I'm building a game that uses a lot of cards. I have several card types, but most of them will have the same back. What I need to do is have a template that I can use to insert art, text, and icons easily, preferably based on a table.
Oh, and because I have no budget I need it to be free, or at least < $100.
Do you know of any templating tools that are out there, or free resources for making it easier to do this kind of work?
Dan who has designed Cocktail Card Editing Software at:
I know he just had a KS or is in the process of working through the results of the KS ... Not sure. From what I remember a LIFETIME version is $300 USD. So it's more than you may want to invest. But the 1 year plan is $100 USD...
You can visit the website and e-mail him or PM him here on BGDF.com... Whatever suits your fancy. Let me know if something works out ... Cheers!
You can also try nanDECK, though it isn't really designed for a deck where every single card is unique.
You can use nanDECK (it's free), enter all the data in a spreadsheet and write a script in nanDECK that uses that spreadsheet specifying where to put the data, for example for a title on the top of 50 cards you will write:
FONT=arial,32,,#000000
TEXT=1-50,[title],0,0,100%,20%
Alternatively you can use the visual editor, or you can simply drag & drop the spreadsheet and nanDECK automatically creates a layout for you with the information it finds.
Website:
Tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdHW9On5G8NJm5m1mULabskVYsM84M_SL
I generally use Inkscape. My last design "Eldritch express", I think I made the back ground with GIMP, or combined with inkscape.
Then I printed those background in raster format, and then I made a template in Inkscape where I could position all may cards and add the content over the background.
This is good if you need entire print out sheets with all you cards on the same sheet. On the other hand, if you need individual image files for each cards, it could work, but it might be more annoying to manage individual files.
If you use a Mac, you might investigate Multideck. It costs $25 but is quite powerful and flexible. Disclaimer: I wrote it, so if you buy it I'll get (most of) the money.
For more info: https://www.semicolon.com/multideck/multideck.html
For a discussion of features and capabilities: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2028146/thinking-about-taking-plunge
For some introductory how-to videos: https://www.semicolon.com/multideck/howto.html
In the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/multideck/id1193399487
You can use http://Component.Studio to do exactly this, and then export to The Game Crafter, PDF, Tabletop Simulator, or raw images.
It costs $10/mo, but there is no contract so you can cancel at any time, and you can get the first month free using the coupon code: FirstMonthFree
My free extension for Inkscape (Windows, Mac, Linux, possibly other systems) (using data read from a CSV file you can create using (hopefully!) any spreadsheet application):
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/299033
There is a wiki with instructions on GitHub:
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