Game Design
I design and market specialty playing cards.
In each project the goal was to clearly communicate the value of each card using just symbols and color.
Here's a quick shuffle of cards from different projects. Scroll down for more details about each project.
The objective of the Janken Deck was to replace the spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs of a standard deck with pips that represent Rock, Paper, Scissors, Water and Lizard. Each pip was to be thick, symmetrical, and easy to recognize.
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Rock, Paper, Scissors, Water and Lizard
To communicate that these cards play just like a normal deck, I used the most familiar Poker card arrangement of pips. I followed the tradition of using real kings and queens for the face cards drawing inspiration from different cultures of the world. The five Jokers represent trickster gods and storytellers.
Each shape would be represented in all four colors which could make games difficult for color blind players. My solution was to assign a "Kingdom" for each color each with a different symbol (Yellow Sun, Red Mountains, Green Forest, Blue Ocean). Now, if you can't tell the colors apart you can look for the symbol for each kingdom.
The Dark Hand deck merges two decks into one, so the first step was to design two decks: one Light and one Dark. I studied different playing card brands to keep classic design elements but resisted duplicating any patterns. The Dark cards use white pips on red or black backgrounds. All of the Aces feature Celtic knots.
The objective of the King's Keys deck was to combine 4 shapes, 4 colors, and 4 numbers to create a deck of 64 unique cards. I chose a Medieval approach for the pip shapes: Keys, Axes, Shields and Coins.
Both the Janken Deck and the King's Keys deck had successful Kickstarter campaigns that were promoted on social media.
Two of my games have been made into apps for cell phones and tablets.
I designed these landscape icons as part of the art required to play the game on AppleTV.
I added a felted background to the game icons and used 6 layers to create a parallax 3D effect on screen.
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Card games for a small screen need designs that are easy to read. Both mobile games have an option to use "fat" cards to make it easier to play.
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Playing card games digitally also let you keep track of scores and achievements. These game trophies are for outstanding players!
