Graphic Design for play testing .1of ?

One of the challenges that faces a budding game designer (or veteran designer for that matter) is the need to product prototypes for blind test. For the first time they have to express their ideas completely through the supplied materials. Is it clear? Is everything obvious and logical?

The answers going to be no for all these but that is why play testing is needed in the first place. You add ‘enough’ to both those questions and you have a better idea of where you should be to start with. How do I know that? It’s how design works. Be it the UX for a complex application or a sell sheet offering a BOGO (buy one get one free). Bt there comes a point where the game is developed enough that its time shop it around. But here’s there rub - game design is not graphic design. It takes practice to see the game behind the ‘I did this in word’ look and feel. Many game companies have experience and have developed the talent for seeing the game within but there’s a lot of competition out there and the less work needed to seee the game the better.

Existing Card Art

Clear layout, an excellent start.
Things to consider -
Font, Leading, kerning, sizes, bleeds, trims,
Icons and locations of same.
More on what I mean very soon.

So with all this said why am i talking about this? Well I was bored the other day and I asked on twitter if anyone wanted some help with their test kits. I was offering to help with technical side of setting up the assets to facilitate distribution and editing. Fortunately Frederic Serval was kind enough to share some of his assets for his upcoming game from GMT- Red Flag Over Paris. In one sense it this is not a great example of graphic design selling the game. GMT had seen the diamond in the rough (Thiss is a very bad pun that I apologize to all graphics folks for it, maybe) and had it on their P500 But it was I think the impetus for a fair number waverers to push the numbers over the top in a few weeks. I think the step up in graphics both gave a clearler idea of what the game was but more importantly gave the pledgers a sense of the progress and commitment to the project. Graphic design does more than make it look pretty.

Now I did look over the play test components and read the rules several times to be sure I understood the game flow. A playthrough with Fred all helps solidified how a player would engage with the various components. Then I got to work. BUT, the first thing I’m going to give you is a warning about it jumping straight in with to doing the setting research. Because I did and I came up with a lovely little logo using the the Eiffel tower, what is more evocatively Parisian? I’d just finished a first stab at it when I took a moment o check (and subsequently disprove) the existence of the tower during the time period of the game. Well it wasn’t. That put me in a pickle. It was 20 minutes wasted but it could have ben a lot more. I’m too old to make this mistake but I did anyway be told. Don’t skip on the homework!

After a little research on the topic I set about about a simple design that I could share with Fred. The project was still in development and I needed to set up a card design so that he could edit them as he went.

Colors were obvious - Red and Blue, Vive La France and all that!. Seems a simple choice but some folks have a little trouble with red and blue (red-Blind/Protanopia) and with color in general (Monochromacy/Achromatopsia) so much time would be sent in getting these to work right for as many as possible (I’nm still tweaking it) and may not get there. I'll talk more on that in a later post I’m sure.

I also added gold as it seemed to resonate with France and the 19th century (no Eagles - see about about checking your time period/homework). Some strokes to break up the card and period images. I had a little fun with the card number in the corner. This might give you an idea what i had done with an Eiffel tower. I was also bearing i mind that a quote or historical note would be added once the game moved to production so I let the image take more space that I was completely comfortable with and I make the body copy a little larger than it needed to be or should have been for clarity in play. This was a little wiggle room that allowed to be prepared if the game moved into production and it would allow me to do it ways that would strengthen the design not smother it. The side bar gave me a space to place the icons that each card would hold and we were off to the races. The side bar started at the top but it ate up too much room from the card and the left side is the most common side folks leave exposed wen holding their cards. As a left hander I’ve had to adjust to this righthand bias but it works for the vast majority of people and stacking the cards as would happen if the icons were at the top is not a natural way to hold cards.

I didn’t expect much if anything of these cards to survive to the production file and I would be proved right u that’s for another day.

Thats the cards sorted for now but then theres the map!!

More on that very soon.

If you like this blog and would like to see more follow me on Twitter, FaceBook and Instagram