Oh hell no.
I didn't think I will ever write a post like this one when I started this blog, but the day has come. A graphic design so bad has presented itself suddenly. You would expect mistakes from a new company, but this is both from two respected companies and a respected franchise. I'm talking about a game that came out this year, Tyrants of the Underdark. Don't get me wrong, the game is overall nicely made when it comes to the development and all, but I have to talk about those horribly made cards. From the home of Wizard's D&D that most of the time brings out amazing graphic design and Gale Force Nine that also tend to do things better than this.
Let's take a look at the cards and analyze the many mistakes made here:
1. Many of the images look the same to me. A good card image helps you tell one card from another, but in this game many of the cards look almost the same. Yes, I chose similar cards to make a point, but all "drow" creatures look the same. All the images are very dark, except the white hair of course. So if you are sitting on the other end of the table, good luck with knowing what's going on.
2. Symbols in this game (except one) are all in a circle. Why? The currency for buying cards - circle with a cobweb. Force - circle with shield and sword that I had to look twice at to understand what I'm seeing. Promoted cards - just a circle. Ambition, Conquest... you guessed it, all circles with a tiny symbol inside. Maybe conquest can be a square with a castle? Ambition can just be a crown, no circle needed. Promoted cards could have been a hexagon for example. "NO! I WANTS CIRCLEZ!"
3. Why don't different card types have different colors? At least a different color in the top frame or in the symbol. Why can't I tell if I have another "conquest" card in my hand without reading each card? always have color + symbol so that you are easy for color-seeing people and also friendly for colorblind folks. So monotonous, literally. It should be possible for the player to tell what types of cards are out with a glimpse not by reading each card.
4. This brings us to the amount of space the images take in comparison to the text. It feels like the images are much more important than the text that tells you what the cards do. Bigger font please. Bigger icons in the text. Why can't 3 lines of text appear bigger? They probably think the image is so nice and flavor text is so important. By the way, if you have nothing interesting to write, you don't have to put flavor on each card. "Soldiers defend their superiors against all enemies." sounds like a dictionary definition. I'm imagining another game with a "tool" card saying: "With tools people do stuff more efficiently."
I have to repeat this: the game is not a bad game, I enjoyed playing it. But those cards... let's just say, that they made me write this blog post. Learning from other people's mistakes is important and this game is full of those when it comes to card design.
Please go out there and use a graphic designer that dealt with games in the past in order to create your card layouts. I can tell you that it costs a about as much as a few card art pieces and it is much more important.
Make good games,
Pini!