by Kaijuotaku
A long term project I have been working on for Wiz-War is nearly completed.But I've been at a standstill for a long time for the card back. The cards form the backbone of the game, so I feel a lot of effort would not be wasted for the final product.
(The general game idea, for those not familiar with the Wiz-War game, is that it is a magical duel taking place inside a labyrinth between 2-5 players. Lots of spell casting and magical items used in the game.)
My main two ideas that I would like to do are either:
1) Make the card back look like a weathered parchment spell page full of esoteric magical symbols and writing. This would be ideal since the draw deck next to the discard pile could look like an open spell book. And if I felt crafty, I could create a deck holder that would mimic the look of an open book.
2) Make the card back look like the cover of a spellbook. Similar to the above, and easier to conceive, yet loses the potential of making the draw and discard look like an open book.
So I poured many hours looking at card backs online for various card games.
The one design I found to be the most aesthetically pleasing was the back for the Elder Scrolls Legends core deck.
I enjoy the minimalist approach taken. It gives a border, and utilizes some mystical runes to reinforce the theme. The deep almost maroon cover contrasts well with the silver embellishments.
So I created my own from that inspiration:
Not being able to leave well enough alone, I wanted to place the game title on the back, if possible without ruining it.
So after much much searching, I found a font that accentuates the slanted alignment I chose for the labyrinth medallion centered on the spellbook cover:
I am mostly happy with the result. It looks runic and abstract enough to not draw your subconscious eye to reading it as we all do when we see written word. But after only a few moments, the writing becomes legible and reveals its content. I feel this is a decent compromise to putting the title on the back, and keeping the feel. But I am not a professional graphic designer and have little formal education in the process.
The layout of the letters had to be tweaked a bit to ensure the eye doesn't see any incongruities upon cursory inspection.
The above examples meant to show proof of concept only.
I still plan on tweaking the metallic embellishments to reflect a more realistic metallic quality instead of a lazy photoshop gradient. As well as tweaking the hue of the leather to more closely resemble the hue of the inspirational card back.
But before I go further, I'd like to know if there is something I could do to make this a fundamentally better card back considering the theme of the game it is being attached to.
Be as blunt as you like. I encourage the lack of kid skinned gloves for critique as I respect it more than mere polite banter. I have a thick skin.