Everything on the Decklab blog tagged “printing”: practical advice on making your own card game.
Blurry cards, enormous files and art that doesn't fit all come from getting pixels and millimetres mixed up. Here's how DPI works, what size your card images should be, and when 150, 300 or 600 DPI makes sense.
· 4 min read
Cards that don't fit their sleeves, boards whose pieces don't meet, tokens that miss the punch. Almost always it's the print dialog quietly scaling your page. Here's how to check your printer in two minutes and fix it for good.
· 4 min read
Plenty of card games need a board to play on: a map, a track or a battlefield. Here's how to choose between hexes and squares, size the cells, print a board bigger than your paper, and put it together.
· 4 min read
Tokens carry more of a game's information than most designers notice. Here's how to choose shapes and sizes, design tokens players read at a glance, and print and cut a full sheet at home.
· 4 min read
White slivers on the edge of a card, or text that's been half cut off, both come from the same three lines. Here's what bleed, trim and the safe zone mean, how big each should be, and how to set up your cards so every cut looks clean.
· 4 min read
A deck box that's a millimetre too tight is useless, and one that's too loose rattles. Here's how to size, print, cut and fold a tuck box for your prototype, sleeved or not.
Card size changes how your game reads, shuffles, packs and prints. Here's what each common size is good for, the exact dimensions, and how to decide before you design a single card.
· 4 min read
Paper, printer settings, cut marks, backs and sleeves. Everything you need to turn a card game file into a deck you can shuffle, using a home printer and an evening.
· 4 min read
Most indie studios overspend on polish before they've proved the mechanics work. Here's how to prototype on a small budget without the cards looking so rough that the feedback stops being useful.
· 4 min read
