What makes a good fantasy card game?

Collectible Card Games (CCG) and Trading Card Games (TGC) are getting more and more common. The last decade has proved to be wonderful ten years for the card game industry. Lots of games have been produced.

But when there are lots of games, there are also more and more not-so-good games being published. The problem with most games today are two things:

First – and most common and actually the most severe problem – is that the games have complicated and difficult rules. Complex rule systems tend to drag games into long rule discussions instead of fun game play. Lacking fun and action, also means that the game soon will lose its power – and its players.

Complicated games are made, usually, by companies that don't put enough work into the game developement. Instead, they focus on the commercial campaign, or the franchise – if the game is linked to one.

This adds many problems. First, of course, the game becomes difficult to get into. If tt's hard for the player to understand the rules, it will take longer time for the players to actually start the game. Second, it adds confusion during game play. Confusion during game play leads to mistakes, and that draws the fun out from the game itself.

But worst is that the most complex games usually have drawbacks in their own rules, since they usually have contradicting rules or rules that are made just to counter other rules – rules for the rules sake.

The second big problem that many card games have is the design. Also here, complex design is not the best. On the contrary – even if it might look great on the first glance, complicated lay-out and design usually means that the game play is slowed down due to difficulties to find value indicators, rules and text. A cluttered design means a cluttered game.

Today, many game factories publish their crads with a simple Times New Roman font in hope that it is the most readable text they can produce. Where it might look good – and read well – in a newspaper printed on low quality paper, it is not necissarily the best choice for a card game.

Instead, it is usually better to go for a straight font, similar to Futura, Helvetica or Gill Sans. This might look boring during the work process – but usually you end up with a card that is much more readable in a quick look – and that is what we are after.

Card games today can reach from a few cards up to the hundreds! No one can keep track of 500 cards, so the cards needs to have a neat and proper layout that works as effectivly as the rules.

The new fantasy card game from Xemytica™, ”Fate of Heroes”, is one of these action-packed games that uses a minimalistic design that works very well together with the rules. Instead of a clutted lay-out, these cards are clean and easily read. All important rules and values are placed in the corners – as that is the place where it most easy to focus quickly on a game card.

Pictures and rule text are placed in the middle, and the rule text is carefully layouted using the Gill Sans font in bold, normal or italic – each for each own purpose! The bold is only used for value modifications, normal for rules and italic for flavor text.

A really great fantasy card game is made by a game company who understands that simplicity is the foundation for success, but a great fantasy card game is only created together with its players. The players are very important to fully understand what cards are good – and which are not.

When picking up your next card game, check extra carefully on how complex the rules and design are. Chances are that the game will just be that: complicated, and not fun.

Card games are supposed to be fun. So get yourself a great game – and have fun!