I'm looking to create cards for a board game I'm making. For example, they should be similar to Risk territory cards, able to be shuffled, and cheap in price of course. If anyone has any experience with this let me know.
Card Ideas
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 21:47
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 23:26
#1
Blank Card Outlets
Looks like EAI Education's website has blank cards for sale again, at the moment. Think to purchase these if you're okay with writing/drawing your own cards. Based on the measurements they give, it looks like the cards are "bridge" size, which is just slightly more narrow than standard Poker decks:
http://www.eaieducation.com/Product/530658/Blank_Playing_Cards_-_Single_...
If you want your cards professionally printed, there are two recommendations I can suggest:
The Game Crafter:
http://www.thegamecrafter.com
Print & Play Productions:
http://www.printplaygames.com
I'm sure there are more out there, but those three have never let me down and I've stuck with them.
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 07:31
#2
For my own prototypes I use
For my own prototypes I use regular printing paper cut to the right size, write/print what I need and sleeve it (with an opaque sleeve). I also put a cheap standard playing card behind the paper to add thickness and make it feel more like a proper card.
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 09:20
#3
You can get boxes of blank
You can get boxes of blank cards on Amazon that are perfect for prototyping. I've actually got a whole stack of ones I've used for my restaurant bidding game sitting next to me right now. They don't bleed through, work well for pen or highlighter.
For higher quality printed cards, I use http://www.printerstudio.com/
I create the cards in photoshop for a very basic form, then send them to these guys for a more refined look.
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 22:08
#5
nanDECK!
You should get nanDECK to design your cards. There's a little learning curve to getting started with it, but trust me that it is totally worth it. When you realize that the oblong around your text has to be 6 pixels bigger because the text on one card is too long, you won't want to go back and change it on the 34 cards that you thought were done. Even if you're clever with layers in photoshop or paint.net, it's a pain to go through and make the same change 34 times. In nanDECK, you just change one place and rebuild your deck.
Then just print your prototypes on card stock and get a gullotine paper cutter to cut them. These aren't good enough even for serious playtesting with strangers, but they are good enough for solo playtesting and for testing with friendly audiences. Being able to print and play, right away, is worth the drop in quality.
When you are ready, there are lots of good options for professional printing. nanDECK will output PDF's using CMYK images, which is what serious print shops want. I found its RGB to CMYK conversion to be better than the one in the Adobe products that you pay too much money for.
Thanks guys. I'll work out some of these ideas.