In this series of posts, I walk you through how to create your own custom playing cards for your game designs. This is part one and is about the preparations you need to get started. Part two is about coming up with the visual designs. Part three is the final touches and ordering a deck. The end result is a deck of high quality custom designed playing cards for your very own game.
Part one: Getting started
I love to design games. Card games, boardgames, roleplaying games, story games. Games with physical components played with real people sitting around a table.
A deck of playing cards is a great element to include. You can shuffle them, deal a hand, draw cards, play cards, put them face up in front of you, tap them, discard them, and steal them from each other. Cards are a great way to interact with a game and everyone knows what a playing card is and what you do with them.
Cards limit your design space in interesting ways: There is a limit to how many cards a player can hold in their hand, how many cards a player can shuffle into a deck, and how much information a single card can convey. To create games in this design space, I find that I need physical prototypes.
For my initial prototypes I print ten cards on a sheet in a table, cut them out and place them in a sleeve with a standard playing card. This is great for rapid design iteration. But once I have the basics of the game nailed down, I move to the next stage: I create a deck of custom playing cards using a print on demand service.
In this series of posts I walk you through my personal tips and best practices. I use my latest game as example. The game Holmgang: Duel at Eider where two players battle out a duel from the sagas. The game is published as print-and-play under a Creative Commons license.
Great but not perfect
My very first piece of advice is this: Aim for great, not perfect. Work like this will never be perfect. You will always find issues that you want to change. At some points they will be very cosmetic and only you will see it. It never stops if you aim for perfect. So aim for great. Get it done, get it into the hands of people. You can always do a new batch later if it is important enough. Fix minor issues with a marker.
The tool stack
To create custom playing cards, you need software to create the images for the cards and a print-on-demand service to print the cards.
I use GIMP to create PNG files and PrinterStudio.com to print. GIMP has its quirks but it’s free, it does what I need it to do and by now I have learned how to use it. PrinterStudio ships from China so it’s either expensive or slow to get your cards if you live in Sweden as I do. But the quality is top notch. If you pay for express shipping you can get a custom deck in a little over a week. Otherwise it can take three weeks.
These tools work for me. If you keep reading, you will learn how I use these tools to create custom playing cards. If you prefer other tools, this post is not for you.
Know thy cards
Before you start designing your custom card images, you need to have a very good idea of exactly the cards you need and the text that goes on each and every one of them. You can iterate back and forth (and you most likely will), but once you start detailed graphical design, it is much slower to change things. So do a thorough editing pass on your cards. Remove those needles words. Use consistent terms and phrases across cards. Weed out those typos. Print and read on paper in the sunshine with a cup of your favourite hot liquid.
Next, know exactly what types of cards you need are and how many of each you need. Due to industry paper sizes, machines that produce playing cards fit sets of 18 cards onto one sheet. So design your game to use a multiple of 18 cards. The printing cost for you will be the same and you will limit waste. Think in numbers like 18, 36, 54, and 108. If you are one or two cards short you can include a rules summary card or a card with a QR code.
For Holmgang I landed on 36 cards: 20 cards for the duel actions. 6 cards for the Angles. 10 cards for the Saxons.
The number of cards on a sheet of course depends on the size of the card. Normal sized cards come in two variants, Bridge and Poker. Bridge sized cards are a narrower and allow players to hold more cards in their hand. Poker sized are wider and allow for a more text on the cards. Specific sizes may vary between vendors so be sure to use a template from the print service you have chosen.
For my very first order at PrinterStudio I went for the wider variant, 63x88 mm. This is what I have used for all my games since.
Set up a template
Download a template and set up a GIMP file with the correct canvas size and resolution. 822x1122 pixels work for me for 63x88 mm and 300 dpi.
Import the template as a layer so you can see the bleed and the safe zone. GIMP imports PDF and PSD. As machines are not perfect, the bleed and the safe zone mean that your cards will be usable even if the cut is a little bit misaligned. Bleed is the part of your image that extends outside the card if the cut is perfect. The safe zone is the area inside the card that is guaranteed to be visible. I keep this as a hidden, semitransparent layer that I can use to check later if all text is inside the safe zone.
I also add a top layer with a frame for what the perfect cut look like. Select a rectangle with rounded corners and cut from a solid colour layer. But first add guides.
Guides
Guides are vertical and horizontal lines in your image that will not show in the final image but that help you align elements in the picture.
I use guides a lot. Start by creating horizontal and vertical centre lines (Image/Guides/New Guide (by Percent) at 50%). Then add guides for the safe zone. Use layer with the template and calculate the pixel offset. Do it now and you will only have to do it once.
You can also add guides for 1/9th and 1/3rd, these often come in handy. These do not need to be pixel perfect but they need to be the same across all your card designs or your text elements will jump up and down as you flip through the deck.
Save this file and work on a copy. You can use this GIMP template for all your future projects. Then take a break and continue to Part two: Coming up with a design.