My two main inspirations
for FissureVerse have been Dominion, a game I was until recently
obsessed with, and Magic: The Gathering, a game which I have not
played in years, but have nostalgia for. But both of these games
have similar card layouts, and my original designs for Crusaders,
Frenzies, and Rogations was based on those two card games, with
Locations being practically no more than a sideways version.
I felt rather 'meh' about
my layout designs after a while, and knew they were bland, and
graphically-challenged, considering I am no graphic designer. So now
I'm taking another stab at the card layouts, trying to care about
both form and function, eliminating clutter, and leaving as much room
for art as possible.
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| Click to see all the new awesomesauce. |
Firstly, cards are now
primarily black (with a 'vortex' icon faded in the background), to
give a better impression of space, with only a border showing the
color of the faction. The faction icon is now big and bold, lifted
from the bottom-center to the top-left. The card title is
right-aligned, and enlarged to make it more obvious. (It's still
small enough to fit "Servants of the Infinite" perfectly,
which I believe is my longest card name.) Title text (as well as the
text at the bottom of the card, and stat text) is a sans-serif font,
to give a more spacey vibe, while the special rules and flavor text
(and artist name) are a serif font for readability.
The stats have been pushed
far up, since I think they're more important than being pushed down to
the middle of the card. They're also highlighted with a grey bar to
also help catch your attention.
The special rules and
flavor text have been lifted above the art to be directly under the
stats bar, so the eye can go straight from one to another without a
jump. The special rules and flavor text also have variable font size
to take up more space so there's not so much emptiness above. There
are certainly some unavoidable instances of empty space, but it
should be less noticeable.
Also, considering the
(somewhat) recent mechanic of paying Tokens equal to the number
you're Crusading with, I've had to redesign some cards to be more
Token-friendly. Dripping and Numerologist, for instance, have a similar mechanic, but they fix
things so you aren't over-paying and the card balances out. You only
pay the amount stated in the stats bar, not the special rules text,
so you'll pay 3 if Crusading by Reason with the Numerologist,
regardless of whether you're against a Devotee or Zealot. Makes the
math easier, too.
The art has been moved
down from near the top, yet it is far more prominent than it was
before, due to the art being far larger now. By minimizing the
borders I was able to embiggen the art.
Finally, at the bottom, I
removed the card type and faction name (since both are redundant due
to the faction/card type icon that's now at the top), but because I
had a bit of room, I added the name of the game, and a subtitle with
an icon ("The End Is Beginning", with a 'cracked disc'). I
know I want a bunch of expansions for this game, so I struggled a lot
with a subtitle and icon to the original vanilla set (if I even
wanted either of those at all). I considered actually putting
"Vanilla" and having an ice cream cone as the icon, but I
figured I would wait on the humor for future expansions and not ruin
the mood I'm going for yet.
Locations have got a
massive revamp as well, giving tons of space for the art, and looking
rather shiny and providing more information all at once.
Like with Crusaders, the
top left has an icon, and this one being a black-and-white vista as
the Location icon. The Turn Order icons flow down from the top like
a totem. Kept in the top left is also the title, but it's surrounded
by a bar that can shift its size to the size of the title (once
again, perfectly sized for the longest title, "Trenches of
Otherworldly Sorrows").
The art is now so large I
can see details I never knew before, like the little girl in Blue
Blazes! (See below.) However, unlike with normal cards, where the art is simply
enlarged, the aspect ratio of this art has significantly changed, so
I am forced to remove some art and replace it. You will notice that
Earth actually has the Battlefield art, which I have to do because
the Earth art simply won't fit right in this new aspect. In the
meantime, Earth gets Battlefield's art, and Battlefield will be
getting some new art.
To continue down the
cards:
Below the art is flavor
text, and currently I'm debating on special rules text. There's
enough room, certainly, but there's a new addition to the rules and a
new card type to come that with come with a major change, so I'm
debating whether to have the Locations keep their special rules text,
or simplify things. As it was, I felt I had too many Locations had
special rules (half of them!) so I wanted to cut down on that number
anyway.
Frenzies of course have a
similar mockup to Crusaders, though I gave them an icon they never
had, and changed the color to orange (since Rogations are purple I
wanted a bigger difference in color). The icon is a skull with
large, chomping teeth, which I want to evoke to Rabies Frenzy. I've
also been rethinking the actual effects of cards, making them more
useful and desirable, so the negative effects of Steel, for
instance, are lessened considerably.
Rogations also get a fun
icon, which is far more abstract, but heck, it's tough to come up
with something that is a fairly abstract card type itself. In any
case, it's something like a ball with lightning on it, which would
typically be the result of a spell, and since Rogations are often
like ceremonies, spells, and folkways, I figure lightning could be a
consequence, particularly with cards like Raindance.
I have left off Rogation
type (Immediate, Lasting, and Conditional), and I'm simplifying all
Rogations in that regard. Now Rogations can be played any time
during or between turns, as long as all conditions are met. Of
course one condition is the number of Crusaders in your field
(indicated by the teleporting person icon), and an oddly specific
condition would be in the special rules text (where it always was in
Conditional cards), similar to Magic cards with strange mana costs
(like "In addition to this card's mana cost, exile a creature").
It will be laid out in the rules that these conditions must be met
when you play the card. This will eliminate all junk like laying
down Conditional Rogations facedown, bluffing with Rogations, etc.
That was needlessly complex and didn't do much but frustrate me.
The additional icon you
see is also a requirement: the minimum and maximum number of Spikers
that must be revealed before you can play this. A Spiker is the new
card type I alluded to above, and they work with new Location
mechanics.
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| Because I have no Spikers, here are more Locations. |
I've
always been annoyed by the fact that Locations only last one round,
and then a new Location is flipped. I figured there's not enough
time to get used to one Location, and that jumps happened to quickly.
So the way I figured was that you'd stay at the same Location
indefinitely until a Crusader is Killed. Then, and only then, does a
new Location card get revealed. (You will notice I changed the
special text of Pestilence from the wordy "Send a Devotee (an
Opponent's, or your own) to the Vortex" to the far simpler "Kill
a Devotee.")
Also,
I've eliminated the whole idea of two ways to win. It used to be
that you'd either wipe an opponent of their Crusaders, or at the end
of the game, you'd count a score. Now, instead, if you flip through
all the Locations, the game ends and everybody loses.
This, of course, was ripped completely from my basic playing card
game Zugzwang. This
entirely adds the same element to the game: think you're gonna lose?
Why not force everyone else to, as well!
But
now, why should the game end, just because you ran out of Locations?
Why not shuffle and continue? Well, I want the very theme of the game
to come through more powerfully: the universe is being torn apart,
and reality is in its last days.
Now,
the fun addition I've included is Spikers. Add eight Spiker cards to
the Location deck and shuffle. If a Spiker is flipped, instead of
being discarded like Locations, it is kept set aside so everyone can
count the number of Spikers out. The Rogation requirement is how
many Spikers must be in play before you can use it. So for
Pestilence, being 4-8 Spikers, that means you must wait to use
Pestilence until at least four Spikers are revealed. This will allow
more powerful Rogations to be played later, and weaker ones sooner.
This will also add strategy to the pregame deck-building, since
players wouldn't want to fill their decks with Rogations that are too
specific or all towards one end of the game (unless they make that
conscious decision).
The
one caveat is that when you shuffle the Spikers, you must be sure to keep
one (unrevealed) set aside, then shuffle them in with the Locations.
Then you put the set-aside Spiker at the bottom of the deck, so the
last card drawn is always the final Spiker, bringing doom to the
universe.
Spikers
might also have special rules text that goes into effect from the
moment the Spiker is revealed, to the end of the game, so that's
another reason I'm thinking of getting rid of most of the special
rules on Location cards.
Anyway,
soon enough I'll rewrite the rules (it's tough making so many fixes),
and upload more re-created cards.
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