The Importance of Design in the Playtesting Process

The answer depends on where you are in the development cycle and the people themselves. Most people would advise to wait on the card development till much later in the cycle, and there are good reasons for this as you point out. Most of the time cards designed early in the process get changed or removed while new ones added, in the end there is a lot of time spend on card design that goes out the window. The time spent on card design could be used on rules or game design.

I find however that for some people card design starts at the very beginning. Some people are very visual and have a hard time grasping the rules or able to create rules without being able to see the cards. In this case it makes a lot of sense to create at least some cards first. It is true that this process will take more time but it might have a bigger pay off for those visual type of people.

Myself I like to come up with the rules first then use index cards to prototype the early design. I have the rules I want to test and then either write on the index cards or I can write a number on the card and print out the wording that matches the number. This allows me to quickly see if a given idea is good and how it might play out. After several play tests and feedback I might start tinkering with a general card concept. It is not until I have several cards locked down and knowing they will be in the game at the very least do I start looking at card design.

In the end the best process is the process that works for you and will help you along with making the game

I think you dont wasted, in any way, your time.

When Im prototyping if the game use some non general token I need to create it and ofc I put some level of artwork on it, at least to make the token easily recognizable.

P.S.: I prefer to use InkScape+Krita... the later a lot better imo in many senses than photoshop for designers.

I think the real value for that sort of thing in playtesting is to communicate the "flavour" of the game. graphics, quotes, etc all help a player know what temperament to adopt when playing and this gives them a context to frame it with. people play very differently with and without this stuff.... and part of what you want to test is that you got the 'flavour' or tone right with it too, so the images definitely help there

I'm a very big proponent of having NO art on cards when prototyping. Design yes (for functionality), art, no.

Here's why.

I believe you concentrate more on gameplay when there's no art. While I myself am an artist, putting art into a game where I'm trying to build a GAME only just takes away from the game itself and you start using the art as a way of identifying the game and not the mechanic. The art should really be that extra UMPH...that icing on the cake that pulls your game over the top.

Think about this. If your game can not only stand on its own, feel thematic, and immerse people in your game without art, then your game is excellent, no matter what art you put on it.

...and that's the purpose of being a designer, right? Create great games.

Use art as the icing on complete game design, not a crutch to fill the gameplay that's lacking.

Consider this: If you were to have your game taken by a publisher, they will change the art. In fact, they may just assign someone to do the art. Even video game companies put in the art and sound LAST in the design process.

I too spend 0% time on artwork on early prototypes. What I do invest time in is a game's card layout in Illustrator. It's all vector based and most of the time Black & White, with some (I say some) shades of gray.

Often I re-use a layout from another game concept and then rework it to fit the new game.

But to be real honest, I think it takes me too much time to design that FIRST prototype before playtesting.

While IDEAS sound great when you are designing a game - they may not be so impressive once you have a working prototype. I find that happens to a lot of my designs: very few pass my level of rigor.

And what is most impressive to me is how my WIP "Tradewars - Homeworld" has held strong against criticism. Most people genuinely seem to like the game. I have not been able to (as of yet) design another game that can compete with TWHW. It's fundamentally simple and with a couple expansions will make it hard to master even for a hardcore gamer.

I think my problem stems from too much "optimism". I'm thinking the next design will be a great as TWHW. And to date that has not happened and I've have 2 or 3 other game ideas after TWHW...

Back to the OP: when I have an IDEA I think is good - I usually invest in Black & White card layouts. No art.

My very first prototype is usually extremely raw and very limited both in the visual sense and in the sense of scope. It's meant to check if the core of the game is working as I expected. And if there are any critical issues with the design itself.

When I have the basic concept more/less stable, I tend to spend some time to design the visual style as I like my prototypes pretty. Especially if I`m asking someone else to help me test.

This.

And actually you can extend this to art assets and layout templates, as you can have a load of useful stuff collected and to hand.

Once I am past initial scribbling on index cards and stuff and want to have slightly neater (and actually more flexible and easier to make mass changes on) I throw together some cards on nanDeck (usually I can adapt card templates I have already made for other games in a few minutes) and generally make use of assets from game-icons.net -- it's amazing how often I can quickly find an icon there that is a passable representation of what I want.

Later on I can go looking for more appropriate art (I find pixabay good for this) and improve the templates to make them a bit neater or more appropriate (though my graphic design skills are elementary at best), but I'm not going to spend money on this.