Game Development, Testing and Output Decision
The bulk of my week was spent developing and testing out my board game in order to figure out which output I will be using for my project. After much reflection on the aims of my project, my target audience needs as well as other factors, I have decided that I will be moving forward with my card game, based on the story of the Bull of Cooley.
Design Development
The next big step for my project is in designing the characters and card layouts for the game. This is what I will be spending the next few days solely focused on. I intend on having a good outline of what these will look like ready for our presentations next week. So far from making the prototype of the game I have a rough idea of how I want the game to look but I will be developing this further in the coming days.
My first task was setting up the documents for the artwork. I started off by researching what the standard card size is. From this researched I discovered that there are a number of different standard card sizes which are dependent on the game. For example there are different deck sizes for bridge cards, poker cards etc. However, from what I can tell the poker size which is 63mm x 88mm. From my research into printers I had discovered that some printers gave templates for you to put your artwork, so I was able to find and download an .ai file that met my preferred card dimensions. I will be creating the character illustrations in a seperate document in order to ensure consistency across all the designs. However it was important for me to know what dimensions they will be fitting into so that I have an idea on scale for the designs e.g. character height and width.
Template source: https://customplayingcards.cartamundi.com/help
Printing Research
Based on my selection of my output I have researching printers that will be able to produce my card deck. At the minute, I have not been able to find many Irish printers that show that they can print card decks. At the minute I have looked into the Irish branch of Cartamundi Ltd. which is a games manufacturing company based in Waterford. However, the after further inspection I have discovered that the lowest quantity of units they will print is 200, which is way beyond how many decks I would need.
I have also emailed Plus Print Ltd, which are based in Dublin. Ciaran Smith from the printers joined our class a couple of weeks ago to tell us about Plus Print's work with student's graduate projects and how they will be able to cater to our print needs on a personal basis. They mainly create booklets from what I have seen but I'm going to reach out to them anyway to see if they will be able to help me.
If it ends up that I am not able to find a printer to print my card deck in this format, I will find a printer have the cards and box template printed on some kind of thick paper e.g. cartridge etc. and cut them out myself by hand.
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