by KAndrw
A little over a month ago, I posted a thread looking for feedback on card designs:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1321548/what-do-these-card-...
The feedback (thank you!) confirmed that what my wife was telling me was correct, and the design needed a rethink - there is probably a lesson to be learned here about listening to wives. Well, one rethink later, I'd like to see whether the changes we've made have worked...For the past couple of months, I've been working with an artist (Simon) to finalise artwork for
Dexikon, which is on-track to be kickstarted within the next couple of weeks (it's being published by Eagle-Gryphon, but they've allowed me to oversee the graphic design, which is a wonderful if slightly daunting opportunity).
After an initial 'alchemy' theme that I loved but everybody else thought was about space, he's come up with a new design that I love even more. TO ME they communicate exactly what I wanted them to.
I'd love to get some feedback about what this artwork 'says' to other people - do the card colours and patterns logically match the types of effect? (Obviously this is very subjective!) At this point in development the style is probably fairly complete, but there is still scope to adjust anything that is really missing the mark.
Dexikon is a deck-building word game. You use letter cards to spell words, which earn points that you use to buy more letter cards and/or bank VPs for the end of the game. All cards have the same back, which looks like this:
How does the back feel to you? What theme do you take from it, and what does it suggest about the complexity/length of the game?
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The cards are split into two groups - four different core cards (which form the initial decks and are always available) and one stack of pool cards (six of which are on offer at any time). Three of the core cards share this style:
This card can be used as either an E or an S. It's not worth many points, but it's fairly flexible and you're unlikely to want to get rid of it - unlike Penalty cards...
Penalty cards are fully wild - but they don't earn any points when used in a word, and they lose VPs at the end of the game if you haven't got rid of them (they're a bit of a combination of a Scrabble blank tile and a Dominion Curse.
What themes do the backgrounds on these core cards evoke? Do they fit with the rest of the pool cards (below)?
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Blue 'Action' cards have an effect as soon as they are played. They look like this:
Does the blue pattern match the concept of 'action'?
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Green 'Cleanup' cards have an effect at the end of your turn if you use them in a word, usually letting you draw more cards in your next hand. They look like this:
What does the green pattern 'say'?
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Blue/Green cards have both an Action and Cleanup effect:
Does the card feel like a balance between blue and green, or does one colour/pattern feel dominant?
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Orange 'Attack' cards dole out Penalty cards to your opponents, diluting the value of their deck and costing them points at the end of the game.
What does this pattern 'say'?
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There is one yellow 'Response' card, which behaves similarly to Dominion's Moat and protects you from Attacks:
Does this feel 'protective'. If you try to perceive it as a sort of Victorian force field, does that work?
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Black 'End of the game' cards don't do anything for most of the game, only kicking in once the game end has been triggered.
What message do you get here?
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Any feedback/reactions would be really appreciated! I'm very happy with the style and I think that Simon's nailed it, but I'm also aware that I'm just feeling generally excited and positive about the project, so I may be missing things that I should be critical about!
Thanks for stopping by!
