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Calgary25993 Posts
Hi 
(In case you have no idea what this is, I've been working on a drinking game that plays similarly to Magic: The Gathering. The name bounced around a bit but I finally landed on Mana Spirits.)
I can't believe it's almost been a year since my last post about this game. Progress has been slow and definitely not steady haha
Back in February I finally got some cards printed! Hooray! I was pretty happy with them. They obviously weren't perfect, but with some minor tweaks I think they will look awesome.
I'm a terrible iphone photographer... Trust me they look way better in person. Here's the backs of the cards:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/1_Card_Backs.jpg
My favourite Heroes:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/2_Heroes.jpg
Minions:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/3_Minions.jpg
Battlefields:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/4_Battlefields.jpg
Orders:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/5_Orders.jpg
Spells:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/6_Spells.jpg
I was back in Whitby & Toronto over Christmas meeting with my old elementary / high school buddies. I was telling them about this game, how I had an artist (Coagulation) who had done all this work, but the project was on hold because I didn't know how to use Photoshop to assemble all the images together. That delay was crippling - we basically accomplished nothing in 8 months.
My friends are all strong programmers... conversely, I am terrible One buddy asked me "Why don't you just write a program that assembles them?" With a little more conversation he agreed to help me and take on the project.
So this bad boy was born:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/Program.png
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/Program_2.png
Note the experimental brightness slider haha ^^
It's insanely useful because you can ensure standardization across all cards. You can tweak the spacing live in the program and apply all changes to every card, or by card type. Very useful to a Photoshop newbie like me.
It also spits out all the cards into a giant .tiff ready to go to the printers!
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/ManaSpirits/Assembled.png
As you can see, we are experimenting with a variable textbox height. The box will only take up as much space as needed for the text, that way you get to see more of the art. There are some major issues with spacing still... a big work in progress.
Currently I'm working on:
1. Printing next revision of testing cards (1 for me, 1 for Coagulation).
2. Play testing the latest changes.
3. Figuring out how to make a mailing list signup, which I can use to gather interest and gain potential balance testers... I registered http://thedrunkgetdrunker.com/ a long time ago but haven't done anything with it... >_< I was reading how to do it but most guides were for blogspot or just said to use this mailchimp website... not sure what the best way is yet.
Next steps:
1. Finalizing art and layout once Coagulation has test cards.
2. Gathering balance testers and sending out test documents.*
3. Finalizing the economics of the project.
4. Start working on Kickstarter campaign.
I have no idea if this will go anywhere, honestly. But at the end of the day, worst case scenario, I'll have a stupid story to show my kids in 20 years. It's been a lot of fun working on.
*And thanks again to everyone that play tested the TERRIBLE rev.07 and rev.08 Your feedback was really valuable!
 
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This looks amazing O:
Sick compilation program.
Very cool card backs.
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Osaka27162 Posts
Great update, the cards look amazing. Hopefully getting over this stumbling block gives you the motivation to finish!
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Looks really good! Nice work
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Looks pretty awesome Chill :D
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I don't understand how the drinks play into it. If the Legendary Kinslayer minion causes your opponent to take 5 drinks, aren't a bunch of people going to die from alcohol poisoning?
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On May 21 2014 15:48 Random_0 wrote:
I don't understand how the drinks play into it. If the Legendary Kinslayer minion causes your opponent to take 5 drinks, aren't a bunch of people going to die from alcohol poisoning?
You say that like it's a bad thing.
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glad to hear the project is still alive!
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Looks incredible I still remember your first posts about this definitely didn't expect it to end up looking like this.
HI MANI!
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Northern Ireland22212 Posts
lol I remember reading about this game a long time ago
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Agree with naz, this is looking fantastic man. It's come a long way.
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I hope to order this one day and play it on my stream <3.
Keep up the hard work!
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So excited. I already have a group of magic friends waiting to play. Cannot wait to check this out, and do some, errr, balance testing. 
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The cards look awesome! They have definitely come a long way visually! Variable text box height is interesting, as long as there is a defined maximum that you abide by so you never have a complicated card that is 80% text 20% image 
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Wow, that game is for pretty heave drinkers. I heavily doubt that I can tap that battlefield card more than three times. 12 drinks within such a short time...
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I do like the second versions of the cards much better just because you can read the name/type much better. Have you considered removing the "Basic" and then adding some special design to the corners or border to denote the type. You could put "legendary" before the card type, but maybe that is too much like magic.
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The lack of difference between the title and body text on the cards feels off to me somehow, maybe especially with the shadowing that makes all of the text pop out a lot. It just seems like the titles should be bolded, a slightly different font, or something along those lines. Otherwise it looks excellent!
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Looks good! Let me be a beta tester please, or just meet up somewhere in Calgary, and lets play.
Should've went with the name Liquid Mana or Liquid Spirits though.
How many cards are there? Did coagulation really do the artwork for all the cards? The mighty impressive as well.
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United States24754 Posts
Do drinking games have legal issues when people who buy the game get hurt from drinking too much?
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Calgary25993 Posts
Just to respond to some comments:
On May 22 2014 01:05 JustPassingBy wrote:
Wow, that game is for pretty heave drinkers. I heavily doubt that I can tap that battlefield card more than three times. 12 drinks within such a short time... A drink is less than an ounce. There are 20 drinks in a beer.
On May 22 2014 01:52 DCLXVI wrote:
Have you considered removing the "Basic" and then adding some special design to the corners or border to denote the type? Yes, the plan is to add some gold tinting / highlights to the border. At that time, depending how distinct it is, we will consider removing the top text completely.
On May 22 2014 06:59 FiWiFaKi wrote:
How many cards are there? Did coagulation really do the artwork for all the cards? The mighty impressive as well. The game currently has 152 cards (113 unique). This changes monthly. Last month it had 208 cards (101 unique).
Yes, Coagulation is a monster. Let me go on. I was able to add 12 unique cards to the game by simply going into Coagulation's "Other" directory. This is art he drew as extra that wasn't being used.... I could easily add 20 more unique cards with the art that still hasn't been used.
On May 22 2014 08:22 micronesia wrote:
Do drinking games have legal issues when people who buy the game get hurt from drinking too much? I would guess yes. I was always shocked Drunk Quest didn't come with a warning message. I'll talk to my lawyer but I imagine I'll just include a disclaimer about underage and excessive drinking.
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EPT
