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I Need Your Input!
By Corvus | March 10, 2008
Tagged:card-game, Drachurae Cycle, elemental symbols, Renown, survey. | 14 Comments »
« More on Narrative Consistency & Effective Storytelling | Home | Character Profile: Moblins »
By Corvus | March 10, 2008
Tagged:card-game, Drachurae Cycle, elemental symbols, Renown, survey. | 14 Comments »
March 10th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Without thinking about it, the alchemic symbols sound like the right choice, but when you look at them and try to associate the symbol with the element, it feels arbitrary, especially if you don’t know squat about alchemy. Why would the game force a player to memorize symbols when it could just as easily made them more easy to understand. It’s like using morse code for every single line of text in the game, it’s nifty, it uses outside knowledge so it feels clever, but it is not widely known and most likely it will piss off 90% of the players (well, to be fair, this is a very extreme example).
And this, ladies and gentlemen, are my two cents.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
More useful? I voted for representative symbols.
Better? I would vote for alchemical. They’re more stylized, and appeal to me more.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Both of your comments effectively illustrate why I wrestled with the question at all.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Representative. Looks fine, and makes sense immediately apart from possibly the energy/life ones.
No idea about alchemy, so there we go, I just think they are easier to see what’s what (and don’t most card games with “Water cards” put a drop as a symbol?
).
March 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I considered going with a water droplet, but I felt it looked too much like fire. These aren’t the final icons, though. Just… er… representative samples.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I think the alchemical representations are easier to read once you’ve got the hang of it. I expected the life symbol to be more curvy though, something like a new plant shoot.
As for not being able to actually write out the word, you could just go with a letter representation for each element. Just use N for energy or a + sign or something like that.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:31 am
@th15 While according to the numbers your perspective is in the minority, I do feel the alchemical style symbols have a certain resonance that appeals. But ultimately I’m going for clarity with this particular element of the card. That doesn’t mean the more arcane approach won’t also be making an appearance somewhere.
The life symbol is meant to represent the crooked path of life, but a plant shoot is a great image that I’ll probably end up using in the representational set. Thanks for that!
I thought about letter representations as well, but I want minimal translation between perception and cognition.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Representative symbols are easier to understand. I would not go for a letter as it letters are just another symbol and by nature are internationally less recognizable.
Isn’t 7 suits a lot of cards? I don’t know the rules of your (mini-)game, but just that number makes it sound complex.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Kevin; the “kids card game” Pokémon Trading Card Game has 9 colours/suits in the battle game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Trading_Card_Game#Pok.C3.A9mon_types
Doesn’t always mean it is complex
although it’s not a minigame I guess. Could be very few in one set, or they overlap or something. I wonder what the game is 
March 11th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@Kevin While the cards themselves will be quite small, I wouldn’t call the game ‘mini.’ Additionally, Renown is just the first of many games which will use the deck and it really only uses the six suites of the minor arcana.
@Andrew you can find some references to it in the archives of the blog, but I’ll be doing a full recap and asking for beta testers before the end of the month.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Sounds interesting
and that reminds me, I have a roundtable post to start, if I can think of something good to write.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I cannot see the results of the poll, but seeing that all the comments are very clear, I’m pretty sure that “Alchemical” is not winning
Hurray for a clear/understandable representation of the elements! *fist pump*
Oh, and beta testers? sounds intriguing :3
March 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I like how PSO did it. Every damn game uses the same light, fire, earth over and over again, so it’s nice to see it switched up a bit. All they did was make up new names for the techniques, and that in itself was a surprisingly refreshing change. Their symbols are representative in a pretty abstract way, but get their point across quickly and still remain very highly stylized. I’m a big fan:
http://www.phantasy-star.net/pso/psotech.html
March 12th, 2008 at 4:27 am
@Kimari: That’s the one draw back to SurveyGizmo, it seems. The results aren’t transparent. Perhaps I’ll keep looking for a survey solution. But you’re right, representational has just over 91% of the votes.
@Corey: I hadn’t seen those, so thanks for the link. While the energy you’re crafting in my system is elemental and familiar, the language you use to do so is comprised of symbols that are unique to the Drachurae Cycle. The elements themselves are Vitae, Terrae, Hydrae, Vae, Aerae and Pyrae. There are also nine casting positions you channel energy through to create varying magical effects. Any given person can master up to 3 different magical focuses and use them in combination for some pretty impressive results.