Card Art

[suffolk]

I would like to start a discussion on card art on a finished product.  What do players expect from card art?

Beyond your expectations, what is acceptable to you?

Realistic art, cartoon-like, vector based, or even comic-book type?  What about detail level?

I was looking at some vector art that looked nice, and wondered if it is good enough quality for a ccg to use.  I saw a game recently that had what appeared to be out-dated pixelated images for the cards.  Seemed to get a vintage vibe, and all the cards had the same style and feel, while others were just copy and palette changes.

Most people I chatted with felt that they were not a good choice for card art.  I could agree to a certain level.

I know art can say a lot about a game, but would you play a game with really good art if the game itself sucked?  Or the other way around with the game having weak art with awesome game play value?

I hope this can spark a nice discussion that we can all benefit from.

[Tokimo]

The art on the cards needs to be visually enticing. After that, it doesn't matter. Comic books, anime, realistic, photos, CG, whatever. It needs to be mildly consistent (no mixing photos with comics and traditional art).

Neopets and Pok?mon both have very simple art but it's well drawn. I certainly wouldn't use anything below that quality.

[SuperTrain]

It needs to be mildly consistent (no mixing photos with comics and traditional art).

This. For me, the main thing is consistency. I mean, obviously there needs to be some basic level of quality, but you should be able to tell a game by its art style. Like, if I saw an MTG card art with no border I should still be able to discern that it is MTG for example. I'm a little partial to realistic art but as long as it's consistent it's good.

[HotLimit]

I normally don't find photos to be appealing, but I can overlook it for games like Star Wars and Trek, because that's really what you would expect. Besides that, Decipher had an amazing team finding the best photo stills, I remember reading an article about the process they used.

On the other hand, for games based on Japanese cartoons/comics or video games, I would never accept stills from either, it looks really really cheap. The best looking videogame/cartoon to CCG games have used original artwork.

Simple artwork can be great, but make sure you have pleasant backgrounds. Detailed artwork can be nice, but like everyone else said, you want to strive for consistency. You have to ask yourself if you're going to have a constant supply of great artists.

[Tokimo]

The SailorMoon CCG used stills from the show and looked very nice for it IMO.

[suffolk]

what about a card with no graphical art at all.

I mean what if instead of the nice realistic fight scene, you saw a unique symbol.  Like something form the  wingdings font?  Would you play a game like this? 

Honestly if you played a card called "Ranger of the Green Woods" and there was a Ying/Yang symbol on the card it would really look weird.

Or, in your opinion, does it go back to the card has to have good art, for you to even look at it.


p.s.

Can a ccg have crappy art, and great game play value still be a good game?  Or is it always the art?

I think the art may make a good first impression, but will good art keep someone playing a crappy game?
OR will crappy art bring people to play a good game?

[Tokimo]

No. You need nice art. Colored unicode symbols are massively insufficient. "The art on the cards needs to be visually enticing." There is no compromise on this for better or worse.

The worst art you can find in a successful CCG is probably Pok?mon. Consider that quality your absolute minimum requirements (and frankly I think that's insufficient unless you have a massively popular gameboy game to help increase brand recognition)

If the art is pretty, then if the game is good, the CCG is good.
No one will learn an ugly CCG. No one will keep playing a bad CCG.
Additionally, amazing card art + awesome gameplay can still fail. You also need an interesting setting. If you want to make a CCG that anyone will play you need to make it a triple threat. It needs to be fun, pretty, and compelling.

[jimleko]

You don't always have to be consistent.  Look at the WoW TCG.  They bring in a large number of artists, so it can go from Penny Arcade style, to photo realistic.

I do agree, however, that there must be quality there.  I don't see anything wrong with the quality of Pokemon, but just look at the quality of a bunch of TCGs out there, and see if yours measures out.

[Tokimo]

I was not able to find any art at the penny arcade style in the WoW TCG. Could you point out some particular cards? I only looked at about 50 random ones and it seemed overwhelming to be anatomically correct paintings (no anime styles or such), the greatest departure I ever saw from that was that some of the pictures used cell shading, and one looked like 3D with cell shading.

[GnKoichi]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you do NOT need good art. As long as the art you use is the right choice for YOUR game, it's good enough. If the thematically correct art for your game is crappy stick figures, then that's the art you should use.

[jimleko]

I was not able to find any art at the penny arcade style in the WoW TCG. Could you point out some particular cards? I only looked at about 50 random ones and it seemed overwhelming to be anatomically correct paintings (no anime styles or such), the greatest departure I ever saw from that was that some of the pictures used cell shading, and one looked like 3D with cell shading.

http://cdn2.ioffer.com/img/item/470/062/01/leeroy_jenkins.jpg

That's one of them, and another is...

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2006/09/dudecard.jpg

There's also a more serious card:

http://saywow.org/img/cards/dizdemona.jpg

[Tokimo]

Thanks jimleko. Definitely not the choice I'd make as art director, but I understand why it was an okay choice for WoW (including huge readership of penny arcade by wow players).

I definitely think comic level art is okay. It needs to be visually appealing, but that's different that expensive technical talent. Munchkin uses very simple comic style art.

I'm inclined to back off of my previous statement. You can go 'below' Pok?mon quality, but you also need the flavor to support it.

[sneaselx]

What about a game with abstract art of sufficient quality? A themeless game with abstract art would provide visually appealing graphics and would be recognizable by the picture. Or does the art have to be at least recognizably an object?

[Tokimo]

I think abstract art could be okay. Just take a regular four suite deck. 4 Clubs? WTF is that? So I think if you had a game where the art was simple and abstract but still illustrated a concept in the card, it would be fine. I think you'd have a hard time building a strong universe which I think helps games, but the nature of the game as a philosophical entity would probably offset that.

[logoes943]

yes, it needs to be some basic level of quality, but you should be able to tell a game by its art style.