State of Utopia Playing Cards LIVE on Kickstarter comrades!

[Buyworthy]

We're proud to bring this second deck produced by Aleseva to the playing card community. A collaboration with Buyworthy.
The strong themes and colours work through to tell the story of a century-old Communist ideology, one where revolution brought both hope and despair in shocking volumes.

Help us bring this new deck into being, your support is greatly appreciated and we hope to upgrade this project as funding progresses towards industrial production in Eastern Europe where Communism's true cost is well understood.

Early bird pledges available, or just $1 to follow along with updates, every bit is greatly appreciated - Thank You so much

[masagin303]

Why those almost traditional kings and queens? It seems so out of the deck theme. Nice tuck case and jokers tho, some of the aces go well with the theme as well.

[macstrat]

Im in. I think they will go well with Karnival 1984.

[Buyworthy]

Why those almost traditional kings and queens?

I had discussed this with Pierre, the producer here in Canberra, Australia. He wanted to keep his releases (this being his 2nd) with similar themes so people who collect them are familiar with his style - similar to how Theory 11 does theirs and other producers, vs a new design and theme/feel with each deck.

+/- to doing it this way, it does go well with 'The Kelly Gang" though, available as add-ons.

Thanks for your support - We'll do a sneak-peak of the Joker cards soon, and lots of plans to upgrade this deck as much as we can

[Buyworthy]

Im in. I think they will go well with Karnival 1984.

True, and thanks for the support Mac

[theCapraAegagrus]

Why is Decknowlogy's avatar on the Ace of Hearts..?

[vasta41]

There's a lot to like here. Nice tuck (can't usually go wrong with the hammer and sickle), great courts, good use of color, interesting theme. But here are my gripes: I do not like the background colors on the courts AT ALL. They should be uniform AND they should match the back border color (I'm getting sick and GD tired of having to type this...). Speaking of the back, it's nice but needs to be 2-way. It could also incorporate some elements from the back of tuck which should also match the back of cards. I'm not a huge fan of the aces, or lack thereof, but even though I would prefer more traditional aces with center pips and all it's not the worst offence here. The worst offence? You guessed it, NPCC. Hard no based off that alone.

[Buyworthy]

(I'm getting sick and GD tired of having to type this...)

I'm sorry... you were going fine until 'above quoted', go and make your own cards mate, and when someone puts some comments like yours about it, see how you feel then. Many in the UC community are respectful in their comments.... (not sure where yours fit in?)

I can absolutely guarantee you it is impossible to make a deck that everyone likes; that's why the card industry and community has thousands to choose from, nothing wrong with that, but no need to go on the offensive about your dislikes about someones design; and NPCC, it is a fitting place to be made in consideration of the theme and they support smaller artists/producers a lot more than Bicycle (USPCC) does, I'm proud to be working with them again.

[MagikFingerz]

I wish I had a dollar for every time we've heard a variation of the "have YOU made a deck of cards? Didn't think so" argument here

Josh, as you're new here I'll try to explain things from our perspective. This is a forum where collectors of playing cards openly discuss their thoughts on any deck that is brought to attention. Nobody is "go(ing) on the offensive" simply by posting some negative feedback; none of us would be here if we didn't care about playing cards, and those who post usually do so because they see potential and they want to make clear exactly what would have made them buy/back it. This is, in fact, very valuable information to deck designers/producers, and you should appreciate that people actually spend time to critique your work. I know receiving negative feedback isn't exactly fun, but take a step back with the above in mind and you might find that it isn't all bad.

The part you quoted was said because of something that we see all too often, one of the common "playing card design faux pas"s, if you will. Not to say it's "wrong" to not have the faces match the backs in border/edge color, but it should be avoided when possible because in 99% of cases the downsides outweigh the benefits.

NPCC is a contended subject here. For a lot of us, card handling is very important, and NPCC simply does not produce cards that are comparable to USPCC, EPCC/LPCC and Cartamundi in terms of handling. As collectors with limited resources, we have to draw a line in terms of which criteria are important to us when deciding to buy a specific deck of not. If handling is important, then a deck being printed by NPCC can be a dealbreaker. Simple as that.

[Buyworthy]

Thanks for the feedback Tom, points taken.

[Merlebird]

The part you quoted was said because of something that we see all too often, one of the common "playing card design faux pas"s, if you will. Not to say it's "wrong" to not have the faces match the backs in border/edge color, but it should be avoided when possible because in 99% of cases the downsides outweigh the benefits.

I think this is elevating a niche practical concern to a universally applicable axiom of design, which it ain't. Yes, non-matching front and back borders will preclude the deck from being used for certain sleights of hand. These pretty obviously aren't intended for magic, so from where I'm sitting it's a non-sequitur.

Josh, Paul can get a bit exercised about this one because it's his personal bête noire, but with all respect to him I don't think it's relevant for your purposes. It'll turn off some folks, but I think the aesthetic merits of the full-bleed outweigh the detractions on this one. NPCC is a more contentious issue but again, if these are meant for art collectors and casual players rather than cardists and magicians it's a perfectly valid choice. As you said, there's no way to please everyone.

I think your biggest sin here is timing, unfortunately. Thirdway Industry just announced a deck series in the same theme (though admittedly with a different look) that's expected to launch in July or so, so many collectors might decide they only need to buy in on one project in this vein and sit this one out. Best of luck to you in any event.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Taking offense to something Paul posted..?

Do you really want me to weigh in on this..?

Paul's f&*king peanuts compared to the wrath of my opinions...

[MagikFingerz]

Fair point, Merle. I do also get the impression that there are more people who prefer them to match due to aesthetics, but that can also be due to a vocal minority, confirmation bias, and so on.

Perhaps a new General discussion thread is in order?

[vasta41]

As a newbie I can see how you took that comment the wrong way. But as anyone on UC regularly knows non-matching front and back border colors is my biggest playing card pet-peeve. Lately it just seems like more and more decks have this feature. Like Tom said, not every single deck of cards must follow this standard but I'm admittedly a traditionalist when it comes to basic playing card principals. Hell, I'm pretty sure I even own a handful of decks that the borders don't match. But this is just my personal opinion and is certainly not the sole reason I'm not backing this deck.

I understand why someone would print with NPCC and not everyone has to or should chose USPCC all the time. NPCC is just simply not up to my standards. Many here make fun of me for caring so much about quality (especially when I don't even open most of my new decks) but I am who I am.

Lastly, I cannot and will not ever be able to design a deck of playing cards. I am simply offering feedback as a playing card collecting expert (is there such a thing?) for over a decade. Take it or leave it but 2pc. is spot on. Some people either choose not to comment at all or simply call things "crap" without offering any constructive criticism. I try to be subjective and you seem to realize that too based of your comment of not knowing how to categorize my critique. Either way I wish you luck because I do like this deck overall and I hope to see your next project printed with a better printer.

[theCapraAegagrus]

...Lastly, I cannot and will not ever be able to design a deck of playing cards. I am simply offering feedback as a playing card collecting expert (is there such a thing?) for over a decade. Take it or leave it but 2pc. is spot on. Some people either choose not to comment at all or simply call things "crap" without offering any constructive criticism. I try to be subjective and you seem to realize that too based of your comment of not knowing how to categorize my critique. Either way I wish you luck because I do like this deck overall and I hope to see your next project printed with a better printer.

That's not where I was gonna go, but touché.

[rousselle]

Okay, I'd like to address a different topic here.

Like others, I find a lot to like about this deck, and I really do want to like it because it plays in my proverbial wheelhouse. I was a Russian and Soviet Studies major at university, and my graduate degree is in a related field. So, yeah. This pushes a lot of my buttons.

But... font choice is so very important, and mixing up Cyrillic letters to try to try to emulate a Russian feel to your English-word-named deck is a fail. The thing is, doing the occasional backward letter to make it look Russian-like sometimes works, but when you use all Cyrillic letters where they resemble Latin letters, you trigger the brain of anyone who can actually read those letters to go into Russian mode, and then the word you are trying to fake just fails.

In this case, the letter you are using for 'U" is either the "EE" letter (kinda), or the "Ts" without the tail, which is how my brain actually wants to read this. The T is a T, and that's fine, but the middle letter suggests an "F" sound. The P therefore becomes and R (what looks like a P in the Latin alphabet is an R is the Cyrillic alphabet), because once we hit F, we are definitely reading this as Cyrillic. The I is an I, lucky enough, and the character that you've modified to look kinda like an A is actually the Cyrillic letter D. Thus, your "UTOPIA" is more like "TsTFRID". Or, maybe, "EETFRID."

And thus, we go from clever to nonsense in pretty short order. I realize that your target market may not necessarily be bi-lingual. But, I tell you as a former typographer, font matters. And, in this case, I most strongly suggest that the font choices be re-evaluated and the name of the deck be re-vamped entirely.

[hsbc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/terriblefakecyrillic/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[theCapraAegagrus]

Okay, I'd like to address a different topic here.

Like others, I find a lot to like about this deck, and I really do want to like it because it plays in my proverbial wheelhouse. I was a Russian and Soviet Studies major at university, and my graduate degree is in a related field. So, yeah. This pushes a lot of my buttons.

But... font choice is so very important, and mixing up Cyrillic letters to try to try to emulate a Russian feel to your English-word-named deck is a fail. The thing is, doing the occasional backward letter to make it look Russian-like sometimes works, but when you use all Cyrillic letters where they resemble Latin letters, you trigger the brain of anyone who can actually read those letters to go into Russian mode, and then the word you are trying to fake just fails.

In this case, the letter you are using for 'U" is either the "EE" letter (kinda), or the "Ts" without the tail, which is how my brain actually wants to read this. The T is a T, and that's fine, but the middle letter suggests an "F" sound. The P therefore becomes and R (what looks like a P in the Latin alphabet is an R is the Cyrillic alphabet), because once we hit F, we are definitely reading this as Cyrillic. The I is an I, lucky enough, and the character that you've modified to look kinda like an A is actually the Cyrillic letter D. Thus, your "UTOPIA" is more like "TsTFRID". Or, maybe, "EETFRID."

And thus, we go from clever to nonsense in pretty short order. I realize that your target market may not necessarily be bi-lingual. But, I tell you as a former typographer, font matters. And, in this case, I most strongly suggest that the font choices be re-evaluated and the name of the deck be re-vamped entirely.

[macstrat]

Full Deck Scan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/167981955 ... 1027652587" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;