I'm in the process of playtesting my game "Make It Big!" and I'll soon be moving on to prototyping it. My aim with the prototype is to have a more functional, pretty version of the game to more thoroughly playtest the game with strangers and others who know nothing about the game, to fully work out and test the kinks.
However, I'm at a bit of a mental crossroads when it comes to the card quality.
I'm going to get an artist to help design the cards and I aim to keep that as low costing as possible. But when it comes to the physical card quality, I'm unsure what to do. At the minute I have very roughly cut versions cut out of normal card, with my own pathetic excuse for art on them. They are in card sleeves for ease of use, which has proved useful to date.
But I'm worried that if I offer more or less the same, only with finer cuttings and better graphics, that it might still seem a little basic. In saying that, I'd rather not put too much money into a prototype as I live in Ireland and delivery costs from most online companies is instantly at a rapid increase due to this.
Any opinions or advice? I'm really enjoying this game and want to take it to the next stage!