Made some suggestions for card layout
Hi, I was testing a couple of design tools and decided to experiment with some layout changes to the SW cards. For context: I'm a big fan and own all factions except the latest two, though I haven't been able to play many games yet (still trying to convince my friends). My suggestions come from my experience as a graphic/brand designer, and as someone who's getting older and finds small text harder to read.
Here are the some of the changes I made:
- Faction name and deck symbols: To me, these are the least important elements when actually playing the game; they matter mostly for deck building. So I moved both toward the bottom of the card and shrank them.
- The only exception for the deck symbols is the Summoner unit. Since the Summoner doesn't have a magic cost or any other relevant descriptor, I opted to leave the deck symbols where they were.
- Phase indicator: Besides removing the faction name from the top-left, I moved the "when to play" text down next to the magic cost. This text is currently only used for Event cards, but I'm suggesting it appear on all cards. Placing the phase (or phases) right next to the magic cost makes it easier to remember when to use the card..
- Forgetting to play Event cards on time: With Event cards, my partner and I often plan to play one during our turn, then forget it was meant for a specific phase, and thus we miss our chance. This happens a lot to us.
- Forgetting unit/structure flexibility: I consistently forget that a card which is both a unit and a structure can be played at either the Building or Summoning phase. Listing both phases, even when it is somewhat obvious, keeps this consistent with how Event cards display their phase, and serves as a reminder for new/distracted players.
- Fonts: I kept Dwarven Axe BB for card names. It reinforces the theme and is condensed enough for longer names. I replaced the other two fonts with variants of Alegreya. Old Crone (used for Class, Faction, and Ability headings) works well in larger spaces but not on the cards themselves. The Ability text paragraph font wasn't bad, but I don't think a sans-serif hurts the fantasy theme, and it does improves readability. Alegreya probably isn't the best possible choice, but it's a free Google Font with variants that work well across different uses.
- Bold phase names in Ability text: Since I often forget when a unit's Ability can be used, I thought that maybe bolding the phase name makes it easier to spot when scanning a card.
- Symbol redesign (Magic, Life, Melee/Range): These are a bit rushed (I'm not fond of the ranged symbol), but I think they are more consistent and work better at both small and large sizes.
- The original Magic symbol was already good. I just traced it.
- The melee and range symbols were too detailed. They worked fine next to the strength value on the card, but broke down when used inline in Ability text.
- I initially wanted the Life symbol fully white, for consistency with the other symbols. But once I moved it next to Strength, the hint of red made it easier to tell the two apart at a glance.
- Life value moved next to Strength: This decluttered the upper-left section of the card, and since both values matter a lot to the opponent, grouping them makes them more visible during play. I also reduced the Strength icon's size; it's still clearly visible, and I like that it blocks less of the art.
- Ability text contrast: The original background wasn't light enough to contrast with the text, so I lightened it while keeping some texture. I kept the faction icon but made it smaller and transparent.
Note: Skeuomorphism isn't my strength, so some of the texture/color work isn't really a proposal. It's just my attempt at recreating the original card's background textures on my own. Same with the weird cropping for some card art: I didn't want to run the illustrations through AI to remove the Strength value, so I just cropped them differently
To be clear, I love the design of this game, it is better than 99% of other board games. I just wanted to share this since I think about the game a lot and had some spare time this weekend to learn new software.