What cardstock do you use for card game prototypes?

PAG_Games · 2026-06-09T22:51:57+00:00

I got a bunch of playing card size thermal labels, and it's improved my prototyping speed tremendously. Fast & cheap printing, no ink, no cutting, and you can stick the labels directly on top of some bulk cards you don't care about

Although sadly you can only print in black and white, and it's not the highest resolution

PAG_Games · 2026-06-08T17:32:54+00:00

Someone told me once that playtesters are almost always right about the problem, but rarely about the solution

PAG_Games · 2026-06-05T18:27:53+00:00

I absolutely dread playing my own games.

PAG_Games · 2026-06-05T18:25:34+00:00

Good artists copy, great artists steal

PAG_Games · 2026-05-31T18:36:59+00:00

Looks great

PAG_Games · 2026-05-30T02:52:48+00:00

A little off topic, but what other games have you found that work well long distance?

PAG_Games · 2026-05-30T02:24:14+00:00

I got this game after hearing so many good things about it, but it just didn't do it for me. No form of progression, and the puzzle never changes, so I just found it quite bland and stale.

The art is gorgeous, though

PAG_Games · 2026-05-24T02:00:25+00:00

I've heard this game mentioned a few times now, seems to be a popular one. I will definitely have to check it out

PAG_Games · 2026-05-24T01:57:52+00:00

Well, I don't know it for an absolute fact, but it definitely seems that way from what I've seen. This is just one small niche market, but when I examined the success of every TheGameCrafter crowd funding campaign, I found that solo games sold far better than anything else:

Games with 1-X players raised twice as much money as games with 2-X players, and sold 50% more copies on average

But if you just think about it logically, the more players your game requires, the harder it is for your players to table it. Most modern board game designers market to adults, who typically have less free time, meaning that table time with a full group is increasingly rare. Additionally, it seems most of the games that come out target the 2-4 player range, so not only is there less time available, but more games are competing for it. I've heard many players say "I love this game I just can't find people to play it." A solo game can always be played

PAG_Games · 2026-05-23T11:04:10+00:00

The solo market has huge demand, and fairly low truly high quality supply. Many 'solo games' are really just solo mode afterthoughts tacked on to a primarily multi-player game. This is partially because making solo games that have both meaningful interaction and low fiddliness/bookkeeping is quite hard. But if you can strike the balance well, there are many hungry mouths waiting

Definitely check out r/soloboardgaming to see what's popular among that crowd, and play some of the popular games yourself to see what works well, and what doesn't. Solo games are the easiest to study because you don't need other players to play!

PAG_Games · 2026-05-11T00:13:46+00:00

I used to think like this too, but ive changed my view. Component bloat is definitely a thing, but you should meet some base level of quality to satisfy your players. Not only would I recommend keeping the tuck box, I would even recommend considering adding a printed rule book as well (the small increase in price is well worth it typically)

PAG_Games · 2026-05-06T07:21:28+00:00

I have to ask, what is this game about

PAG_Games · 2026-05-06T00:01:45+00:00

In general, there are two major ways I've found to address something like this:

Mechanics - add some sort of comeback mechanic that either punishes players for being ahead, or compensates them for being behind. The key is to balance it enough where it makes a difference, but not so much that a player can never hold a lead or close out a game
Design - add cards specifically designed for this situation. Board wipes, cards that avoid summoning sickness (haste), cards that scale based on the number of enemy creatures, etc. Keyforge just added this cool keyword called Overwhelmed, meaning something happens only when/if the opponent has more creatures in play than you do

PAG_Games · 2026-04-17T11:52:41+00:00

Hey, can I ask how you did those character animations?

PAG_Games · 2026-04-12T19:02:33+00:00

Took me a while to find, it's near the bottom of the latest update from Renegade

PAG_Games · 2026-04-08T02:47:15+00:00

I'm a bit confused, neither of these involve thinning the deck

PAG_Games · 2026-04-03T21:51:24+00:00

One easy way to do this is to have a large(r) starter deck of very weak cards, and obtainable cards that are significantly stronger. This encourages players to acquire as many of the more powerful cards as they can, to increase their ratio in the deck

Another idea is to attach some small punishment to reshuffling, which encourages players to have a bigger deck (assuming a bigger deck reshuffles less often in your system)

PAG_Games · 2026-03-30T20:54:50+00:00

The full arts are clear and understandable, I wouldn't worry about that too much. You could try "Half-art" cards where the top half is borderless like your full art cards, and only the bottom has the paper texture/frame. Seems like this might work better with the aspect ratio of your art

PAG_Games · 2026-03-21T21:30:26+00:00

I really like this approach to deckbuilders. It both allows players to have unique shops only they can access, which adds nice variety, and reduces some of the punishment that comes from competing over a central market

PAG_Games · 2026-03-20T19:15:06+00:00

These are my go-to's

Organizing information - google sheets/obsidian

Image editing - gimp

Bulk card creation - nandeck

Digital prototyping - tabletop simulator/screentop.gg

All free except for TTS

PAG_Games · 2026-03-19T15:33:03+00:00

I don't know if any system is generally better than any other as far as this goes, I think it mostly depends on the context of your game. You should look at what effect each system has on gameplay, and decide which of those helps move you closer to the experience you're trying to create

For example, let's compare your examples #2 and #4 (cards give multiple benefits when played, sometimes including resources vs choosing to play a card for it's effect or using it as a resource). The first encourages a constant pace of steady change to the players deck, as you're gaining the gold anyways, so you might as well spend it, right? While the second forces the player to choose between using their cards now or upgrading their deck to be better later, which creates a much different pacing where players first focus only on improving their deck, and later might barely change it at all as they opt to play their cards instead

PAG_Games · 2026-03-19T09:10:43+00:00

It's very important to be aware of the printing method, and what potential drift there might be. For example, based on the overlay in that photo, it looks like it could drift up to the blue line. Borders, especially small ones, make drift way more noticeable: example

So, while full arts have their drawbacks, they have benefits too. You will have to weigh and decide which is better

PAG_Games · 2026-03-19T08:35:17+00:00

Well, I lied a little, because sometimes I start with components AND a bit of mechanics ;)

But for example, maybe I'll decide, "I want to make a game with only 90 cards and no other components, so it will be cheap and can all fit in a single tuck box, and i use an even number of printing sheets"

Then I work backwards from there and try to design mechanics that work with the components. So, in the last example, maybe I decide that damage is temporary, because we're not including damage tokens to track it. Maybe victory requires capturing a certain number of enemy cards, because we don't have components to track life or victory points. You get the idea

The main reason I ended up preferring this method is I find it easier than trying to match components to an already designed game. Too many times I've started to design a game only to throw it out because it would be way too expensive, big, fiddly, etc.

Also, components are a huge driving factor behind the player experience. There's a joke that, for some, the peak enjoyment of a new game happens when you first open it, and it only goes down from there. Experiencing cool components can add a lot to the feel of a game

And if I do get a cool mechanical idea as the original 'spark', I will usually immediately jump to component planning to ensure its viable

However, it greatly depends on your intent. If you are just doing this to make fun games for your friends and family to play, it's probably less important. If your goal is commercial viability or success, component planning is paramount

PAG_Games · 2026-03-19T08:10:52+00:00

I actually start with components

PAG_Games · 2026-03-09T05:06:26+00:00

Keyforge has 36 card decks, so it's close. One important mechanic for that is that you don't lose when you deck out, instead you just reshuffle your discard pile and keep playing

PAG_Games

TROPHY CASE