I did a thing where instead of just drawing card svgs directly, I drew parts, and wrote code that glued the parts together in standard ways and generated card-shaped svgs.
FYI there are several OTS tools that will programmatically assemble card images based on spreadsheet data, so that you can change common elements (like layout, backgrounds, or icons) in one place and regenerate all cards automatically. Some are free. I think nandeck is the best-known one.
I’m not sure from your description if this is exactly what you’re doing, but if you haven’t looked into these, you may want to.
I do notice that no big popular board game that I’ve ever heard of decided to publish through this service I guess it’s just because they really do specialize in small volume print runs
Yes. Most commercial board games use a manufacturing process called offset printing, which has high fixed costs that render it impractical if you want less than ~1k copies. The Game Crafter is the best-known of several services specializing in small volume. My impression is that they are noticeably lower-quality and have much higher marginal costs, but the low fixed costs make them great for prototyping and for people who just want to make their game available without making a business out of it.
People complain about printing alignment at these services, but from what I’ve heard, the big commercial printers don’t actually give you any tighter guarantees regarding print alignment (IIRC 1/8″ is the standard). I think there are a few reasons that people have divergent impressions:
Professionals know more tricks to disguise alignment errors than amateurs do. For instance, in most commercial board games, you’ll find a thick black (or white) border around the front of every card, which you’ve probably never noticed because it fades into the background; amateurs often fail to replicate this trick.
It’s a stochastic process, and the biggest complaints are from a self-selected group with bad luck. (Also, maybe offset printing is better on average, even if the worst case is similar?)
I’ve been told that when it’s really important, big publishers will examine the print output and throw away the worst examples at their own cost.
I lack the experience to tell you which card-making tools or small-run print services are best, but send me a message if you’d like a longer list of examples that you could investigate for yourself.
Ah, so that’s how most people do it. Personally, I can’t say that using a spreadsheet would appeal to me more than a programming language, but it might be more approachable for others than installing rust or nix, so I might consider porting in the future.
FYI there are several OTS tools that will programmatically assemble card images based on spreadsheet data, so that you can change common elements (like layout, backgrounds, or icons) in one place and regenerate all cards automatically. Some are free. I think nandeck is the best-known one.
I’m not sure from your description if this is exactly what you’re doing, but if you haven’t looked into these, you may want to.
Yes. Most commercial board games use a manufacturing process called offset printing, which has high fixed costs that render it impractical if you want less than ~1k copies. The Game Crafter is the best-known of several services specializing in small volume. My impression is that they are noticeably lower-quality and have much higher marginal costs, but the low fixed costs make them great for prototyping and for people who just want to make their game available without making a business out of it.
People complain about printing alignment at these services, but from what I’ve heard, the big commercial printers don’t actually give you any tighter guarantees regarding print alignment (IIRC 1/8″ is the standard). I think there are a few reasons that people have divergent impressions:
Professionals know more tricks to disguise alignment errors than amateurs do. For instance, in most commercial board games, you’ll find a thick black (or white) border around the front of every card, which you’ve probably never noticed because it fades into the background; amateurs often fail to replicate this trick.
It’s a stochastic process, and the biggest complaints are from a self-selected group with bad luck. (Also, maybe offset printing is better on average, even if the worst case is similar?)
I’ve been told that when it’s really important, big publishers will examine the print output and throw away the worst examples at their own cost.
I lack the experience to tell you which card-making tools or small-run print services are best, but send me a message if you’d like a longer list of examples that you could investigate for yourself.
As a former aspiring card-game-designer who’s worked at a printing place, something about reading this made smile and feel happy.
Ah, so that’s how most people do it. Personally, I can’t say that using a spreadsheet would appeal to me more than a programming language, but it might be more approachable for others than installing rust or nix, so I might consider porting in the future.
nandeck is actually pretty scripting-oriented from what I recall