Newbie Game Designer Needs Help With Creating Cards.

Hey Drimitz, you replied to my epic game forum, perhaps your interested in doing a partnership and developing our two games together?

Regarding cards, I used to make a few card games a couple of years ago to play with my brothers and stuff. The only way I did it was to go into Paint or some other drawing program, draw up some cards to fit your measurements (hard I know but I just randomly drew mine until they seemd to work) you can then write in the text and stuff that will on the card, print them off, draw in or paste in or whatever any graphics you want, scan them into your computer and mass produce them.

This is they only way I know how to make cards at home, I hope it helps :D

Cheers,

Tim

I have downloaded the templates from here and have made text versions of my cards. I am in the process of getting a good graphics program. Think I am going to go with Paintshop Pro 8. The problem that bothers me is my cards are not shuffable and they don't slide. I have went to the process of printing the front and back of my cards on standard printer paper then putting a core of 110lb card stock in the center. While this is plyable it does not slide. That is the problem in more detail. I use an ink jet printer too.

Thanks for the replies so far.

Drimitz

By card stock you mean the 110# right? So should I use a layer of 110# for the front and another for the back? or just use the 110# one sheet for front and back?

Thanks for the advice.

I've been doing more card games lately than boardgames. I bought a ream of cardstock from Kinko's, and I run it through my HP Deskjet printer with no problem. I use 80 lb cover sheet type of card stock (at least, that's what it says on the label), and it works quite well in terms of shuffling and stiffness. I have found it to be a very good compromise between more expensive options and the tedium of trying to use card sleeves. (I tried card sleeves for paper printouts but was unsatisfied. With a Magic card for stiffness, the sleeved cards felt hard to shuffle, but without the card they were too floppy and impossible to shuffle. And then there's the problem of having to swap cards in and out anytime you update the base card set ...)

Before joining this site, I had built my own little template in MS Word. I simply used a table in Word and divided the columns and rows evenly. I found I like a 3 row by 4 column grid the best. In Word, I can import graphics, create text boxes to control my layout, etc. In addition, I can use the exact same template to make fancy card backs -- just run the pages back through the printer.

I hope this helps.

Captain Sky

If you're just putting these together for play-testing, don't bother with laminating cards, pasting fronts to backs etc. You'll be spending WAAYYYY too much time just assembling your cards and not actually play-testing your game.

We (my partners and I) simply printed them out onto a 60 or 80 lb. smooth stock and sleeved them into typical deck protectors. Since you will be changing card values, cards, card text, etc. as you play-test, you'll want to be able to switch up a card easily and get back to playing. We even used the different colored Deck Protectors to help us identify each successive test deck. We probably made at least 8 full versions with variations, and our game was a stand alone 120 card game with simple rules - not a CCG which I would imagine could be much more complex.

To set up the files, I use Adobe Illustrator and put 9 cards to an 8.5" x 11" page. The cards butt up against each, and when I cut them out, I simply cut off the excess and make 4 cuts with an exacto. We don't even bother to round the corners (too time consuming).

If you don't have Illustrator, and you want a powerful graphics program, use Photoshop - it does everything, but Illustrator works best for quick card set-ups.

Keep in mind that the idea of a test deck is to get playable cards as fast as possible so you can work out the kinks in your game. Our play test cards had no graphics on them - just text. We used a simple colored background to help visually identify different card types. I even made sure to print them at a very low resolution from my printer to save time and ink.

If you want pretty play-test cards, you'll be spending a lot of time only to find that you'll need to change something later on.

Just so you know, for the finished art mechanical files (final production for print) we scanned all of the black and white art, rendered them in Photoshop, and created the mechanical files in Illustrator.

Hope this helps.

Chris

I used to playtest with 110# card stock (non laminated), then I tried laminated 110# stock. The laminated cards shuffle exactly like real playing cards, but doing changes can be very hard.

I have since learned to love prototyping with card sleeves. They shuffle incredibly well when you shuffle cards sideways (side to side instead of end to end). I don't even bother with cardstock for playtesting, I just print out the cards on paper and cut out.

If you're trying to make a finished version to give out or whatever, skip the 110# cardstock core, use a little heavier paper (a good 24# paper) and glue the two halves together back to back. Then laminate (a lot of people will swear by a Xyron type laminator) and cut. That has worked VERY well for me in the past.

Hope this helps.