Collab idea: Deck of cards
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: Collaborations/Challenges
Forum Discription: Submit pixel art project ideas/templates or contribute to an existing pixel art collaboration.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12970
Printed Date: 09 September 2025 at 8:08am
Topic: Collab idea: Deck of cards
Posted By: CELS
Subject: Collab idea: Deck of cards
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 10:48am
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They say plagiarism is the highest form of flattery. I'm sure all of you have seen http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/65084.htm - this excellent pixel art by Mis-BUG. I think it would be extraordinarily cool (and also deliciously devious and evil) to just steal the idea and do a PJ collaboration project to create a deck of cards. To ensure that the deck looks coherent, rather than just a random collection of pixel art, I suppose we would agree on a palette beforehand. And to ensure that the quality is high, I suppose there would have to be some kind of voting on which cards were selected. Now, if each contributor just made a single card, it would be a nightmare to vote on 52 seperate cards (+2 or 3 jokers). It might be best to just blatantly copy the Versus deck and let each contributor make 4 cards. Perhaps agree on a certain canvas size, and one that really shows the importance of each pixel, even printed on paper cards. I would certainly buy this deck. I'm just not sure if stealing the idea is too outrageous. Perhaps check with the creators of the Versus deck if they're cool with it. (Even though it's not legally necessary) |
Replies:
Posted By: greenraven
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 11:27am
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http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=899 - *cough*
-------------  "pwnage comes with patience, practice and planning." ~ Jalonso 
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Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 11:41am
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Ah, cool. Haven't seen that. In my humble opinion, it might be interesting to do again. Not just because the last deck was five years ago, which would hopefully mean that the PJ community would be able to do it better today. But also because I think a version with a set palette and canvas size (i.e. borders within the card) would look more coherent. I think it would be cool, anyway. |
Posted By: shampoop
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 1:01pm
Plus most of the links on that thread are broken. 
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Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 15 September 2011 at 4:36pm
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Pixel cards want! (not that I actually play cards) I reckon:
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Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 5:20am
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If we want to put this thing into print for serious, I would definitely be up for all of Surts rules. However, we might not want to get into agreeing on a CC-BY before a publisher has been found, it might give some trouble. I would be in too! For the colors: How about something like a 6 color palette (low count), 4 base colors, and 2 colors dependent on the suit? While R, G and B stand out as bright colors on screen, it might be a good idea to go with something that stands out on print. That way you keep the bright pixel feeling.. Too bad that the most suitable bright print colors are obviously cyan and magenta :p Perhaps some pantone specials, such as metallics or neons? ------------- |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 5:48am
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Good idea. The other card collab worked because the cards were made for an online playable card game so there was a reason to get involved. Just making cards may not work out so we'll need a project plan, imo. ------------- |
Posted By: Alex Pang
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 6:58am
| Why do we need a publisher? We can just make a sheet and printout ourselves..... |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 7:22am
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CMYK based palettes? Cyan and blacK for black suits. Magenta and Yellow for red suits. Pixelly themed suits? 1ups, hearts (as in health pick-up), coins, gems (not diamonds), pixels, skulls, mushrooms, etc. Don't need a publisher, but do need a printer so you can get nice laminated cards and box. There do appear to be some on-demand options for playing cards. EDIT: Example: Magenta, Hearts, Good alignment, Natural world Yellow, Coins, Good alignment, Artificial world Cyan, Mushrooms, Evil alignment, Natural world Black, Skulls, Evil alignment, Artificial world -------------
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Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 8:02am
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I wouldn't want to set too much rules on the themes and leave it up for the artists.. Just a color palette and agreement on the shape of the suit icons would be enough for me. On demand playing card printing would be great! ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 11:56am
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Whether or not there would be a set theme for each suit isn't a major issue for me. I'm sure it would be great either way, as long as the palette is restricted to a few colours. When you see the great stuff that PJ comes up with folr the weekly challenges, regardless of how severe the restrictions are, it leads me to believe that this could turn out awesome no matter what. In terms of motivating artists, I notice that some people have badges for contributing to the old Halloween collabs. Certainly, anyone who contributed to the deck could be rewarded with an appropriate badge? Personally, the opportunity to own a deck of card with pixel art would be enough motivation for me. I do think that the bar needs to be set a bit high to motivate the best artists. If any submissions are accepted, then the deck won't look good, and people won't be motivated to contribute. The main issue is coherency and readability. You want the cards to look like they're from the same deck, and you want them to be practical, and not just eye candy. Note how different these two cards are. This doesn't work. You should be able to identify each card at a glance, and you can't do that if each card has a completely different style and design.   |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 6:31pm
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Yes I very much agree that submissions should be vetted for quality. The deck should be be able to promote pixel art in a positive light. But we still want a diversity, so we shouldn't expect everything to be Fool-grade. And there's always the WIP forum to help improve the pieces that fall short. Also on those cards their unique images carry all the way to the edge so they are potential identifiable while hidden. It would be cool to allow intra-card collaboration, so if perhaps a member isn't quite experienced enough to meet quality standards, then they could for example post a line-work with another member may finish. Size test:  A larger res has the benefit of allowing varying pixel scales in different cards and multi-res styling, while a smaller res of course means less pixel labour and so a greater likelihood of completion as well as fundamentally greater pixeliness. -------------
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 8:05pm
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Originally posted by surt ...submissions should be vetted for quality. The deck should be be able to promote pixel art in a positive light. But we still want a diversity, so we shouldn't expect everything to be Fool-grade. And there's always the WIP forum to help improve the pieces that fall short. Indeed Originally posted by surt ...It would be cool to allow intra-card collaboration, so if perhaps a member isn't quite experienced enough to meet quality standards, then they could for example post a line-work with another member may finish. I dislike this not because its a bad idea but because the artist wouldn't learn much from the experience AND these pieces wouldn't get in the gallery and everyone should have that option. About size: How about getting a real card dimension and then doing a quarter (288dpi) or fifth scale (360dpi) so that if they are printed then the pixels don't truncate and can be produced in HIRES? At 1X pixels either works for screen use. If not I think the 96x136 size is nice enough for the adventurous and small enough for the timid ------------- |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 8:24pm
You mean there aren't any pixels based on other people's line-art in the gallery?  Real poker cards (according to Wikipedia) are 2.5x3.5" so at 360dpi 900x1260 dots. 1/6 = 150x210 pixels 1/9 = 100x140 pixels 1/10 = 90x126 pixels 1/12 = 75x105 pixels We could do with input from someone with experience in the printing field (I certainly don't know a thing about it) in regards to dimensions and colour selection. -------------
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 8:52pm
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I am :) I print and have printed pixelart in HIRES many times. I think your calculations are wrong. I'll check and post in a sec :) _____ 90 x 126 is the correct ratio. The enlarged image is an actual 72 to 360 conversion and shows actual pixel size.  ../files/icons/full/jack___1x_strip.png - ------------- |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 9:00pm
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Just thinking aloud, not saying these are good ideas: Possibly allow any integer division resolution where pixeliness it present, while keeping the card index at a common res for all cards? Maybe differ resolution hierarchically? Face cards higher res, number cards lower res. -------------
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 9:09pm
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I don't get it ...seems complicated. How will colors be chosen? Comp, user post, free for all? ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 9:23pm
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For the sake of uniformity, I would prefer to have the same resolution all around. I think the moderators could agree on palettes and, possibly, themes for each suit, if that is indeed desirable. The only problem with themes is that it A) potentially makes the project less interesting for certain artists who aren't inspired by the themes and B) potentially restricts the diversity you would have otherwise. Oh, and C) very specific themes appeals to a more specific group of people. But, as already mentioned, restrictions sometimes lead to amazing creativity. The 4 color rainbow challenge is a good example. Surt, what do you mean by "Also on those cards their unique images carry all the way to the edge so they are potential identifiable while hidden." ? |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 9:44pm
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CELS: If for example one card in the pack is printed black all the way to the border and that card is face down on the table, then it may still be possible to identify that card based on the black printing showing at the edge. This is why real playing cards always have a border of white-space. Size test again:  I'd go with either of the middle two. -------------
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Posted By: jeremy
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 9:58pm
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Something like one or two compulsory colours could help to unify the deck, similar to http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixels/challenge_item.asp?id=1118 - these http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixels/challenge_item.asp?id=1137 - challenges or indeed the http://liquidlizard.co.uk/versus/versus_gallery.html - deck Mis-BUG's are in. Definitely gonna get in on this ;D |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 10:26pm
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Colour-wise I'd say either one good fixed palette (eg. Arne's or Dawnbringer's) or per-suit colour theme of one or two distinct colours (eg. Cyan & Red, Magenta & Green, Yellow & Blue, blacK & White). -------------
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Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 5:50am
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I would rather have a palette that is based on just some colors than ones that try to cover everything, like arnes and dawns. That way you increase unity among cards. Still, I am completely up for making a set of 4 cards! 90x126 is my vote :). And all white BGs! How about starting to suggest some palettes? I like this http://www.colourlovers.com/craft/trends/handmade/7869/The_Coasters - http://www.colourlovers.com/craft/trends/handmade/7869/The_Coasters I made this  Or we could always go oldschool. Although I once printed some cga stuff and it is really boring without the superbrightness you get on screen. ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 7:04am
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"I would rather have a palette that is based on just some colors than
ones that try to cover everything, like arnes and dawns. That way you
increase unity among cards." I very much agree. But I will leave the palette suggestions to you experienced pixellers. @surt: Ah, I understand, and agree. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 9:56am
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I'd say colors and palettes can be ignored for now. We can run a comp and then whatever happens, happens and participants will just work with a winning palette(s). In the meantime, I am going to research what is out there for HIRES printing output thats cheap enough to produce yet high quality. I suggest focusing on the specs and details and playing a round of devil's advocate with the rules and specs. I can help with this too but I'd much rather this be community based and as 'mod' free as possible (cept the running of the Card Thread when that's ready.) If anyone seriously commits to being project manager then we'll coordinate the first 2 thread posts so that person has editing/updating abilities and stuff. ------------- |
Posted By: MyO
Date Posted: 18 September 2011 at 11:07am
Have you seen this pixelpiece, by the way?  http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/4266.htm http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/4266.htm - Just for the background and outline idea. =) As for the suit types... What about Pixels, Squares, Triangles and Circles? Or something of this kind? Spammers, Nerds, Fools, Newbies? Pencil, Pen, Floodfill, Dither? Speaking about printing: maybe asking somebody from DeviantART who already had some experience with making card decks will help? As far as I remember, Culpeo-Fox and Skia from DeviantART once made an interesting card deck for a game called "Skat of Foxes". http://culpeo-fox.deviantart.com/journal/28465012/ - The journal entry explaining it... |
Posted By: shampoop
Date Posted: 19 September 2011 at 9:27am
| Are these cards going to be for sale? |
Posted By: Marken4
Date Posted: 20 September 2011 at 3:12pm
| Will newbs be allowed to join? |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 20 September 2011 at 4:18pm
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@shampoop: I imagine that you would buy them online from a site that prints cards. So yes, they would be for sale, but probably not from Pixel Joint itself. @Marken4: Well, the idea would be to let pixel artists "compete", so that only the most beautiful pixel art is used for the deck. But it wouldn't matter if you're a newb or not, as long as you make pretty pixels :) @MyO: Not sure what you're suggesting. Do you mean that instead of Hearts, Clubs, Spades and Diamonds, you would have circles, triangles, squares and pixels? Or that all the cards in the suit of hearts would have circles as part of their imagery, for example? Personally, I would like to see something more abstract, which leaves lots of room for design, but is still easy to connect. I liked surt's idea of nature vs artificial, for example. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 20 September 2011 at 7:52pm
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I will try really hard to find how to produce such a deck of cards. If anyone knows of such a printing place or where to even search for this type of thing. Please post. Maybe its selling point (outside PJ) is showcasing 8bit/pixelart itself? Maybe all the proceeds could be for special event contests, like Pixelween, cash and prizes? I think everyone should be allowed to contribute but quality, originality and creativity will need to be strictly enforced. ------------- |
Posted By: a3um
Date Posted: 20 September 2011 at 7:55pm
| Personally I dislike the "competition" idea - we have weekly challenges for this kind of activity. Furthermore, what is the point for a newbie to participate, if he has no skill yet to make a "beautiful" pixel art and thus his work won't matter much? |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 4:58am
| Well, the point is to make a pretty deck of cards that showcases the beauty of pixelart. I for one would not buy the deck if the art was of so low quality that it would barely be accepted to the PJ Gallery. If we don't agree that there should be some form of quality control, there is no more to be said. If we do agree, then we just need to decide how it works. Jal urged that it not be left to the moderators. We're left with either democratic voting or some sort of "council". Unless I have overlooked something. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 5:32am
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I can see what a3um means and he's probably right. Maybe we just need a 'quality' rule or standard of some kind. Different levels of skill and styles seems ok to me. Btw, I only urged that the project rules, specs and details be a community activity. The Mods can handle the project and keep things rolling after that much like iso-cology has run. Including writing it up and sorting details out. ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 9:22am
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Alright then, cool. So then we have suggested the size as 90 x 126 pixels, which by surt's model is 73 x 109 pixels if you take away the white border. And your suggestion, jal, was to run a comp and let the winning submission be a guide in terms of color and palette? We would need a design for the whole deck, the flip side of every card. If there are one or two colors for each suit, it might be cool if all the colors of the four suits (say 4 or 8 colors) were incorporated in that piece. For example, one might pick 8 colors Arnes or Dawnbringers palette, of which 2 are used for each suit. It would perhaps be good for making the deck cohesive. Just an idea. Should there be a limit to how many cards one member may submit? |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 10:06am
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I have been browsing for publication options, the best I found so far was this: http://https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/templates/cards/poker-cards - https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/templates/cards/poker-cards They estimate a price of about 5 dollar for 52 cards, but the price of a box is not included. http://https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/cost-estimator - https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/cost-estimator Sounds fair? ------------- |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 11:20am
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As a general rule, for cost reasons (like real cards) the front of cards have multiple printing colors but the backs only one (usually blue or red). As soon as I find time I'll put together a first draft of rules and specs. If anyone wants to handle this first draft, go for it. See the iso-ology rules for guides and remember that with PJ members you MUST find and cover every loophole you can dream off, no matter how obscure orfeasable, because whichever is left will be found >>> used >>> abused. So whats the color idea? ? total colors or ? colors per suit? or other? --- @Hapiel, I'll look into those links. idea: Maybe the 4 (or 2? ) jokers can be by invitation? It would be awesome if fool made one, right? ------------- |
Posted By: Pandora'sSecret
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 2:25pm
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This project sounds amazing.
I'd say we do the same as with iso-collab, and get a pre-made colorpalet so it looks cohesive. I think in the end after everyone has made cards we get to make votes on which cards are the best and print those. Perhaps we could make a theme per set like; Hearts would be made in L-shaped pixels and Clubs in widepixels? etc. As for the back, it defintly should feature Pixeljoints logo.. |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 5:31pm
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While I don't like the competition idea, there should be a solid rule to keep the quality up. A moderator should be commissioned to judge the finished works' quality (but giving the C&C is for everyone). The rule can go as: -Every PJ member can participate, yet a card is over when both the participant and the moderator say it's over. So taking C&C into consideration is a must, while applying them is upto the participant. The participant is obliged to catch up with the quality standards that the moderators decide, in the finished work. |
Posted By: MyO
Date Posted: 22 September 2011 at 5:39am
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Now I remembered about two decks of "cartoon" cards I bought when I was a child. It was nice to play games like "Crazy Eights" or a game similar to "Mau Mau" with them, and the latter was the favourite among all the players. Their quirk was that the cartoon-ish characters of each suit were dressed in different colours (red, blue, green, yellow), and the characters in one deck also were of different cartoon nationalities (Slavic, Nordic, European Crusaders and Eastern Nomads). Due to this differentiation, and to the fact that there were some key characters in each suit (for example, all 8-s were Emperors, all 4-s were Warriors, etc), these decks were really well suited for playing "Mau Mau". Maybe some differentiation of this kind could help? And it would also help expanding the "Red VS Blue" game into something a bit more interesting. After all, not only there should be some really cool "fighters", "defenders" or "healers": there is a place only for the best, and all the suits should be almost equal in terms of pixel ownage potential. |
Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 23 September 2011 at 5:30am
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Cool prospect!
A thinking about colors: I think the deck/suits should have a quite soild conformity, but it would be nice if it still allowed for some artistic distinction/freedom. The deck could have 3-5 grayscales that defines the darkest/brightest colors and create a frame of reference + perhaps some other color(s) found useful or that have a specific meaning. Each suit could have an additional 5-7(?) unique colors, maybe selected via a compo. Then the artist could be allowed to add 2-4(?) colors of his own to each card (must conform somewhat to the deck/suit). (a total of 8-16 colors per card) Just a thought... :) |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 01 October 2011 at 8:02am
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I'm just bumping this in the hope that someone may find the time and inspiration to post a draft for the rules. I think there's been a lot of great suggestions now, so it's just a matter of picking a direction. @Dawnbringer: Interesting idea of letting the artists choose a few colors. I would be ok with that, as long as the set colours of each suit were dominant and have the solid conformity you mention. |
Posted By: zch
Date Posted: 04 October 2011 at 7:10am
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Here's some suggestions for rules Each suit has a theme and 4 color palette : Spades : purple / robots Hearts : red / pirates Diamonds : blue / ninjas Clubs : green / zombies & woodoo (Some more original themes would be good) Cards also have a "sub theme" as follows 2,3,4 : tools, weapons & other items 5,6,7 : places 8,9,10 : transportation J, Q, K : characters A : abstract design featuring huge symbol of the suit The suit symbols and numbers in the tl-corner and br-corner come from the same set for all the cards. They use separate palette of maybe 4 colors (so each card has 8-colors) If people would make suggestions for "corner symbol sets" we could vote best one from them. Card artwork may NOT contain any text, number or other symbols except for authors name and possibly the at most one symbol of the suit of the card. Aces are required to contain the symbol for the suit. Every card should contain authors name. It should be in same place and font in each of the cards (bottom right, simple 3x5 pixel font). For cards J, Q and K character should be fully visible. Background should be simple. All 12 characters should be in same scale an perspective. Each author can make at most one card. There is 52 cards + 3 jokers and backside of cards, so we need 56 authors. The card you make is chosen at random from non-reserved cards. Swapping cards with other artist is allowed if both are willing. Authors should collaborate as much as possible, especially inside the suit. So if someone makes cool looking sword for two of hearts, it would be sweet if the Pirate Captain in the king of hearts would be wielding that same sword. Authors should not hog all the cliches for themselvers. So Jack of hearts can have peg-leg or eye-patch or parrot or monkey or hook, but not all of them so that there is something left for king and queen also. 
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Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 08 October 2011 at 10:22pm
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I like the rules, but I'm not really sure about the theme restrictions. If the theme is too specific, you kill creativity. If it's too broad, then there's no point in having it, as it won't be recognised. I would strongly suggest that there aren't any sub-themes within each deck, but maybe it would be interesting to see some deck specific themes, if the ideas are good. As long as we're brainstorming... Diamonds - Prehistoric Clubs - Medieval Hearts - Renaissance Spades - Modern Diamonds - Coins Clubs - Clubs Hearts - Cups Spades - Swords Diamonds - Fire Clubs - Earth Hearts - Water Spades - Air |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 09 October 2011 at 3:14am
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No need for more originality, perhaps some alteration on the palette but I vote completely for ZCH! Thanks for the nice examples you made :D
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Posted By: PureAwesomeness
Date Posted: 09 October 2011 at 10:17am
| Haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but I definitely want to participate in this. It sounds awesome! |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 5:21am
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Zch's points are very well put, the only thing I disagree is the 4 color palette which I find dull as hell. I'd suggest a 8 color all-round palette + 4 colors for each suit. The theme per suit + object per number constriction is an awesome idea. With this in mind CELS' Fire/Earth/water/air idea combined with this (air places, water transports, fire characters etc.) could give a productive result. |
Posted By: zch
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 2:04pm
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Colors in my example pic were low contrast on purpose so that suit-symbols and numbers would be easy to read. I quess that makes them sort of dull as hell also :D anyway. Those were not supposed to be final colors, but an example of what I was talkin about. And the number of colors doesn't have to be 4 either (It just that lately I've found out that using only 4 colors is lots of fun). But I think that it would be good to keep the base color - suit combinations (Spades=purple, Hearts=red, Diamonds=blue, Clubs=green) as they are the colors from 4 color deck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-color_deck - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-color_deck technically spades should be black but that would not work I think |
Posted By: Friend
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 2:43pm
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I love this collab idea. I think the main goal should be CELS' main priority and fully carried out in setting the palette and theme limitations. "A deck of cards that showcases the beauty of pixel art." In this case, I think the colors need to be limited to a small number, but also vibrant, or else the cards could start to look too much like ordinary cards, but pixely. Also, I think the theme should just be a collection of original sprites, but have things such as the numbers and heart/club etc. Have a united design throughout. |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 3:42pm
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Originally posted by Frost Butt I love this collab idea. I think the main goal should be CELS' main priority and fully carried out in setting the palette and theme limitations. "A deck of cards that showcases the beauty of pixel art." In this case, I think the colors need to be limited to a small number, but also vibrant, or else the cards could start to look too much like ordinary cards, but pixely. Also, I think the theme should just be a collection of original sprites, but have things such as the numbers and heart/club etc. Have a united design throughout. I second that. An all blue or all purple palette will not allow many gifted artists shine as they can. I beleive an 12 or 16 color palette is limited enough. Still zch's idea except the color thingie rocks IMO. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 3:49pm
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Guys, I really want to help out with details and stuff but I'm swamped with other stuff. Someone please write a to-do list. ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 6:44pm
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@Jal: Not sure what you mean by a to-do list there. As in, what things need to be decided? @Frostbutt: I think you've got a good point. It's already been mentioned, but it's critical that the palette, canvas size and dpi are carefully selected so that it's possible to appreciate the individual pixels in the artwork, even on paper. Otherwise, we might as well do everything as NPA. For example, http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/53379.htm - this is one of my favourite pieces on PJ, but it's so realistic that it would only look like a picture or a painting if printed on paper. I mean, it almost looks like a picture even on my screen, at 1x. |
Posted By: Friend
Date Posted: 10 October 2011 at 7:48pm
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I know exactly what you mean ^ Anyway, I really hope the guidelines for this project go in the right direction. This could be the coolest collab idea ever. How about owning a deck of cards where you can say, "this card is my pixel art" |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 11 October 2011 at 2:03am
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To do list? Hmm.. Here's one: Things to decide upon: -Canvas size -Color count/extra colors per suit -Suit themes -Number sub-themes (zch's idea) -General rule-set |
Posted By: zch
Date Posted: 16 October 2011 at 3:25pm
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Here's some more rule suggestions. ---------------------------------- Card artwork should use every color in the palette. Card artwork should be one picture, so no comics. Card artwork may NOT be a game mockup. Do not depict any GUI-elements etc in your card. Card artwork should have simple background made of white and one other light color. All cards in suit should have same background-colors. All cards should use somewhat similar style. Artist should be willing to try to use 'the common style' instead of 'whatever he is most comfortable with'. So no isometric dimetric, trimetric. no habbo-hotel-style, no super-deformed, no anime, no cartoony. Unless, of course, that is what was chosen to be the common style. I'd also like to change my suggestion of sub themes from items/places/transportation/characters/ace-design to items/pets&other-animals/places&transportation/characters/ace-design Some kind of draft of todo-list -------------------------------- we should... 1) Decide what we want from this collaboration. Do we want to have as wide representation of pixelart styles as possible where artist gets to choose whatever style and colors he feels most comfortable with? Or do we want more unified look where all artists try their best to use one shared style and set of colors? Or something between the extremes. Personally I like the idea of more unified look. 2) Decide card size (in pixels) and other measurements that surt has already talked about in his posts. Resolution should be small enough so that pixels are clearly visible when printed. Personally I like the 90x126 px resolution. 3) Decide what 'the common style' is, if any. Maybe draw some reference pics. Like the scale and light-source pic for iso-ology collab. 4) Decide palettes for suits. Palettes can have common colors, or even be exactly the same. Some (or even all) colors may be left for artist to choose. I'd suggest that common colors would be low saturation grays and browns etc and each suit would have simple ramp of one bright high saturation color. 5) Decide themes for suits, and maybe subthemes too... Or just allow anyone draw whatever they want. 6) Decide a set of index symbols & numbers that are used in all the cards. I think these should be relatively simple and easy to read. So functional instead of super flashy. 7) Decide how many cards artist may make, and how many they must make to participate. What do we do if we do not get enough participants to get every card? What do we do if we require 4 cards/artist and someone does only 3 and then disappears from the internet? Personally I would like that each artist would make same amount of cards. Optimally one card / artist, but I understand that this might not be possible. 8) Decide on ways to ensure quality. Who decides when card is good enough? Who decides when the card is in 'the common style'? What do we do if someone does not reach the required level of quality. Should there be some kind of voting system? -------------- Here's another suggestion for the palette.  So browns yellows and grays for common, and on bright color / suit. Note how none of the example pictures would be suitable for card artwork according to my own rules suggestions... :) |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 6:16am
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Things are shaping up. Is there a chance this will be polished enough for the next PJ collab? If so, let's work on the color specs so we can develop a palette comp to get the ball rolling. I have not found a place to produce these decks so its economically feasible yet. The biggest obstacle is that noone prints just one set at a time in the quality needed for a deck of cards. To make many sets at once someone needs to have them made and sent to one address and then this person will be responsible for mailing to whomever buys a deck. I doubt anyone will handle this as it requires they both store the decks and pay for mailing costs. ------------- |
Posted By: onek
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 6:40am
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maybe the decks shouldnt be sold ...
just publish a .pdf or whatever which people can download the printing process should then be everybodys own concern... or is this project about making money? |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 7:47am
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Originally posted by onek ...is this project about making money? No, its just an idea. I guess people can handle their printing them if they wish. I'm cool with that. Pixels and pdfs??? I guess its possible. I have changed my mind about this being PJs next collab. This is more of a project and cards selection will me more involved than 'all inclusive' collab. ------------- |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 10:05am
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Its not about the money, but it is just very hard to print a set of cards yourself. Even harder if you only want 1 copy.
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Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 4:56pm
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Originally posted by zch Here's some more rule suggestions. Great! Nice work with these. I agree with pretty much all of them. Originally posted by zch I'd also like to change my suggestion of sub themes from items/places/transportation/characters/ace-design to items/pets&other-animals/places&transportation/characters/ace-design Again, I'm not a big fan of sub themes, but if we do go for them, I would suggest replacing 'items' with something else. On a white background, especially, I can see it being difficult to come up with a cool design for three items without any people or animals present. Originally posted by zch 5) Decide themes for suits, and maybe subthemes too... Or just allow anyone draw whatever they want. Would we want the artwork to feature the number of the card itself? For example, should the three of clubs have three cats on it? The nine of hearts feature a lady with nine hearts on her dress? Originally posted by zch 7) Decide how many cards artist may make, and how many they must make to participate. What do we do if we do not get enough participants to get every card? What do we do if we require 4 cards/artist and someone does only 3 and then disappears from the internet? Personally I would like that each artist would make same amount of cards. Optimally one card / artist, but I understand that this might not be possible. How about doing it in sessions? For example, first session we open it up to the community, and we get 30 submissions which are accepted. 30 pixel artists with 1 submission each. Then we start the second session, and 15 artists make submissions. This leaves us with 10 cards (52+3=55) that need to be pixelled, so we start a third session. This would give many members time to participate, and prevents one quick hyper productive artist (Like Mrmo Tarius  ) from doing a whole suit before some people are even aware that we're doing this project. It also stops people from reserving too many cards, if we say that each session lasts X days, and when the time is up, unfinished cards are up for grabs in the next session.Originally posted by zch Here's another suggestion for the palette. Nice work. But wouldn't it make sense to keep the warm colours connected to the Hearts and Diamonds (being red), and the cool colours connected to the Spades and Clubs (being black?) It just seems strange to have Diamonds as blue, in my eyes.  Originally posted by Hapiel
Its not about the money, but it is just very hard to print a set of cards yourself. Even harder if you only want 1 copy. True. But really, there are 3 options: 1) Someone finds a company that will print and send a deck of cards to individual buyers. 2) Someone is willing to buy a large number of decks and make a small profit for the work laid down. 3) We make a PDF of whatever, and it's every man for himself. If no one steps up for 1 or 2, we're left with 3. |
Posted By: onek
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 5:24pm
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or someone could program some kind of 'solitaire' game including this very deck
come on ! that'd be nice! :D |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 5:32pm
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How about an online game of hearts or poker on PixelJoint, where PJ members could play each other, using this deck? That'd also be nice :) |
Posted By: onek
Date Posted: 17 October 2011 at 5:51pm
| dig it! |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 18 October 2011 at 2:17am
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Originally posted by onek or someone could program some kind of 'solitaire' game including this very deck come on ! that'd be nice! :D That's a real goal now. Let's do this! |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 20 October 2011 at 7:47am
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Originally posted by CELS How about an online game of hearts or poker on PixelJoint, where PJ members could play each other, using this deck? This is a good solution. Does anyone have a card game code or know how to go about getting one? If it were to be on PJ as a project or main link it would most likely need to be a Javascript or similar. I can double-check with Sedge if anything is found we can use before we proceed. It would be awesome if members can play online and a high-score database is included in the script. ------------- |
Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 20 October 2011 at 10:19pm
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A pixel-art pokersite would be nice! :D Just remembered I started a simple JavaScript-VideoPoker some years ago (planning a universal version of my old http://hem.fyristorg.com/dawnbringer/dvp/index.html - Amiga game )...but didn't have time to make my own cards yet, so I just "borrowed" some, from somewhere...Don't think it would take too much effort to make that script into a working little game (but hiscores & databases is not my thing). http://goto.glocalnet.net/richard_fhager/cards/ - Test it here : (reload to "play" again). |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 21 October 2011 at 5:44am
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That's a nice and simple game. Maybe only to simple? I am not code savvy but there are many opensource and/or free codes out there. If we have someone who can edit or adjust to make this work please speak up. I found http://worldofsolitaire.com/index-dev.html - THIS one which has many great features. Large images, several deck options, BGs etc. Its solitaire which is lame tho. http://gpokr.com/#P%20O%20K%20E%20R - THIS (http://gpokr.com/#P O K E R) shows a card game with a great feature. Player icons and data which would be awesome. Images are too small. http://online-card-game.opensourcescripts.com/ - Card code page where nothing makes sense to me So yea, this is not something I can handle :( ------------- |
Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 21 October 2011 at 6:02am
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That's a nice and simple game. Maybe only to simple? Hehe, that wasn't a game...just a test of the fundamental algorithms. There would be an interface, interactivity etc. Besides, there doesn't need to be ONE game...we could have whole selection of programs using the cards! |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 24 October 2011 at 6:07am
Got an idea on how to make the normally non illustrated cards: |
Posted By: Club Beuker
Date Posted: 25 October 2011 at 2:34am
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Join this, I want. ------------- Without me, it's just aweso |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 04 November 2011 at 10:45am
Question: why are we sticking to club/hearts/space/diamonds? Think out of the box! As long as we have 4 equally recognizable icons, the deck should work perfectly. Example:
 ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 04 November 2011 at 1:35pm
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Well, I guess it depends on what we're using the deck for. If it's only a game of online solitaire, then it doesn't matter if it's clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds, or pizzas, panties, pickles and parrots. But if we're using the cards in real life, or in an online game of poker, then I prefer having the traditional suits. That way, if two players have a straight flush, you don't have to go "Wait, do pickles beat panties?" |
Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 04 November 2011 at 1:51pm
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All suits are worth the same in poker, and the chance of two different suit straight-flushes in one hand is astronomical (and in Hold 'em impossible) ;)
But agreed, I'd prefer regular symbols too. Hopefully the beautiful art will be distracting enough on its own! :) |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 04 November 2011 at 3:24pm
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Doh! Well, there are some games where it matters. I'm sure some of the forum's old timers will be upset if they can't use this deck with their bridge buddies. |
Posted By: WolfKit
Date Posted: 08 December 2011 at 3:54pm
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Bump.
Unless anyone else has found any good on demand card printers, in the interest of getting to a point where actual designs for cards can be made shall we work wih the sizing from the site Hapiel found? (Which uses 300 dpi) https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/templates/cards/poker-cards - https://community.thegamecrafter.com/publish/templates/cards/poker-cards Does anyone else have any more ideas for suit themes? I understand that it is wanted to keep spades/clubs/hearts/diamonds, but we should be able to incorporate those elements into the art as in zch's post above. Also, I propose to decide palettes after theme is chosen. My suggestion for theme: Spades: Digital/Futuristic Hearts: Vegetation/Landscape Diamonds: Sky/Weather Clubs: Clockwork/Steampunk I have also collected all of the previously suggested themes: surt- -Magenta, Hearts, Good alignment, Natural world Yellow, Coins, Good alignment, Artificial world Cyan, Mushrooms, Evil alignment, Natural world Black, Skulls, Evil alignment, Artificial world MyO- -Pixels, Squares, Triangles and Circles -Spammers, Nerds, Fools, Newbies -Pencil, Pen, Floodfill, Dither zch- -Spades : purple / robots Hearts : red / pirates Diamonds : blue / ninjas Clubs : green / zombies & woodoo CELS- -Diamonds - Prehistoric Clubs - Medieval Hearts - Renaissance Spades - Modern -Diamonds - Coins Clubs - Clubs Hearts - Cups Spades - Swords -Diamonds - Fire Clubs - Earth Hearts - Water Spades - Air -clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds -pizzas, panties, pickles and parrots |
Posted By: ghostninja13
Date Posted: 19 December 2011 at 2:07pm
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oh, i have an idea SPADES-STEAMPUNK
HEARTS-NINJAS
DIAMONDS-FANTASY
CLUBS-ZOMBIES
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Posted By: whitewidget
Date Posted: 30 December 2011 at 7:17am
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Originally posted by CELS True. But really, there are 3 options: 1) Someone finds a company that will print and send a deck of cards to individual buyers. 2) Someone is willing to buy a large number of decks and make a small profit for the work laid down. 3) We make a PDF of whatever, and it's every man for himself. If no one steps up for 1 or 2, we're left with 3. CELS, I have another suggestion. A community driven effort can also benefit from a community driven funding source. Why not run it as a crowd-sourced Kickstarter campaign? I mean, we can raise funds and give copies as campaign rewards (just enough funds for it to be published). For this to happen, we first need an estimate of the exact costs of getting it printed. Running the campaign would be riskless, as if it fails, we don't need to print anything, but if it succeeds, we can pretty much send the money to whoever is responsible for getting in touch with the printing company. The printing company need not send it, as we would also be able to raise funds to cover logistics cost as well. Again, all should be planned well so that people get their exact money's worth (printing cost + delivery). After the campaign is finished and all copies produced through it are given out, we can have open a website that sells more copies, though the problem is that since it is community driven, its hard to say who should benefit from it. So my thoughts are: 1) each deck sold would give royalties to all artists involved 2) if no one wants royalties, copies sold post-fund-raising should be given to a charitable organization 3) or both :) I'm quite new here in pixeljoint and surely won't be submitting any of my own works (I'm a dev who joined to get in touch with pixel artists for collaborations). I just replied since I thought this solution could solve your problems. I can offer assistance in other ways. If you ever need help running a Kickstarter campaign, on how we can make it successful, or even just help with anything else outside of drawing the cards, I could help you as a way of giving back to this community. Like everyone, I don't want to get anything out of this, I'm just really interested in seeing this happen. |
Posted By: toysoldyours
Date Posted: 07 February 2012 at 11:16am
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if you run through the game crafter. you dont have to pay publishing cost. you just upload your design and each person pays for what they order. theres no min. its probably your best option. also for the number cards. theres tons of ways to use art to represent numbers. icons can be used. or just really good number art ( im a graffiti artist, i know.)
if this project is ever going to actually happen. you need a project manager. someone to call the shots. with 50 some ppl involved with the art, we cant be asking what everyone thinks all the time. find a high lvl active member and put them in charge. then everything bounces off them. also i wouldnt care too much about setting up games with the cards, when the cards arent even close to being done yet. i love the idea. ive wanted to do this sort of thing for a while. im not good enough at pixel to get involved too much though. im just a designer. but ill help with what i can. https://www.thegamecrafter.com/ the best way to go. check it out. comes with templates. |
Posted By: Vegard
Date Posted: 11 February 2012 at 2:08am
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I have a long term programming project going where I'm making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_whist - Romanian whist as an online multiplayer game using JavaScript on the client side (so it's playable in a browser), Node.JS on the server side, and WebSockets for communication. Here's a screenshot:  I didn't implement any of the rules of the game yet, just the user/lobby functionality for creating new games or joining existing games. This is a "weekend project", meaning I only work on it during weekends. But if anybody wants to join the programming side of it, be my guest. I had planned on releasing this under a free license anyway, when it was finished. |
Posted By: kevink
Date Posted: 06 March 2012 at 4:38am
| I would join a weekly like this! |