16 August 2010 @ 12:00 am
Special decks  
I've yet to pass out mod pay. Will be doing that after I calculate everyone's! Thanks for all the great game suggestions. I'm going to think some more about them. Take this time to consider if you'll be able to run a new weekly game (suggestions for monthly and other more involved tasks are on the backburner for now). Whether or not we can add a new game depends on your long term availability after all, so I wouldn't want you to make a decision right away. I'll round up the suggestions and make another post next week. If there are any suggestions you're interested in, feel free to express your interest in the previous post.

That aside, I tinkered with the card template a bit. I've been tinkering with it since last month, but I've yet to settle on a template I like for special decks. =/ Here are the latest versions. I'd like your opinion! And, what are your opinions on special decks? Because this is a "individual character" TCG, these special decks aren't meant to be series decks, but rather themed decks, and each card should ideally only feature one character (with no repeats in the deck if possible). In my mind, these are mostly for minor characters who don't have enough images for their own deck. It would have been much nicer if I could make our randomizer work with different amounts of cards in a deck, but I don't know how to code that, so sadly even these decks are currently slated to be 20 cards each. (unless someone knows how to code a clean randomizer that randomizes cards of different amounts!) I mean, I can put in each card separately, but that would make the randomizer messy and way too long.

I made 4 variations. These are minor characters from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (only because the images were easy to get. If this ever becomes an official deck, I'm not sure if I would keep Daryan in here since he might have enough images for his own deck, anyway, that's not important at the moment...)





So here we have a solid white line to match our Signatures. I moved the number next to the deck name because it looked kind of weird in the corner when the color was different from the border. It's two colors because I was thinking that special decks would be harder to acquire because you'd need 2 crayons of 2 different colors in order to trade for them in the Art Shop, but cards are still worth 1 and you can get them just like any other card as a prize from games and such.






Here I'm being wishy washy and thinking maybe we should stick to a dotted border, but then it wouldn't match our Signatures.






Here I'm thinking perhaps two colors is way too gaudy. And I do think one color looks a lot better and cleaner, but maybe it's only because this is blue.






So I flipped the colors around (the shades changed a bit). Not sure if this makes a difference.

So, thoughts? ^^

Some others:

Keeping the number in the corner. Might help our eyes since we're used to looking in the corner now, eh?


Inverted dark and light colors. (I think this just makes the card look dirty...)


Inverted dark and light colors with a solid white border + number w/ deck name.

...I really don't know anymore since I tried so many different things out. Can't keep track of what I've done anymore!
 
 
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[identity profile] ratiosu.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 07:31 am (UTC)
I was going to vote for the second template + number in the corner, and then I realized that this template basically makes the special cards not very different from the normal cards anyway. xD; So, my vote goes to the 5th template (http://tcg.fishboned.net/test/special14.gif). And for the examples you did with the Ace Attorney deck, I actually really liked the fourth set, colors, white lines and all, save for the placement of the numbers together with the deckname. Might just be me, but the position of the numbers makes the cards look too different. o_O; I'm also all for double colors! It makes the cards easier to identify as special cards.

I'm not sure what to think about the card worth though. I can see the logic of exchanging two crayons of different colors to get one special card, but then the card you get is only worth one. I feel that it might turn people off from exchanging crayons to get cards because you lose out one extra card worth. Or maybe that is your intention? xD To encourage more trading and less crayon exchanges. On the other hand, 20 cards worth 40 is a lot, so I guess I'd prefer for them to be kept as 1-card-worth. :|a

I like the idea of using minor characters as cards for the special deck. :D! Love for as many characters as possible from a series! As a player, I'm not much for collecting special decks on a whole, but I think these special decks will really appeal to completionists who want to collect all cards of every character of certain series.
lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 16th, 2010 07:58 am (UTC)
Hm, yeah, and I was even going to change the colors to one color with the dotted one and went...wait, it'd be exactly the same then!!

The cards would be the same as other cards in terms of chances of getting it as a random card, but they'd be harder to get with crayons. So yeah, it'd be best for people to get them through trading. I have yet to think about what impact this would have on portfolios. ^^;; Perhaps they'd qualify for both color slots if the player chooses so (but only for one portfolio).

I just wonder if it might be hard with some series to pick 20 characters since some characters will probably end up left out. -___-; Being constrained by a number is hard!

Mm, here's the 5th variation with the number in the corner.




[identity profile] ratiosu.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 08:40 am (UTC)
Making one special deck count as two decks in a portfolio sounds good! It can be an advantage to make up for the higher crayon exchange rate.

I can see characters being left out being a potential concern. :c And then we have series with really massive casts like Detective Conan. Even for the first three PW:AA games, we already have more characters than there are cards in one deck. xD

And this template is looking good! =3 I like!
lucathia: fishbones: ring[personal profile] lucathia on August 16th, 2010 09:00 am (UTC)
I guess in the case of series with a lot of characters, they could be divided by themes (instead of just considering minor characters) to make sure they're all represented. Like...a deck of Black Organization characters...though decks like these would be spoilerish for people who don't know the series as well, hm.

Hm, I think having the deck name centered like this does look better. :3 The numbers kind of pushed the name off center the other way. I think the double colors are growing on me too. XD; They looked very strange to me at first. I'm going to try it out with another series. Any suggestions? ^^;;
[identity profile] ratiosu.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 09:20 am (UTC)
Ooh, I like the idea of dividing groups of characters by themes! I guess we'll have to be extra careful about choosing themes to try and avoid spoilers. But in the case of Black Organization, there really isn't any other specific theme tying that certain group of characters together. ;; And using something as vague as 'villains' brings us back to the problem of too many characters again haha.

Yeah, somehow having the numbers with the deck names made the cards look like they're from another TCG altogether! It's weird. And let's try a themed one: Megane characters from TeniPuri. o/
lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 16th, 2010 12:21 pm (UTC)
I am amazed by how many characters I managed to round up, though some are so minor that I think if this were an official deck, I might consider a repeat of a character instead...(like 16, do you know who that is, haha?) 18 and 20 are technically sunglasses...

So here's another example, megane themed Prince of Tennis.






Hm, might be hard to decide what colors to use for these decks since the characters don't really share colors, hence why the final deck might not look as nice as the character decks since these are less uniform.

But anyway, themes can turn out quite cool. I suppose the next thing would be deciding what gets made. Perhaps winners of some kind of contest would be able to suggest a special deck.
[identity profile] ratiosu.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 12:36 pm (UTC)
I've been out of this fandom for so long that I don't actually recognize a lot of the characters. xD Like 09 and 10. 16 looks like a referee though. In any case, I really like how this deck turn out!

And allowing winners to suggest special decks as opposed to everyone being able to donate for these decks make sense. Otherwise, we'll have special decks growing at an exponential rate like our normal decks. xD; Somewhat randomly, I thought that this could be a chance for a new activity where after the winner decides the special deck, people be allowed to contribute pictures - people whose pics get made into cards earn prizes, and people who contribute pics but didn't make it in get smaller prizes. On the other hand, I can see this getting pretty messy, and now the winner who suggested the deck has less say over which pics are included, so I'm probably getting ahead of myself here. ;;
lucathia: fishbones: green background[personal profile] lucathia on August 16th, 2010 12:46 pm (UTC)
09 and 10 are from Shin Tenipuri, which means they're new characters that showed up within the past year, and yeah, 16 is a random referee. I don't think he has a name, haha. XD;

Hm, well, having everyone pitch in to contribute pics works for general theme decks (like if we had a theme deck of red haired characters). Divinity and Trading Academy both ran such a game, which I liked. :3 But for decks limited to a series, it'd be best for one person to be responsible for all the pics. X3;;
[identity profile] orechibisama.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 02:48 pm (UTC)
.......Do I see some meganes......and from PoT;;; I reallllllly want that Muromachi card and Irie;;;
lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 18th, 2010 10:04 am (UTC)
Your eyes aren't deceiving you. XD; Have you ever come across a colored image of #19? I want an image of Niou holding Yagyuu's glasses like that in color...
[identity profile] slashed-dream.livejournal.com on August 16th, 2010 10:10 am (UTC)
Wow, this is difficult. I think one colored borders look cleaner, too, but then they wouldn't look so special anymore, so I'm all for keeping the border two-colored (maybe it's just these two colors that don't look so great together? I really like how Image turned out xD I also like the solid border matching the signatures and I have to agree with Tari that it looks better with the number up in the corner. I'm not sure I would exchange two crayons for a single card, but if this counted for two slots in a portfolio I might consider it. Since these decks are supposed to be special and give out different rewards for mastering them, I'm thinking they ought to be a little harder to get than regular decks, so maybe the double crayon fee really is appropiate.

As for games, I've looked over everyone's ideas and there's some pretty cool ones, everyone's so creative XD Technically, I would have time to run another game, but of course, since I'll be gone for all of next month, I'm not a perfect candidate |D I do hope I'll get to see some of these in action, though :3 I especially like the idea of a captioning contest, that could be fun~
lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 16th, 2010 12:28 pm (UTC)
I think that one looks better because I used colors that matched the character in this particular card...but the colors don't really match the other characters. It's hard to pick a color for decks when all the characters are different!

Well, when you come back after your absence, if you'd like to add another game at that time, we could probably use a new game then. We don't have to introduce a ton right now all at the same time!

[identity profile] slashed-dream.livejournal.com on August 18th, 2010 09:25 am (UTC)
True, you're probably right about the colors matching the character. But I think it might also be because the colors are closer together than blue and red? :? I guess it's really going to be hard to pick colors. I've already run into this problem with characters that have different coloring in different artworks xD; (like the wired or ribbon decks |D ) and compared to special decks were the colors might be different for every card, that was probably easy XD;

I'll see if there are any games left over that I like when I come back :3
lucathia: fishbones: green background[personal profile] lucathia on August 18th, 2010 09:38 am (UTC)
I guess color combinations like red + orange, orange + yellow (colors that are close!) will end up looking nice. I can imagine it!!

Ahaha, I think this deck is probably the worst time I had with different colors. His hair is light brown in the anime but gray in the manga!! In the end, the border was neither color really...

When are you leaving? :3
[identity profile] slashed-dream.livejournal.com on August 18th, 2010 09:47 am (UTC)
I do think close colors will work well. Like Lionheart and Dawn had two colors in the beginning, but they didn't look gaudy either.

I remember I was surprised when I saw how Natsume's deck turned out. I had imagined a lighter color, but I didn't know his hair was gray in the manga since I've only watched the anime XD But I do like that deck. :3

I'm flying on the 2nd of September D: so close now...I'm super excited right now...and a little scared xD
lucathia: fishbones: pink[personal profile] lucathia on August 18th, 2010 10:03 am (UTC)
Bungee surprisingly looked okay to me, haha, even though it was blue and orange...but yeah, Dawn looked nice!

I wonder what's with characters ending up with different hair colors between mediums. XD Some aren't too bad, but some are just crazy...

Whoa, that's just around the corner then. I hope you're ready. :3 And how long did you say you'll be away?
[identity profile] slashed-dream.livejournal.com on August 18th, 2010 10:18 am (UTC)
I'm sure bungee looked okay, I just didn't mention it because I don't remember how it used to look all that well x'D I have a bad visual memory.

Sometimes they even change colors on the same medium! Like the mangaka can't settle on what they like best XD;

I hope I'm ready too! I've never actually been on a plane before |D
I think our flight back is booked for the 30th. I'll be in Sendai for the first two weeks and in Tokyo from the 20th to the 24th...we haven't really settled on what we'll do with our free days after that (since the official study tour ends on the 24th). I think I'd like to visit Kyoto. :3

lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 18th, 2010 10:37 am (UTC)
Oh wow, that's basically the whole month then! How exciting~. :D How far is it from your place to Japan?

I want to go to Japan again. I'm always dreaming of shopping. XDD Haha, most people go sightseeing, but I'm more interesting in buying things. Sounds like you have a bit of free time after the study tour. I guess you'll have a better clue of what you want to do with that time once you're in Japan. :3 Kyoto would be awesome!
[identity profile] slashed-dream.livejournal.com on August 18th, 2010 10:55 am (UTC)
It'll take us 14 hours total to get from here to Narita...I think we have a one hour stop in London to board another plane. The no-stop flight with a German airline was too expensive XD
I definitely want to go sightseeing, but I'm sure I'll spend a hell of a lot of money shopping, too X'D (I'm not sure how I'll get it all home yet |D ). And I want to eat a lot of Japanese food. I hope my host family's good at cooking |D

[identity profile] vriska.livejournal.com on August 18th, 2010 07:14 pm (UTC)
I'm all for the special deck template you were using in the comments with Tari above! It ended up looking good- I'm not a fan of having the number squished in with the deck name, it looks too different like that, BUT I really like the double colors and the solid white border! They definitely make the cards stand out from regular ones.

These special decks will also be awesome for series that have little amounts of official art/no characters that could really have their own individual decks (like... Vocaloids? XD I don't know if there are 20 official ones though!)

I was thinking- if special cards come out of the randomizer the same as regular cards, that would literally mean they're worth one, right? So, why not make it so that you could use EITHER crayon to get one of the cards, rather than one of each? That way, crayons aren't getting burnt out. It might be too easy to collect the cards that way, though.

Maybe you could introduce a crayon especially for special decks, and that's the only one you could use to get one? I'm not sure what color you would make that crayon, though. Maybe it could be sparkly. :3

On that note- is there a possibility of ever having a "rainbow" crayon? XD
lucathia: fishbones: ring[personal profile] lucathia on August 18th, 2010 11:53 pm (UTC)
If all of you are fine with the template, I'll send it out to the deckmakers. :3

They're worth one, but they're special! I guess what I mean is that I don't really assign a worth to cards...one card is just one card, but certain cards are harder to acquire (like our Signatures), which is why they're under special decks instead. Haha, either crayon would make them even easier to acquire than normal decks. Since these decks feature lots of different characters, I would be happy if people just wanted certain cards (of just those characters) and don't aim for mastery. We're becoming way too reliant on crayons for masteries here.

I suddenly had the crazy thought of using precious metals as IOUs for special decks...but nah. That's too many different IOUs running around.

I think a rainbow crayon would make things too easy...I kind of faded it out of my mind. XD; But it could be an item for special events.
[identity profile] stillarium.livejournal.com on August 20th, 2010 03:28 pm (UTC)
Ah, I'm late XD;

Well, I do think one color looks better, but that wouldn't really make sense since if they're special decks, we should be able to tell the difference! And I agree that the numbers look better in the corner... but the solid border instead of the dotted one seems like a good idea. And I think two colors would be unusual at first, but we would grow to it. Just now, on first glance it looked weird, when I looked at it again after a few times it was okay. XD

BTW, I was surprised at the deckname Gramayre. I would only associate the magic troupe with it (a few others work too), but some people like Daryan or Payne don't seem to fit in if you ask me! I don't think Daryan has enough cards for an own deck, unfortunately (I would collect him >D). He's probably more like Engarde or a few other guys, I think it should be possible to get 10 cards of them or maybe a bit more, but a full 20 of different motives seems a bit stretched.
Maybe there could be a special deck for police force / attorneys? I'm not sure right now if we'd have enough but there would be Daryan, Payne, Karma (if we don't make an own deck for him, but I wonder if someone would want to collect him? XD;; ), Jake and Neil Marshall, Maggie Bryde, Angel Starr, the two guys from Gyakuten Kenji, the one guy who always shouts... XD;;
Themes like "villains" would be kinda spoilerish.

Trading 2 crayons for 1 card sounds a bit strange to me when they're only supposed to be worth 1 card and you can get them out of randomizers! Of course, if there are special rewards for mastering special decks and they count as 2 slots in a portfolio it would be different again... but I'm still wondering how trades would work. I mean, if someone has a special deck card, even though it's technically worth only 1 card, I wonder if they would easily trade it for a "normal" card? Or maybe it would make more sense if you could only trade special card for special card like signature for signature? (Okay, I'm not even sure right now if signatures can only be exchanged for other signatures XD;;)

As for games, I'm not sure right now how it'll look when I start university with my two different studies, so the most I would take for now is one more game. But it shouldn't be something that requires a lot of time at once. I did like the Crazy Eight suggestion since it would be giving the prizes out steadily instead of in a bunch and it wouldn't require much preparation. Which means I can look at my mails along the way while I'm online like with masteries instead of spending some time directly for the games like with my other ones 8D
lucathia[personal profile] lucathia on August 20th, 2010 09:17 pm (UTC)
I went with Gramayre since it was the case that tied everything together. ^^ It's an AJ minor character deck. Not sure what else I'd name an AJ deck..."7 years later"?

A villains one would totally be too spoilerish, but attorneys would be possible....

Signatures can only be traded for signatures (I always thought this was clear, but I guess not, hence why I explained some more on the site!). Hm, the part about people possibly not wanting to trade special cards for normal cards makes me sad, because these cards won't really be any harder to acquire through the randomizer. >__> But I suppose there will be people who wouldn't feel like trading 1 to 1 like this. The reason why I'm putting them into the randomizer just like all the other decks and making them worth the same is so that we can pass out prizes more easily. If I make the worth different...we'd have to always watch what we're passing out (or plan games that pass out special cards from time to time). But I do want them to be different (and a little harder to get through choice cards), hence the crayon business. Maybe special decks are too much trouble...I did want things to be simple and straightforward! ^^;;

Steadily, do you mean passing out prizes as comments come in (instead of at the very end)? I hope you never ran into problems with LJ blocking you when you answer too many comments all at once. XD;