NOW LIVE: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Vanda Artists / Bob Case)

[STLBluesNut]

i dont mind the aces. could something else look better? maybe. could something else look worse? also maybe. for me it is the back. still looks like a bunch of neat trinkets just sprinkled on a bed of coins or ping pong balls. overall, i still like the deck. in this case, the great courts overshadow the other elements which might be seen as shortcomings.

[GandalfPC]

I tend to agree, but would also add…

I hesitate to attempt to steer a deck to my liking, especially when it does not seem it will arrive - knowing that I may well be steering it away from its true audience.

I do not envy artists for the decisions they must make.

[davegk]

Yep, this is too true! It's always hard to balance and filter feedback as a designer. Some of it is very helpful while others may be interesting but doesn't necessarily consider the full scope and systematic thinking behind the overall design.

I've been toying with colors a bit more and came up with this interesting variation...

I tend to agree, but would also add…


I hesitate to attempt to steer a deck to my liking, especially when it does not seem it will arrive - knowing that I may well be steering it away from its true audience.

I do not envy artists for the decisions they must make.

[Evilgamer]

I dont envy artists at all.

Yeah we all have our opinion, it probably doesnt match too many others, were pretty vocal that we're the one thats right, and in that direction here's mine.

the new background on the queen there isn't working for me, I liked the somewhat muted one that was there before, its drawing my eye away from the character.

That tuck does nothing for me, but honestly cards could come in a white box with the name of the deck and artist and I wouldn't care...its the deck that matters.

Not a fan of purple/navy blue(cant tell, in preview its definitely purple, when I enlarge its blue) on the backs either, going back a few pages my favorite was the black version, but thats DEFINITELY one I would have to see exactly how it really looked because that could be really really plain. I thought it showed your art off well whereas the others it just gets lost in the background.

For the ace...I dont hate them but they seem to be the most plain element in an otherwise pretty inventive deck.

[Honeybee]

I will go one step further than Evilgamer. I am not a fan of the 4 colours at all. Liking the charcoal coloured Jokers made me think the deck would look good in 2 colours.
I don't mind the new background on the queen but the blue tuck is getting worse not better

[Evilgamer]

I will go one step further than Evilgamer. I am not a fan of the 4 colours at all. Liking the charcoal coloured Jokers made me think the deck would look good in 2 colours.
I don't mind the new background on the queen but the blue tuck is getting worse not better

you mean these?



Yes I think both the jokers and the back looks good there, maybe the joker background needs work but I like the art.

I do think I would want more color in the other characters though.

[vasta41]

... but the blue tuck is getting worse not better

Unfortunately, I agree. Now, instead of a 3 color tuck, it's just 2: white and blue. I will just never understand why someone would want to hide such a beautifully colored deck in such a monochrome tuck. Such a mismatch.

[davegk]

Okaaaaayyyyyyyy.... I did some exploration on adding color and lightness to the tuckbox. I think you'll be happy with the results

This is a white paper box with CMYK printing + blue/silver/gold foils

[Evilgamer]

Big improvement.

I don’t know why, but the conflicting colors on the tuck sides are bugging me.

Still think the back art is getting lost in the purple.

100% in on the Alice card though.

[davegk]

The back design will be more of a midnight blue than a purple...it'll look pretty dark, close to black

[vasta41]

MUCH better!!

[Evilgamer]

The back design will be more of a midnight blue than a purple...it'll look pretty dark, close to black

I dont know what it is about the color gradient on my devices, it was clearly purple on my phone, still is in preview on this Mac, but when I click on the link yes its definitely a dark blue.

The dark blue helps but, doesnt entire solve the issue.

[davegk]

the thumbnail functionality on the forum seems to do strange things to image colors...compression of some sort i imagine

[GandalfPC]

blurs images up pretty good too - perhaps we should fix that one of these days…

[davegk]

blurs images up pretty good too - perhaps we should fix that one of these days…

yes, please! maybe there's a forum upgrade or an alternative plugin for thumbnails or something...?

[Fenrir]

I like the new tuck, it’s great. I’m sure the black would have been good as well but this feels better overall. Nice work!

That being said I much prefer the back design on the black. The colours work better. The solid colour doesn’t work as well in my mind.

[STLBluesNut]

i agree that this color tuck is much better.

[davegk]

Here's an update on the book-box set...

- Added a metal bookmark (white colored metal with laser cutouts and gold metallic ink)
- Standard deck tuckbox now uses white paper with CMYK + 3 foils (blue/gold/silver)
- Jumbo rigid box design to match standard tuckbox - this is CMYK printed and the jumbo deck will have holographic gilded edges
- Coin design is near completed

Also, a bonus in the jumbo deck is the 8 extra cards that come in the deck (63 total)...these will feature 2 large 4-up prints of Alice and The Queen of Hearts. Total size of these will be 7"x10"

[EvilDuncan]

I remember you saying there were issues with the Stories jumbo tuck that prevented its creation, though I forget if you ever mentioned what they were. I assume you are not anticipating the same issues here.

[davegk]

I remember you saying there were issues with the Stories jumbo tuck that prevented its creation, though I forget if you ever mentioned what they were. I assume you are not anticipating the same issues here.

There were 2 separate issues related to producing a jumbo version of the stories deck. The first was that I was intending to have Legends produce the jumbo deck but later discovered that they didn't produce a larger size that maintained the same aspect ratio as a standard deck, which would have required complete recreation of the artwork in a different narrower format. The second was that after finding out that MPC does produce the size that I was looking for, the resulting cost was prohibitively expensive based on the pricing built into the kickstarter.

I also don't really like the weird size/shape of a jumbo tuckbox because while the width and length scale up and maintain ratio, the thickness of the cards remains the same and therefore the deck looks oddly thin in the depth perspective. Solution here is to package the cards in a rigid box rather than tuckbox. Also, the MPC jumbo deck comes with extra cards that help make up for the difference in thickness of the deck.

[davegk]

Lots of updates coming soon, but here are some poker chip designs to check out...

[Evilgamer]

interesting, going to pass along one bit of feedback (ok a couple) from the groundskeeper campaign (TGW/wyrmwood) people (some) didn't want the denomination on the chips. And there was a very strong preference for many many more of the lower denomination chips in a set than the larger ones especially when you get into the thousands. Their set was 300 chips, I have no idea what your quantity will be.

[davegk]

interesting, going to pass along one bit of feedback (ok a couple) from the groundskeeper campaign (TGW/wyrmwood) people (some) didn't want the denomination on the chips. And there was a very strong preference for many many more of the lower denomination chips in a set than the larger ones especially when you get into the thousands. Their set was 300 chips, I have no idea what your quantity will be.

Yeah, I will probably offer both options for the back side of the chips (either character + denomination or character on both sides). Personally, I've found that in poker gameplay, using chips without denominations on them always results in more chaos of players constantly forgetting/asking which chip is worth what...this slows down gameplay and irritates everyone. The drunker they are, the more this becomes a problem. I've also helped to alleviate this a bit by using semi-standard chip colors related to their values.

As for set breakdowns, in the past I've left it flexible and let customers choose how they want to distribute their chip quantities (order any chip color in multiples of 20). These denominations will work fine for common standard cash games in the US (most common chips in poker rooms are $1/$5/$25/$100) and the larger value chips are great for tournaments where you can choose to start at a 100 denomination if you like or even handle larger tournaments where you'll want to color up to larger chip values as the blinds increase. Here's a helpful article on chip denomination breakdown: https://www.buypokerchips.com/Articles.asp?ID=294

[Evilgamer]

I think that will work, they were working with stacks of 50 which is much less flexible.

leaving it up to the buyer is never a bad choice for that kind of thing.

[davegk]

I think that will work, they were working with stacks of 50 which is much less flexible.

leaving it up to the buyer is never a bad choice for that kind of thing.

yeah, with multiples of 50 you'd need a minimum set of 500 chips in that case to get a set that is properly balanced for play.

[GandalfPC]

I have found that other players being confused about chips has worked to my benefit - that sense of distance from money also loosens up tight wallets

I prefer without numbers for various reasons, but thats the biggest

[davegk]

I have found that other players being confused about chips has worked to my benefit - that sense of distance from money also loosens up tight wallets

I prefer without numbers for various reasons, but thats the biggest

Yes, well then in your case I'd suggest opting for the chip variants that don't have the denominations. Perhaps I'll come up with an alternate back design so that it's not just the character printed the same on both sides at least.

[davegk]

Perhaps something like this...

[Evilgamer]

oh thats...

I dont think I had noticed the stylized a and W before that would work upside down as well.

[Romeril]

Anyone know anything about the status of this project?