. Then again, maybe it has something to do with the age of people as well, as my guess is they are not equal in average/median in the two populations.

Since the problem you described is a serious one I tried to fix it. Here is what I came up with:



The available solutions to the icon-is-lacking-problem with our (lack of) resources are:

1. Only re-use the art once. Meaning each unit is also found on one event card.
2. Use it on up to 3 different event cards, but somehow make them look different.

In the linked picture above  I have done an attempt at 2 in order to maximize amount of cards we can produce with current available artwork. I honestly believe it solves the problem. In particular I think options 3 & 4 does it the best. (1 is a problem since you have to look at the stats containers color AND also look at the card art in order to deduct which card it is, and 4 I find "cluttery".. but I guess that remark is subjective...)

By looking at the cards in suggested solutions 2 & 3 a player would easily be able to use the graphics exactly as icon, while it's at the same time still symbolic. (Druid only has caring loving events, etc..but red druid is only found on one card, while purple is found on another... and alltogether there are really only 3 diff coloured druids in the whole game. And yes, I know the colours can be chosen wiser, nevermind them, it's concept. )

Would you agree on that the above solves the problem?

Absolutely not. A palette swap is an old technique. I think most people would think it was a cheap trick (which it is) at getting "extra art" and it's lameness is more salient than just reusing the same images. If you are at all serious in trying to get people to play it as a CCG, you need to get unique art for every card. You can get art from many different sources. The art, more than any other component of the card, is what immerses people into the story of the game, and makes them connect to the reason they're playing in the first place. Not every piece needs to be a beautiful piece of artwork you'd hang on a wall, but you need to meet a minimum of production value in order for people to consider your CCG seriously. Don't think "well, my cards are cooler than the cards in monopoly!" Take a look at other professional CCGs. Art, for many people, is what initially pulls them into the game.

...you would still need full art for each card.

There are many CCGs out there that you are competing with. If yours doesn't have art that is up to par, no one will play your game.

/../

I think you might want to include full art in the background of the art section instead of it being a cut out. /../ For me, cut outs just don't do it.

I won't pay for new art until I have a solid game with a good rule system. For me thats the main challenge as developer. Once that's in place I'd happily start with swapping out the re-used artwork for unique for each Event-card. Until then the art stays as it is, especially as nobody helps me out by paying for this.

Reason isn't that I don't agree with you or wish it was so, but simply a matter of resources: We have legal art work of 120 or so units, meaning all artwork we have is depicting a creature of some sort. This explains why we don't have "event card art" etc, my original post and the problems associated with all of this

I suggest you look for royalty free art, as there is a ton out there. You may even need to redesign cards based on what art you can get. In the end, it will be better than using poor or rehashed art.

It also answers the issue with the cut outs: There has never existed any backgrounds - the images as you see them were painted that way on purpose. Personally I agree with you that putting them in a context would give them more life etc, but there's little I can do about it as the art is what it is. With that said, I also believe it's a matter of personal preference - even if the context remark is valid, I think cut outs may work just fine in a CCG.

Its pretty trivial with layers. Get a royalty free photo of a forest and put that as a background. Stuff like that would be easy to do and could really make things pop.

(Graphically, any CCG can turn you/me on or off. We all have tastes and preferences and many players would perhaps be turned of by a fantasy themed game or by cut outs or by a resource handling system etc no matter how good the rules of the game were. If cut outs prove to be a real issue making people run away from the game just because of them alone, then I'd have to start paying for new art ofc...)

Matters also get complicated by the fact that we're creating a legal game with no commercial goals, which is licensed under the GPL.

Put either clearer symbols around stat numbers on cards /../
Take a look at this card form Magic's portal set:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4212&type=card /../

Whenever you have just a plain number, it looks like it is an area where improvement could be done.

This is a really interesting topic, one which there is plenty to say about.

For starters, let's mention the apparent: WotC removed those icons. Even if they were in that set they are not to be found in modern revisions of MTG. Why is that? I wouldn't know, haven't done any research, but I'd love to know the answer.   

The main reason they didn't continue that is probably because it didn't "fit' asthetically with the existing 10000 cards already out there. Those changes were done in a "beginner" intro set, and the cards in it were by and large deliberately inferior to the "real" cards, so that design also got some stigma from their associate crappy set. If WOTC was designing the game from scratch, knowing what they know now, I'm pretty sure they would use icons.

Personally, and this is yet another aesthetical subjective opinion, I think the symbols you refer to on the MTG card you linked don't look appealing and don't make anything at all easier. On the contrary, I'd even go as far as describing them as "clutterish".

MTG has but 2 combat stats: Attack/Defend. Using the syntax x/y seems easy enough for anyone to learn. Even the order if logical - "first" you attack, then you defend. Hence I'm happy MTG didn't keep the symbols.

Symbols become more interesting when there are many stats and standard re-occuring stuff that can be summed up by them. Maybe best example is "tap" or "mana"-symbols.

There is also a very thin line between over and under usage of symbols: I have seen CCG:s with a zillion symbols, which almost makes playing the game a matter of decyphering, and some that use none what so ever which forces players to read plenty of letters time and time again when they could be summed up with a nice symbol.

Agreed. I think the case for over use of symbols is when they are used for things that are not core to gameplay. There should never be too many symbols. But they can be a very helpful shorthand, a unifying icon for a concept, and a way to make things look stylish and flavorful. Symbols can also be used in a bad way. Symbols can sometimes be used to function the exact opposite way reminder text is used, which is bad.

Summed up: I think I might adopt symbols to a larger extent than currently used in WTactics. Right now there is only a "mark" (tap) symbol, but you might have a point that it's under usage. I guess it depends on how the cards and rules will look like when they're complete.

Be careful on your syntax and never leave things vague.

Totally agree. The cards are just concept, but you have a point in the requirement of refinement while developing. Wording is a real hell which I don't look forward to... 

Your naming on those cards is rather vague, which can hurt you later on.

The complete game will only have about 120 - 150 units, and about the same or trippe amount of event cards. Because of that and no planned expansions this shouldn't be an issue.

Reason for the generic naming in contrast to individual is that the units already exist in a well established universe where they have exactly those generic names (with a few exceptions that have personal names, which in our case would be translated into unique leader characters etc).

I think you could also slightly reduce the size of the stats section on the bottom, increase the text section a tiny bit (and get room for flavor text), and make the art section a tad bigger.

Agree that I have to take a really good look at the proportions of things.

Main design idea with the very huge stats was that they should be visible without having to pick up the card or coming much closer to the opponent by leaning over the table. That, and the fact that even if we did make the card text bigger the card would still have to be picked up to be read, spoke for at least having something on the card which is used all the time easily readable without effort from the player. In our case it became the battle stats.

I have a hard time evaluating this when in front of a computer and seeing the cards on a screen where they're huge and look good. Will do some print out tests and also visibility tests in normal lit rooms etc. Plenty of stuff that needs to be tested on this front, and I'm sure it can improve in various ways.

I don't like how the card names are all over the place

I'm not sure I follow: It exists in 2 different positions - either at the bottom of the art (unit cards) or at the top (event cards) and relates to the 2 different templates used.

It's annoying to be looking for a card name in more than one place. When you hold cards in your hand you don't want to be fumbling around with the cards just so you can see their names. This is also a tell to people looking at you at what kind of cards you have in your hand. With card types that are landscape mode, you can't really avoid this, but you should still be mindful of it. Try holding real print outs of cards in your hand as a hand of cards. It will be annoying.

Card text, which is critically important, should never be bound by mutable things like card art.

I'm not sure yet if the card names will be important, really. If they are you're correct - they should never be obscured by art. What probably will be more important is the creature types (not seen currently on the units, but will probably be there).

Some card types run onto the second line, and some don't. That's bad design.

I'm not sure I follow: How does that differ, in any way, from the fact that some cards have 1 line of text and others have 2 or 5 in their main textbox? All(?) CCG:s have a set textbox size, and they fill it after each cards need. A unit with many abilities would cover more than 1 line in it's box.

Maybe I've misunderstood you here... 

Card text is supposed to be an area of a card where as much data as is need for the specific card goes. Card types are a component of the card that is determined by the card template layout. Inconsistency in the layout of things (other than the deliberately mutable card "text") looks like it was planned out with a lack of foresight.

but the rectangle symbols next to them are rather clunky.

Rectangle is actually symbol for a tapped (marked) card. Not apparent, agree, but makes sense once rules are read. I believe all symbols used should be very easy on the eye and have unsophistacted geometry. (The MTG circle with a number is a good symbol measured by my criteria.)

A rectangle is not a symbol. It's a rectangle. You should come up with an actual symbol.

I also suggest you have more color schemes than just the one shown.

Agree. Will do. Faction will be shown by different colors that will vary in namefields and the cards border, and each faction will also have a different card texture.

You're right that the cards displayed have all been from the same faction.



(nevermind the blue text, wont be there)

Also, the game has pre-defined strict factions and usually a card only exists in one faction. I'll maybe also add faction symbols to the cards if the colour/border and texture isn't enough.

Faction symbols are a must. Take a look at decipher's LOTR cards. Faction symbols are a very strong flavor element and can be used on cards as icons too.

I know you like gimp, but I think you just cannot get the same quality of finished product as you can with Photoshop.

Since the game is GPL and I want to keep it as open as possible I won't use commercial software. If I do, then future developers and contributors would be bound by certain file formats and software, programs which usually cost hundreds of gold coins This way anyone can get the software we use, almost no matter what platform they happen to be on.

Except for that pragmatical reason there is also an ideological/ethical - I won't willingly support i.e. Adobe for a number of reasons.

You're probably using tons of commercial software in the creation of the game. Photoshop is the industry standard for image processing, for many different industries even. You may not like the business practices of the company, but is it worth shooting your game in the foot? And even though gimp is free, I bet a lot more people are familiar with photoshop than gimp. You'd likely put people off by using gimp instead of an industry standard.

You're right that I like GIMP and that it's been used , although main work is done in Inkscape. I believe both programs are very capable. To be honest I don't think any CCG creator would fail accomplishing anything by only using those two tools. I think the problems with my design are derived from me, and not the software. (Yeah, look at that, I'm self-critical ) Or did you have something in particular in mind?


Again, thanks for the honest input. Hope you don't mind the long reply, just felt it was called for when you took the time yourself to give so constructive feedback. Think it was very helpful, as designing a CCG is really hard and there is a lot to think about. Forums like these are invaluable when properly used.

Photoshop has tons of features that make it ideal for this sort of thing. Its the reason that most professional CCGs use it. The ways it is superior are too many to list.

Take a look at this template that WOTC used for it's Star Wars game. Take a close at all the layers, and effects. This is the actual template they used to create cards.
http://www.lackeyccg.com/starwars/images/Template1CharGroundSpace.psd.zip

[eyerouge]

Absolutely not. A palette swap is an old technique. I think most people would think it was a cheap trick (which it is) at getting "extra art" and it's lameness is more salient than just reusing the same images.

I think we've misunderstood each other: Surely what I presented must be a solution to the issue with the cards lacking iconic art / people not being able to directly identify the card by looking at it's artwork and associating it with a memory?

I believe that was the main issue - that if I used same art several times then people can't, by looking at it, use it iconic. Now they clearly can. Actually even artwork depicting circles in 3 different colors, or 3 different geometrical shapes would do the trick just as well: Anything that is slighlty "memorable" and diffirentiated from the other art in an apparent way would suffice for the iconization I think you spoke of in your initial post. True?

What I also notice now is that it's not the only issue at hand. Another, which really is now separated from the iconic discussion, is that you react on the fact that I re-use the art.

I agree with you every step in that direction: Of course it's way better to never have to do that. You're right that reusing art, recoloured even, is cheap. Heck, that's why people do it I also think they do it only when they're "forced" to (in a companys case it may be economical reasons, greed or whatever, here others).

You write that the "lameness is more salient" when I do the re-colour than just re-using the images as they are. Maybe so. Then again, it still solves the iconic issue, which actually affects game play in a more serious way than the one we're discussing right now which is theme & fluff. No, I don't underestimate the importance of theme, but when comparing that with forcing the player to read text on a card every time he sees it  in order to identify it I'd prioritize the iconization for starters, and theme second. If I was less "lame" and would go back to my original bad solution - to just use the image as it is, not re-coloured - then players would, as you pointed out in the first step - not be able to iconize. They can do that now. They couldn't before.

Is it pretty? Not compared with using real and unique art for every card. Is it ugly? I wouldn't know. Personally I find it pretty and fairytaleish/50's/retro/boardgame/whatnot. I wouldn't say it's ugly and I'm not certain it's a major turn off yet (hence I posted in here). At the same time it's probably functional, even though it's not unique art in the sense both you and I would prefer it to be.

Please get me right here: I share your opinion that art should be unique. Fully so. I just don't have that luxury right now, nor do I see realistic solutions to the problem that are coherent with the style of the game happening anytime soon. (The fact that we're GPL complicates the matter even further when trying to get the art.). I'd happily pay for art from what little income I have once the game is actually done but I won't do it right now in this phase of dev, nor do I think it's wise to put down too much effort on fiddling with temporary art which will be swapped out for real one in the future anyway (inconsistent stocks, style breakage, frankensteined pictures etc).

As I see it the iconic issue is solved unless I have missed out something apparent here. As a prototype this should work. Art can/will be fixed later if it really is an issue. This far I have gotten very mixed input on the matter.

Not every piece needs to be a beautiful piece of artwork you'd hang on a wall, but you need to meet a minimum of production value in order for people to consider your CCG seriously. Don't think "well, my cards are cooler than the cards in monopoly!" Take a look at other professional CCGs. Art, for many people, is what initially pulls them into the game.

I value the art highly, even if we perhaps don't share aesthetical taste. The end product must, for me, be as coherent/consistent as possible. I'm aware about how good many other CCG:s look, and I'm also aware that many of the most sold ones and popular ones amount it's thousands of art pieces also have a lot of crap art, crap templates etc. I can discuss and name quite many such examples but it would serve no purpose in this thread (but exciting in another)  In the end there are many factors explaining why a player picks up a CCG. You're 100% correct in that artwork plays a major role, even though it's far from the sole one.  (Theme: fantasy vs sci-fi, lore: startrek vs star wars. Eco system: Tapping cards vs something else etc etc).

I'd willingly admit that a game with crap artwork will most likely not be a success since it's "competitors" shines next to it and look more attractive even if they'd have crappy rules design. This discussion is however to a large extent one about aesthetics, and thus a subjective one as long as functionality and game play isn't involved. Cut out vs non-cut outs is an example of what would fall into that, while iconic vs nothing iconic is a good example of what can be described as objectively true and a matter of gameplay.

If WOTC was designing the game from scratch, knowing what they know now, I'm pretty sure they would use icons.

It's interesting seeing WotC continue their dev of MtG and also trying to figure out what they'd do differently if they had a retry. My guess would be the land cards, but let's not go into that direction in here....

It's annoying to be looking for a card name in more than one place. When you hold cards in your hand you don't want to be fumbling around with the cards just so you can see their names. This is also a tell to people looking at you at what kind of cards you have in your hand.

Thank you for explaining. I follow now.

In most cases I'd agree with you on this. In this, I'm not certain. There are only 2 positions / 2 templates. The problem would be more apparent if there were 5 or 20 or something. That said, the problem is indeed still there. *scribbles down to reconsider & test*

I didn't think of the telling-part and I'm not convinced a player could really know/guess most if the time what  card I had in my hand just from looking at how my eyes move when I look at my hand, even in this case where the titles are placed differently. Best part with this is that it's easy to test, just takes some time to get clarity in the issue. A very valid point though, and if the names indeed make it easy to tell they must be moved... which they probably should anyway.

What I don't agree on however is the hand-fan-principle I think you're influenced of: Many designers maintain the notion that a player, when he forms a fan of the cards in his/her hand, should be/is able to see all the vital info of the card to a degree where it matters for gameplay flow.

I think that notion is problematic, and also false in most games. Even with the perfect card layout for it a CCG would always have problems living up to it. That doesn't mean it can live up to it more or less. We coudl design around that principle, but, to what end? Take MTG cards as an example. In theory you can see both mana cost and attack values and parts of iconic symbol (artwork) by forming a fan. 

Problem is that a) there are many cards where you wouldn't see the full mana cost even if you did form a fan and b) that the fan-holding-player, holding a perfect fan, always, is just theory and doesn't exist: At the table, when you play a ccg, you form fans some times, but you don't sit with the fan and cards in your same hand all the time. You (at least I and others) quite often do a lot of stuff with the cards and have them in different hands or on the table face down etc.

Designing around the fan-principle is good and doesn't hurt, but at the same time it lacks realism and is wishful thinking from us as designers. (In a computer version of a ccg it would make more sense though, or less, depending on how the software displays it's graphics) That said, I think it should generally be followed and that you might have a point with the nearby issues.

It's becoming increasingly important to start printing cards and playing around with them, to see how all this actually works out in reality. As I mentioned in my previous post, I think the computer makes me miss out on all these details.     *back to paper*

Card text is supposed to be an area of a card where as much data as is need for the specific card goes. Card types are a component of the card that is determined by the card template layout. Inconsistency in the layout of things (other than the deliberately mutable card "text") looks like it was planned out with a lack of foresight.

From my perspective it's just two constant sized boxes with variable amounts of text in them. Sometimes the text is 1 line, others 2, and yetothers 5 (not in the card type case however, there its either 1 or 2) I still don't understand why one of them is accepted and the other is not.

In any case, I'm also considering using icons for this instead of text... just not sure if it's good or bad yet... guess it depends on amounts of icons it would amass to.

A rectangle is not a symbol. It's a rectangle. You should come up with an actual symbol.

In this case, it's a symbol. Just like a hand means "stop" in some cases - in them it's not a hand - it's a stop. I'm not sure is we discuss human perception and psychology now or if we discuss aesthetical values.

I appreciate if anyone finds the rectangle as a symbol as uncreative and that it would be cooler with more complex symbols. That said, I don't believe complex shapes should be a part of the card design and I'd prefer if they were avoided. Hence I think circle, rectangle, triangle etc are pretty simplistic and good symbols in most cases. (Also, one could insist the rectangle is not a rectangle but a depiction of a card, face down, which has been tapped...)

My guess is we just have different perspectives on this matter as designers. I'm not stating complex shapes wouldn't work. They would. I just prefer not to use them in "my" game. My reasoning for that goes back to clutterness and complexity for the eye - perceptional psychology. I believe that when you add too much (texture, colours, sizes, shapes, art, and what not) you start getting problems, and I'd rather go with too little instead of too much. In many CCG:s they seem to have the contrary opinion from my perspective.

The problem with symbols and complexity is that the more complexity you add, the less they scale down in a good way. Leading us back to primitive/easy forms. That, comnbined with the fact that the game is a DIY and that people will use different printers etc makes it reasonable to avoid key concepts, like symbols, which will easily be distorted. A small complex icon will be just that.

Faction symbols are a must.

Yeah, I'm, leaning towards that... I don't think the difference between factions is apparent/striking enough right now...

[sneaselx]

For instants, could you somehow adapt the attack symbols and the sprite images for use as art?

[eyerouge]

Would you mind explaining in greater detail: Which attack symbols? Which images? And adapt how/in what way?

[Trevor]

Absolutely not. A palette swap is an old technique. I think most people would think it was a cheap trick (which it is) at getting "extra art" and it's lameness is more salient than just reusing the same images.

I think we've misunderstood each other: Surely what I presented must be a solution to the issue with the cards lacking iconic art / people not being able to directly identify the card by looking at it's artwork and associating it with a memory?

Changing a few colors around does not make the card look sufficiently different than other cards. It actually just makes all the art look bad. It's worse off than just having all the same and good looking art. If the recoloring were very drastically different, it might suffice for 2 different card images, but still that reeks of a "cheap trick" and I think players might feel a bit gypped on the production value. There is nothing really you can do to get around the need for unique art for unique cards, and still maintain a certain level of production value.

I believe that was the main issue - that if I used same art several times then people can't, by looking at it, use it iconic. Now they clearly can. Actually even artwork depicting circles in 3 different colors, or 3 different geometrical shapes would do the trick just as well: Anything that is slighlty "memorable" and diffirentiated from the other art in an apparent way would suffice for the iconization I think you spoke of in your initial post. True?

The human brain is wired to associate patterns with meaningful concepts. Like a card about shooting arrows should have a bow shooting an arrow, or arrows in the sky, or someone getting hit by arrows. Random shapes or random palette swaps do not have the same iconic effect.

What I also notice now is that it's not the only issue at hand. Another, which really is now separated from the iconic discussion, is that you react on the fact that I re-use the art.

I agree with you every step in that direction: Of course it's way better to never have to do that. You're right that reusing art, recoloured even, is cheap. Heck, that's why people do it I also think they do it only when they're "forced" to (in a companys case it may be economical reasons, greed or whatever, here others).

Originally, palette swaps were not done as a means of being "cheap", but rather because early game designers didn't have much memory to work with due to the devices they were writing for. In final fantasy 1, you saw the same shapes over and over because they were actually drawing the same image. The palette swap trick is actually changing how the image is displayed and not the image itself.

[eyerouge]

Changing a few colors around does not make the card look sufficiently different than other cards.

We probably disagree on psychological concepts about human perception. Please don't get this wrong, as my goal isn't to prove that you're incorrect or somehow mistaken. I'm just in this for the discussion and getting a deeper understanding, in order to improve the game. For me it entails having this discussion wherever it leads. I think plenty of constructive thoughts have already sprung from it, and am grateful for your input. That said, I won't pretend to have understood all of your points if I still haven't Example:

From what I understand even some non-human species can clearly identify 3 cards as separate and different in cass where they all had just a filled circle on them, but where the colour of the circle would differ. I believe humans can do this, with even greater ease than i.e. monkeys, and I don't understand how it can't be enough for a human to differentiate the cards without any effort.

If I see a red druid and event x happens every time, I will learn to associate x to red druid. Same goes for blue druid or whatever colours they happen to be in. This is doable, as you suggest, as long as the amount of the re-usage is very low. (If I'd use every colour in the palette it would probably cause memory problems for most players).

My suggestion is to either only use every unit once on the event cards, or as I showed in the last attach image - to use a maximum of three versions of it. Versions differentiated by something as apparent as a) colour b) container colour in corner and c) letter in container, not to mention card name (that however has to actually be read to be recognized, making it irrelevant in this discussion)

I think that under normal circumstances (correct light conditions, not colour blind etc), a red circle has very sufficient difference from a green circle. Traffic lights would "prove" me right in this case - it seems as if people can diffirentiate between them. The circles all look the same. Only primary difference is colour. A whole game could easily be built around just non-complex geometrical shapes, 3 differently coloured versions of each. Players would have no problems remembering what card did what by just looking at it once they learn what the cards do.

From what I understood of your first reply it was your concern that if we used exactly the same art on x cards, then a player can't use the art to identify the card (in extension - (s)he won't be able to properly understand what the card does, forcing him/her to read something on the card to id it, in order to play it).

I think that your concern is as valid as it can possibly get. I agree with you on that notion that players use art as a memory beacon for what the card does/is. Thus, you pointed out a serious and very real problem with me re-using the identical artwork on several different event cards. Clearly the art must be "unique" in the sense it is differentiated and can serve as a memory beacon (what I later called "iconic"... but that is perhaps not what you meant with the expression now that I think of it. If so, please excuse me - english isn't my native tongue as you have already understood.)

Given the colours I suggested are a poor choice (for example, the difference between the red and the orange would be subtle when not having them next to each other or under bad light conditions in a room) and can be exchanged for ones that differ more, I'd still maintain that - by looking at one of the 3 existing event cards in the whole game that has a druid on it - a player can, via the druid art, understand exactly what card it is (if and only if he has played it or seen it in play before and memorized). It is so because a red druid is very different to the mind from  black druid, just as a red circle differs a lot from a black circle.

I get the impression you don't think the circles/druid difference is enough, if the difference is only on colour. But, if you're right, then we're back at many obscure and bizzare examples from real life where there should be total chaos and many misunderstandings in society, but where there seems to be no greater problem because of this.

Please don't read this as me saying that a) unique card art shouldn't be used or b) that the difference between a red druid and black druid is equal to the difference between a black druid and a white bear.

I do agree with you that card art should ideally be unique, and I also agree on the difference between a bear and druid being larger than between bear and differently coloured bear. I would probably also agree on any notion that it would be easier/faster to memorize cards that have totally unique art than cards that share art with 1 or 2 other cards.

All that being true, it still seems to me that what I claim - that having 3 differently coloured druids achieves the same effect. It solves the id problem. But - you're right that it doesn't solve it as aesthetically pleasing or as good as it would have been from other perspectives as unique art would on each card. In essence, the only conclusion I draw from this (except ones about your aesthetical taste ) is that the "learning curve" or rather "memory curve" for learning WTactics would be slightly steeper because of this art re-usage issue. Given there won't ever be over 220 - 400 cards in the game, where only 50% are event cards, I don't think it is an issue given the alternatives.

but still that reeks of a "cheap trick" and I think players might feel a bit gypped on the production value. There is nothing really you can do to get around the need for unique art for unique cards, and still maintain a certain level of production value.

I think this is a really interesting topic (so many has come up in this thread :

I still agree on you that it's a "cheap trick" compared to using unique art, although it's functional and the only one available until somebody either starts giving me art or incorporates the other solutions you have suggested. (Btw, I'm also in the process of contacting new artists for commission prices etc, just out of curiosity. If I had a wand I'd swing it and the art would rain over me ).

I share your view that it does indeed affect the production value. Then again - what player would expect a GPL project backed up by no company or commercial department to have a top notch production value in it's infancy? I can hardly even think of a single example where that has been the case.

The fact that something is community driven often tends to give people a slightly elevated understanding of limitations and minor problems that can be found in the product at the time they try it out. I'm not suggesting they'd necessarily accept them or be forgiving, just that it seems to be like that. Nor do I suggest that it alone should lower the aspirations to create a quality game. Please don't mistake my defence of recolouring as an advocacy of it compared to using unique art - it's not.

While discussing production value I must however beg the question: If I have a single druid in the whole game, and that druid looks ok graphically (subjectivley ok, in a way which would be ok to the reader) - how can it suddenly look worse off just because it's now re-used on several cards instead of a single one?  Answer is it can't. Not if it's identical. Can it?

Now, my druids weren't identical. They had their colors frakked up. In that sence, yes, the druid is spoiled compared to the original. All the Event cards would in that respect have "second class" art, since it's re-used from the units, where the art is huge and in original colours etc.

What is most fascinating to me is that it's probably more a question of expectancy of a standard production value, as it's defined in the world of CCG:s. The industry has set the standard to be unique card art, thus people consider it being low prod value when art is re-used. Something along those lines.

This is very much a CCG cultural phenomenon and very alien to for example board gamers or role players. Again, I'd say parts of this has to do with the age, ability of people to be perfectly satisfied with something abstract, and reason you play the game at all, among other things.

No matter what the reasons are, I think you're correct: Production value is lowered when art is re-used, and it should be avoided in the world of CCG:s. Yes.  But, not because it makes the game unplayable, as I hope I've demonstrated - but because expectancy is broken, and standards are pretty high already on that particular front (having unique art on each card).

So, what does all this mean for indy devs? I don't know... that either they conform or perish trying? Probably so.

The human brain is wired to associate patterns with meaningful concepts. Like a card about shooting arrows should have a bow shooting an arrow, or arrows in the sky, or someone getting hit by arrows. Random shapes or random palette swaps do not have the same iconic effect.

Totally agree, it seems to be that way, yes.

Then again - human brain can re-wire to interpret a blue circle as a tank and a red one as B52 airplane. Even a CCG:ers brain can handle that *evil*

Nah, but for real - I agree that so specific art work as you speak of should always be prefered and that the memory curve is the best when such art is used. An intresting sidenote however is that many of the cards in most of the CCG:s can't really be linked that way to their artwork. In MTG it even says in the rules(?) that the connection isn't necessarily there. Another interesting thing is how you'd select the artwork for a card called "Rich" - I guess it would differ based on rest of the card text and effects, but also in what culture we'd play the game, as it's all very well connected to how players interpret what's depicted.

The palette swap trick is actually changing how the image is displayed and not the image itself

I don't know if we're having the discussion on a technical level or logical. On a technical I'm bound to agree with you.

On a logical either the pictures are identical, or they are not. There are no modes in between. If they are not identical one might however ask how they differ, to what extent etc (answers to these Q could in many cases also be very subjective...)

What you're saying is that a druid is a druid no matter what colour it has(?) What I'm saying is that the 3 druids are different pictures. I see no contradiction here - both are true. Central question to me is how the artwork can be made useful for the player, and I think we've discussed that above.