(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 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.
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!
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!
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?
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?
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
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...
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.
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!
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.
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.
Give me the current revision, I'll record myself playing. One shot of vodka for each "drink"
Hey I'm out of town for a couple months, but totally have some friends that I'd like to play this with. Is it possible to purchase a revision?
Besides getting the cards I'd like to make a donation to you and Coagulation. Do you have a website, or blog or something to give the card game a home? If you have a paypal donation I'd be happy to contribute
On May 23 2014 12:35 CecilSunkure wrote: Hey I'm out of town for a couple months, but totally have some friends that I'd like to play this with. Is it possible to purchase a revision?
Besides getting the cards I'd like to make a donation to you and Coagulation. Do you have a website, or blog or something to give the card game a home? If you have a paypal donation I'd be happy to contribute
It isn't possible to purchase a revision quite yet, but I will add you to my list of Alpha testers.
I can't speak for Coagulation, but from my side, if you'd like to make a donation I would ask that you hold off until I launch the crowdfunding campaign please.
On May 25 2014 19:01 QuixoticO wrote: For mailing lists I can tell you from marketing experience that mailchimp is worth it. Besides it working really good it's support is amazing too.
Thank you - Was just looking for some advice. Will look into using it now
Looks good. The game has enough similarities to magic to appeal to a lot of people, but simple enough to pick up easily for a drinking game. Although saying that, the look might be close enough to magic to warrant a cease and desist. Hopefully not.
The only qualm I have with the art style is that on some of the cards it's just too heavily washed with one colour and loses something in that. I saw a couple cards that were basically all red, and to me that was very jarring. The eye needs somewhere to relax, there needs to be some quiet space, or some sort of contrast to the art somewhere in the card. Maybe just simplifying the texture in the border could help? I'm not sure.
Either way I think it's amazing that you've done this, even delaying it so long. I think most people (myself included) would have just dropped it with such a long break/delay. I'd love to see you keep posting! I think a lot of people on TL like seeing what you're up to.
Looks amazing, if you need some more alpha testing I've got a bunch of friends who are dying to try this over a couple of saturday nights. Absolutely splendid job Chill and that artwork is the shit from Coag, really well done. Got me hyped! Really glad to see this is still going since it's been a fun project from the start.
With regards to your legal question, I'd simply add on a box the age it's ment to be played from and slap on a disclaimer (on the box, not inside of it). You can always instruct retailers/yourself to not sell to people under the legal drinking age. Plus inside of the box you might add a folder which explain the hazards of drinking/instructs in responsible drinking. This way you'd a) make it very clear what the intended audience is, b) disclaim possible damages (be careful if you ship to other countries that this might not be possible to disclaim/different legal drinking ages), c) age restrictions on selling/retailing is prudent and shows consideration and dilligence on your part, d) adding a folder might be super over the top but it's a great final step to show that you are aware of the dangers and have warned the users by any reasonable means at your disposal.
Offcourse I'd add another folder on how to mix some awesome special mana drinks (potions/elixers) for this game! :D With a conversion chart offcourse, say 4 drinks (beer ounces wise) can be replaced by one drink: demonblood elixer (create some crazy mix drink). Fun stuff to add some spice to the "drinks" aspect of the game!
I really wanna beta test this, or get my TCG loving brother to. That said, congrats on even getting this far, this is absolutely impressive chill .
EDIT: Your cardbacks are very similar to that used by Yugioh, I'd be careful about that. I'm not super knowledgable about what Yugioh has copyrighted, but I would be careful of having anything faintly similar to their style since they have a huge stake in the TCG world.
Edit: Low saturation I think should be an accent for specific cards, not a global change. It would make sense if a "sickness" card of some sort had low saturation to give the feeling that all life has been drained from the essence of whatever is in the card art.
High saturation, in general, is something digital artists usually strive for. The rule of thumb is to stay out of the middle of the color picker in Photoshop as often as possible. I like the high saturation!
im going at the darkness/saturation issues from a couple different angles updated the color levels on the layout to try and blend and flow the cards more with the higher saturation in the art work.
High saturation costs more to print doesn't it? Also you run into the problem of having cards of the same primary color look too similar.
Also the card text should be written better. From the Summoner Hero: "Draw a basic card. If it is not a Minion, you may choose to place it far up in the Graveyard and draw another basic card for no cost."
It's funny, I was literally thinking about whatever happened to this about a week ago and just missed this thread I guess (I alpha tested like 2 games of the rev 07 rev 08 and enjoyed it. Still have the cards in fact!--but moved to a different area and currently know no one).
This still looks fun, though I'm not sure if I'd have anyone to play with in person. Might have to convince some people to play over skype. Seems like a fun game, Chill!
EPT
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