[WIP] Card Game Sprites

[dreamisle]

Hi everyone, I'm working on a JavaScript card game just for fun, and I'm working on card sprites and hope to work on other sprites for it soon. Basically it's a math based order of operations game where you try to make a target number using random cards dealt to you. I have some cards that I designed sort of quickly today but I'd like to clean them up, make them fancier but still sort of stylized and simple, and add images for special powerup cards, player and NPC faces and names, and other graphics.

I'd love C+C on the cards and ideas for how to make the graphics and game better. Here is what I have so far:

Updated 2-25 - I made the cards slightly larger and much simpler, but I'd like to make them decorative somehow. Ideas? Crits? Anyone? Hello?

2-25-08


2-24-08


The sprites can be seen in action at:
http://thegriddle.net/cardgame/index.html
Most recent sprite sheet:
http://thegriddle.net/cardgame/sprites.php

[Jiisuki]

Looks good, and the game was damn hard!

[Ichigo Jam]

About the game:
Am I missing some options, or is it often impossible to hit the target even if you were able to know ahead of time which cards you'll be dealt?
Sometimes I get nothing but addition and subtraction cards which makes the game uninteresting (since the order they are placed in makes no difference to the result of the sum.)
What's the blue card for? I see the text "Hit my mini goal in 3 tries for a blue bonus card" in your 2-25 update, but I've not seen it in the actual game?

About the pixels:
To make it look more interesting, you need more of a theme for this - currently you've got a very simple red/white/yellow colour scheme with a quite minimalistic approach to the design. (Also, the faces don't really fit with the cards.) There's nothing wrong with that as such, but it's just not very exciting. At least try experimenting with different colours (especially less saturated ones, and remember you don't have to work on a white background.) Or think about adding a picture/design to the cards to use some of the empty space on them.

Put some details on the back of the cards - currently they're bright red and completely plain.
It would also look more interesting if you made the face-down pile of cards visibly a pile - i.e. give it some depth so you can see it's not just one face-down card.

I noticed that you're using 46 different colours in your image - this is quite excessive, and just makes it harder to work with. Some of your AA is basically invisible (e.g. between the white BG and the pale grey you're using behind the small text) and there are several almost indistinguishable colours in there (I didn't even realise there were 3 shades of red there until I looked in an editor). In fact, I'd suggest not bothering to do any AA until you're happy with the design, else it's just making it harder to edit.

Here's an edit just to give you some ideas - I'm not suggesting that this is the way you should be going, particularly.:


Also, check out this thread if you haven't already: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=5848.0

[dreamisle]

Thanks for the comments. In response to the game comments, yes it can be impossible to hit the target as I simply have random cards drawn and random cards placed. When you hit the goal perfectly a minigame unlocks with an alternate goal that lets you earn blue cards to draw. I'm working on ways to make the game a bit easier though - better, more versatile cards, maybe 2 main goals instead of one... any ideas are appreciated although I can't guarantee I'll be able to implement everything.

As for the images, I suppose you're right about the AA. I like the way you set up the two sample cards and will definitely decorate the card backs - I will try something like that tonight and post with the results. Thanks again

ETA: Here are a couple of concept images for the first deck:
ETA2: MOAR.



I'm not entirely happy with the AA on it but that doesn't matter until I'm happy with the design. I'm thinking of a sort of floral image set for the orange deck and then a watery and wavy theme for the blue deck, and then we'll see if there's a third deck or more in the future. The gold cards with the stars I'm probably going to make plain white with symbols for each of the other cards on them somehow - we'll see

C+C on the 2 new cards?

[Rydin]

They almost feel too bright.......either that or there's not enough contrast in value, and it makes them feel very faint and hard to read.  I think some thicker, beefier colors would help this.  The designs are much better now, otherwise 

You should make a /0 card that penalizes players if they use it--just to make sure they're paying attention.....and so they learn not to divide by zero.

[dreamisle]

They almost feel too bright.......either that or there's not enough contrast in value, and it makes them feel very faint and hard to read.  I think some thicker, beefier colors would help this.  The designs are much better now, otherwise 

You should make a /0 card that penalizes players if they use it--just to make sure they're paying attention.....and so they learn not to divide by zero.

Can you give me an example? I'm not terribly great at picking good matching colors. Are there any palettes that would work well with this project in your opinion?

ETA: I've made a new 0 card image for the zero at the beginning - I'm combining the 0 with the character pics and names to tie them in better. C+C welcome.
ETA2: A PixelJoint user made the same suggestion but also suggested  a background pattern, so I gave the pattern idea a try and that seemed to help. I uploaded the new images in place, see above or in-game for updates.

[dreamisle]

New cards. C+C plox.

[Ichigo Jam]

You definitely need some more contrast on your cards.
Here's an example of what I mean: (with my edited version on the right)

You could keep the non-functional part fairly soft if you want to (although on the orangey coloured card you posted earlier it's definitely too faint), but the words need to be easily readable against their background.

For the portraits, I think you should be thinking more about how to make them fit with the other cards. Currently they're not really in the same style.
Although given the fairly abstract nature of the other cards and the game, is there a reason why they have to be portraits?

[dreamisle]

You definitely need some more contrast on your cards.
Here's an example of what I mean: (with my edited version on the right)

You could keep the non-functional part fairly soft if you want to (although on the orangey coloured card you posted earlier it's definitely too faint), but the words need to be easily readable against their background.

For the portraits, I think you should be thinking more about how to make them fit with the other cards. Currently they're not really in the same style.
Although given the fairly abstract nature of the other cards and the game, is there a reason why they have to be portraits?

As for the text part near the top, I will look into making that darker and easier to read. Maybe I'll do the text parts in black across all the cards for clarity. The nonfunctional part I will probably keep lightened as it's just a decoration, although I hadn't noticed the orange one being hard to see.

As for the portraits, the newest update to the game has cards that affect the characters - like a blindfold, medicine, etc - and I may eventually do edited portraits reflecting status changes. Anyway, the portraits will probably stay - so are there any suggestions you have for making them fit the style more?

I'll post new art and edits soon.