How to display the info?

Amazed anyone read my ramblings = P Glad you liked...

I did both, and am happy to say I really liked the second one. I have attached both versions, and also compare them side by side with the dot-version. Check out the first mod I did: v1 here

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the faction icon scale well at all. It is not a software issue, it's just a "fact" that it would look bad on a card in that small size. Thus, using an amount of faction logos to tell the player what the Threshold is seems to make the card very cluttered, at least I myself perceive it that way. In addition, I think it takes away some of the overall simplicity and "elegance" the template has (well, I'm biased, heck I made that thing so I guess I'm allowed to like it a little...)

Using faction logos as Threshold icons also seem to take up more space, and it will also do that differently depending on what logo is there.

Now, compare that with the other version I put together: v2 here

There I use some kind of rectangles. They could very well be taken for cards and I made the proportions of them resemble that of a card intentionally. I doubt it would be intuitive to understand them as cards by merely looking at them. I guess that a player would be more likely to associate them with cards once (s)he knew the rules and what they symbolize (the threshold). Personally, I don't believe this solution - using icons - stands or falls with if they are seen as cards or not: As long as the player can easily use them to figure out the threshold by looking at whatever is representing it, it should be fine, I hope.

I really like the rectangle solution. (This also reminds me of a couple of roundrectangle containers that Gary Simpson had for the attack stats when he did the concept for the original creature template, so all credit to him.)

Icon-within-icon, and a number next to that, is a visual nightmare. It's an ad-hoc solution that just adds to the mess. 50% of the cards won't even have a Threshold value at all, making the gold coin being there even odder perhaps.

Since you took the time to answer me, I will honour that and still give it a shot to check it out: v3 here

I think it looks somewhat too crowded in the corner now and messy - there are 4 different geometrical shapes: Original huge faction logo, a number, a coin, and then there are smaller logo(s). It also more or less spoils the logo even further (it's enough that I already have squeezed in a number in it ; ).

The least crowded version of the two would be the one to the right. It does however still feel strange to include an icon within an icon, and to be honest I can't even think of a game that has done that before. While being a wannabe-pioneer with a GPL CGG, I'm not sure I dare push it that far ; )

Yes, they do all cost gold. You're right about that I could totally replace the huge faction logo with the gold coin container. It is very intuitive indeed. Problem I face then is where would I slap the faction logo? The card template is really not forgiving here ;) I honestly believe it's un-doable with that exact template. So, I could of course simply redo the whole thing and use a more conventional template. But... I think the template is hot enough to warrant the question what would have the least negative impact on the game: Keeping the template and using another solution than the gold coin container, or, using a totally different template and using the gold coin container.

My thoughts are that the template is "unconventional" enough to stand out in a good way and make the game instantly recognizable. For id-purposes and "branding", that's a good thing, if and only if the whole game has to suffer due to bad decisions that prioritized aesthetics before function.

Each faction belongs to one of three alliances. A card has a faction logo, and the colour of the cards borders + it's text area background of the name & card type reveal it's alliance belonging. Thus, the elf card you saw happens to have a green leaf faction logo, and it also belongs to the green alliance.

Here's an example of a Merfolk factioned card, that also belongs to the same alliance as the Elfs: See merfolk example here

BfW kicks ass, it's a really well done game. :)

Cattlemark:

Agree... Now it also strikes me how hard it is to have any number seperator there at all, even if it's something else than a colon it will still be interpreted as an operation of some sort instead of a divider...

Thanks for all your input guys, and that you took the time. It's been interesting reading it and of value. I must also admit I was kind of surprised more didn't go with the gold-coin instead, as it should make most sense in terms of telling the player what that variable represents. (Not that I'm a fan of it, but still...)

I think most people in here seem to agree that going with the icon/dot-solution for the threshold. That alone answers my original question I think. The rest of the discussion is, in large, details about aesthetics and how to implement the idea.

richdurham: I think your idea with using cards to represent the threshold has merit. I am however not convinced that a person can understand that they are representing cards by just looking at them. I believe they would have to know the rules first, and then, it would make perfect sense to them.

If that's true it almost defeats it's purpose to have them vertical instead of horizontal. Or rather, more correctly expressed: It wouldn't matter how they're rotated, if rotation doesn't lead to greater understanding in itself.

This is the kind of stuff I'd love to see a major poll being done on, among mortals :) How do they perceive different icons and their meaning by just looking at them? I know the exact rules can never be conveyed through them, and that's not the point either. Question that's interesting is if the players would even be close in their guesses, i.e.. "That's a cost of some kind"... "That is probably connected to you doing something with the cards." etc. The closer their guesses, the more "intuitive" the iconic language we use. (I.e. flagging something red or green sends a clear message to most people in western influenced cultures ; )

You are maybe correct that my version seemed too tightly connected with the template. This is interesting, because it's an aesthetic question for me, and it could, as you point out, actually affect function. If so it should be ditched. To be on the safe side, one should probably do as you suggest. I guess this is yet another thing I have to test on people. Would be nice to have two test groups: One that only gets to see that card and that gets the question "Please point out all the places on the card that conveys any kind of information needed to play the game." and another that gets to look at several different cards, where some have no threshold, others 1, and others 2 etc, asking them the same question.

Here one might argue that the first group is all that matters. But I think that's mistaken: This CCG can't ever be played with just 1 or even 4 cards. You'd need to have at least 30 or so, and what we conclude from them when we build our deck wouldn't be the same as what we conclude from only seeing 1 (I.e. we'll notice there are more creatures, different factions, some have no foonky (threshold) icons while others have 2 etc)

That said, if one would want to play it smart & safe and avoid all these dilemmas, I believe your suggestion is preferable.

innuendo: You're maybe correct that the squares are "unnecessarily large and distracting". If so, it would show when I print these in high quality, something I haven't done yet with this addition to them. (Btw, this is interesting, because it suggests that you have opposite worry as rich - he suggested they are too discretely incorporated into the template, if I understood him correct. You suggest they stand out too much, are too huge, and are too distracting.)

My problem is that I edit this on a computer screen, and while doing that I have to try to imagine how small it will actually be in reality when printed. Keeping all the proportions in my head is an issue, so I guess I'll have to start using the measurements inside of the software better. But even then it is hard to understand the numbers in a meaningful way: When one takes into consideration that a player will hold the cards in her hand, in a certain light, at a certain distance, print quality etc etc, it all leaves us with almost nothing until we actually test print them. = /

http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/wiki/images/c/c0/LogoSize.png

As a reference I have included the size of a card and the size of the logo in this reply. I just looked at the rectangles, and they're a third of the logo's height (around 3 - 4 mm) and somewhat smaller in width than half of the logos height (around 7 mm).

I agree with you that the card would be filled with boxes if there was a threshold that went beyond 3. It's my intention to never or extremely rarely do that.

RacNRoll: Yes, I did try the dots under the leaf: Problem is that our creatures use a different template, and it would look differently on that one. Thus, it only leaves us the side/margin, if I want to stay coherent with where costs are located, and I do.

You're also correct in "assuming there will not be an over-abundance of dots on any card which would make it look cluttered" - there will rarely ever be more than 3-4.

I'm also of the opinion that the higher the number here, the less good the idea to use this kind of representation - nobody should have to "count" the dots/boxes etc - their amount must be easily "seen" directly. Huge difference between the two =)

ilta Interesting. You validate what rich suggests =)

Colours of the boxes don't matter at all, only the amount of them will. Putting something in them is impossible if one wants to make it look good, as the size of them is very small (we're talking about something in the range of 8x4 mm, max) and many printers would make it look even more crappier.

You're right that colour blind proofing is a good idea in any case though, as the colours of the card template border and the bg-colours of the name fields matter (green, in this case).