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Player and Opponent Icon

8 replies [Last post]
Fri, 11/11/2016 - 11:27
Rory J. Somers
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Hi, thoughts please:

I'm working on a deck drafting Zoo Building game, where players will try and entice visitors to their zoo through marketing campaigns, which in turn will generate revenue allowing them to build a bigger nicer zoo with cooler, more exciting, rarer animals. At the end of a set period of turns, the player with the highest rated Zoo wins.

The game is very much in the conception stages and i'm starting to develop the PR decks - low/medium/high since this cards give you access to the visitor deck.

My problem comes when a card will allow a player to increase his/her visitor draft but also affect their opponent/s. Could I use icons for this? Would it be the same icon just in a different colour, or should I use a different icon all together?

My main reason for wanting this is so that higher rated cards, which have multiple effects can be more easily summarised with a few icons (and so the Word template i'm using to design these for easy printing and play testing can be completed standardised.)

Thank you all. Any thoughts on this concept/design and mechanics are welcome :)

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Fri, 11/11/2016 - 18:04
#1
Stormyknight1976
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I would say,

I would say to use different text and icon for each higher card. As you have already have the PR cards as low, medium / high. You can probably use green for the low pr cards with a flat line , yellow for the medium pr cards with an medium bar graph and a red for the high pr cards?

Like you could use a bar graph to simulate each player's visitor's draft deck.

My other suggestion is to play one of those amusement park tycoon pc games and see if you can get ideas from where you want to start and end with the highest visitor draft through out the season on a quarterly basis and yearly basis? Feeding the animals, medicine for the animals, doctor visits, quarterly check ups to yearly check ups, to visitor monthly passes and daily passes, food venues, amusement venues like live music band cards, holiday events, employees, injuries from animals, animals getting out of their cages due to employee mishaps, trash details, money revenues to start opening the zoo and its location, a good location for the park zoo.

So say like you have different locations for say like 8 different zoos that needs to be opened but in different areas of the country to have visitors come in and visit the animals?

Zoo parades cards? Other attractions in the zoo to incorporate with the animals?

Another thing to check out is check out your local zoo website or visit the local zoo and see from your own experience.

Stormy

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Fri, 11/11/2016 - 20:18
#2
adlard.matthew
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Icons

It all depends on the icon and design both graphic and game.

You could have a +/- or set icons for that roll, you could go with evolving icons that represent rank or progress so they get more complex or added to.

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Sat, 11/12/2016 - 11:14
#3
bbblackwell
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Use color only?! How dare you!

As you likely know, it's generally frowned upon to use only color to indicate anything, as it forces our colorblind friends into the awkward position of excusing themselves from the game to curl up in the corner weeping uncontrollably.

I would use color in addition to a "blast" symbol behind the icon (like a sunburst around the icon, the type that would contain the word "New!" or "Now with more Lima Beans!" on a product). This shows that it's the same effect, just more impactful. Assuming I understand the dilemma correctly...

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Mon, 11/14/2016 - 03:26
#4
Rory J. Somers
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Rookie Mistake

bbblackwell wrote:
As you likely know, it's generally frowned upon to use only color to indicate anything,

I'm such an idiot! Of course. I;ll probably go with a symbol enclosed within an circle or "O" for opponents as the blast marker would suggest an attack, some of the systems I have in mind will also be a slight positive effect for the player's opponent.

Stormyknight1976 wrote:
Another thing to check out is check out your local zoo website or visit the local zoo and see from your own experience.

I will, and thank you for all your input

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Mon, 11/14/2016 - 11:15
#5
adlard.matthew
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Thoughts

Been doing some work with Sky Relics and working up Icons, and about Icon consistency. In the most basic sense the icon needs to make sense, and also be expandable for future expansions.

One cannot be more exact as the basic description you gave means that its difficult to give an example of what might be suitable without knowing more and ideas about layout.

Consider looking at, http://game-icons.net/ for ideas

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Mon, 11/14/2016 - 19:42
#6
Willem Verheij
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Could also go the lords of

Could also go the lords of waterdeep route with this, and give each player a different zoo under their controll with its own name and associated with its own player color and logo. It wouldnt have a game effect unless you'd want to, but it would just add flavour to the game while helping the colorblind as well.

Player chits, their sheet and other stuff could show their symbol in addition to their own color.

Since it's for Zoos, here is some ideas for the parks and their symbols.

-Safari park.(yellow)
Icon could be a sun, and larger logo could be the sun over the silhouettes of some animals and trees in the savanna. Bit of a lion king vibe.

-A green park. (green)
Icon could be a green tree, and the larger logo could be a zookeeper hugging a cute animal. It could have a real enviromentalist vibe.

-Big city zoo. (Blue)
Icon could be a couple of flags, and the larger logo could show the gate to the zoo with the flags in it too, and maybe visitors walking towards it.

-Chinese zoo. (red)
Icon could be a panda perhaps, and the larger logo could show an eastern gateway with the panda under it. It would have more the vibe of an asian zoo in its artwork.

It's just some quick ideas.

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Tue, 11/15/2016 - 08:33
#7
adlard.matthew
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Thoughts,

Yes that's where my mind went as well as it allows expansion with set themes and if you go KS route KS expansion potentials as well.

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Wed, 11/16/2016 - 06:06
#8
Rory J. Somers
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More detail

Willem Verheij wrote:
Could also go the lords of waterdeep route with this, and give each player a different zoo under their controll with its own name and associated with its own player color and logo.

It's a cracking idea, and one I hadn't considered, so thank you.

To give a little more clarity on my original post:

I'm attempting to have a game that considers all aspects of running a zoo, at the moment my focus is on generating cash income (I'll deal with animals once I have this aspect of the game in place).

For a player to gain visitors they must advertise their zoo by playing (and paying for) marketing.

There are three Marketing decks, low/medium/high - the base cost of buying a random card from the deck (which can range from handing out flyers to national TV adverts). The player won't know what type of marketing card they'll get, but there is a better chance of it being great in the higher tier (or in the example of handing out flyers - same result in a higher tier, but much cheaper).

Some of the cards have an opponent effect - in the case of Posters:
YOUR ZOO: +2 Visitor
OPPONENT ZOO: +1 Visitor

Part of the reason for this is to mirror reality (I literally saw a billboard for a zoo near-ish me, and I thought about visiting a zoo, just a different one), and the other reason is to encourage player interaction - I'm also struggling to naturally create tension between players - some will come when players are trying to buy/adopt animals before opponents do but more on that another time.

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