design

[kc2dpt]

I find the design of this game very natural and intuitive almost without exception. Both the dice colors and ability iconography work very well. My issue is with the monster colors. 

For one thing, we're using colors to represent two different things: dice type and monster level. For another, I don't find anything intuitive about mapping red/black/gold to 1/2/3 experience (XP). The closest I can think of for mapping three colors to the numbers 1/2/3 is bronze/silver/gold and those are terrible simply because bronze and gold are not visually distinct enough. 

I think instead we should consider a separate icon on the die to represent XP, maybe 1/2/3 dots (stars?) on the upper left or something similar.

The monster pictures could either be all one color (black?) or perhaps each monster could be a color which reflects it's related power (i.e. fire spell monsters are red) or perhaps their color is simply for flavor (orcs and slimes are green, just because).

If we're really gonna stick with color to represent XP, maybe we can find a better color scheme, something more intuitive. Green and blue are frequently used for safe while orange and red for danger so maybe something like green/blue/yellow/orange/red for easiest to hardest, with yellow/orange/red corresponding to 1/2/3 XP?

[griffinppatterson]

I think it's almost fine as it is, but I agree that having two colours for no XP is strange. It confused me for a good while while homebrewing dice.    

[matias.korman]

I agree with kc2dpt. The changes should be minor:

remember that the dragon has a skull & bones symbol signifying extra XP? how about we reserve the bottom left corner for the reward? skulls for XP, an open scroll for fame, and if desired we could add class reward (or anything else) to monsters in the same spot

This is in line to a previous comment I said that spells and monsters have the same white background (which should be avoided)

[kc2dpt]

That's a good point. We already have a symbol on some dice which give XP. That makes my point even stronger, I think: we've got both the color of the die AND an icon signifying XP, two different visual cues for the same category of information. 

I think theres a potential problem for dice to get too crowded with icons, but ont he other hand monster dice a physically bigger anyway, giving us more real-estate.

[griffinppatterson]

I think you might be mixing up XP with fame. I think all monsters give 1 XP, whether black, blue, red or what (unless otherwise specified with the skull). The red means that you gain 1 fame from killing it, the black means two fame for killing it and the gold means three for killing it. They are kept as trophies after battle partly to remind you of the epic kill you got (and the fame you got for it) but also in case you're a wizard (harry) and you would like to summon him back as a badass roll.

My only qualm about the colors for fame is that blue and green are both 1 fame. Why bother having them be different colours?

[Michael]

Do you mean blue and green are both 0 fame?

[Sam Coates]

The colors also indicate the different strength of a monster on a single die.  That is why a level 1 zombie is green and a level 2 zombie is blue, even thought neither give any fame.  Green is a cue that you've lucked out with an extremely wimpy monster.  I also prefer the visual symmetry.

[griffinppatterson]

I agree that the colors are not a real problem. I guess it's just sort of numerically silly, but artistically fine. two things worth zero fame shouldn't be different colors, but two things with different levels should, so it really doesn't matter.

[kc2dpt]

Your right, I confused XP and fame up there. Which means on a monster that gives extra XP, if we had an icon for fame then yeah we'd have a lot of icons on there. I might try to mock something up and see what it looks like.

[matias.korman]

Indeed the colors are not a MAJOR problem, but if there are small flaws, why not solving them?

-Why monster and spell dice use the same (white) background color? 

-Right now the bottom left corner is only used for skulls (in some monsters). Killing a monster gives you n+1 XP, where n is the number of skulls he has. Why not make it n and add a skull to all monsters?

-Right now you get 1 fame for killing a red monster , 2 for black, 3 for gold and 0 for either blue and green. Why not create a new symbol for fame and add it to the bottom left corner? Also, use a more standard pattern of colors like green-blue-red-brown-black?

Indeed all changes are minor, but why shouldn't they be introduced?

[Jordan Johnston]

Lets keep in mind that any alterations to the design that makes them more complicated may drive additional production costs. This isn't a problem for the print and play community, but could be an issue for full scale production. I feel the system currently works. If you run into significant confusion during play testing, then it might drive a change, but let's try to be realistic.

[griffinppatterson]

I think once you see how cluttered a die face can get, you'll look for ways to simplify the faces. I thought the boss dragon was almost too much. no need to flll all the corners

[Sam Coates]

We've tried different colors for the monsters and spells, but haven't found a good solution.  What do you recommend?

[kc2dpt]

You originally had purple for the spells and I had commented that the grey icons on the purple background was illegible. I had thought maybe you'd try a lighter purple like lilac.

[Sam Coates]

Yes, we've tried a few colors, for the monsters and the spells.  In general, the colors just don't look as good without a white background.  I'll look into any suggestions.  The overall decision was that is wouldn't matter once the dice are different sizes.

[seb.borchert]

The color is not a major problem yet. I have to develop lots of reports in my job and my first reports contained lots of colored numbers, like red for negative and green for positive. I changed it very fast because so many peopel are color-blind!!! And they can´t differentiate between green, red, even orange and blue could be mixed up, if the lines are to thin! Keep that in mind!

 

The strength of a monster is shown by the number of it´s combat dice, no urgent reason for differntiate between green and blue for 0 fame! In my test rounds we looked up the amount of fame on the printed monster sheet... may be we have to add some simple signs which doesn´t overcharge the dice...

 

May be simple dots ?!

[griffinppatterson]

I guess seb would be right that it would be difficult for colorblind people, but there have to be some other games out there that have this same problem. I know it is awful, but not everyone can win. I mean, people who don't know english wouldn't be able to learn the rules. Blind people can't play. People with no arms can't play. I'm a terrible person, but life sucks. Am I right or am I right or am I right?

[seb.borchert]

You´re right ;-)

 

But at this point you can take care of the color-blind if you wish... I played the game one time with bad light conditions, and it was a bit annoying, to find out which color is shown.

 

By the way, I don´t won´t to play the game with blind, which can FEEL which die they are drawing! Think about it ;-)

[kc2dpt]

In poor light conditions, differentiating between a blue monster and a black monster is difficult.

[Sam Coates]

This is a printer issue.  We will use a brighter blue in production.

 

This is one concern of mine with changing colors to something more intuitive.  For example, orange to red to black would require very destinct orange and red colors.  Brown and black might be similar as well.  It comes down tot he inks (or paints) used in some cases.

[kc2dpt]

You are right. Orange and red would be terrible. Yellow would be bad against a white background.

[Sam Coates]

Right.  I'm still waiting to see if someone comes up with a better scheme. 

 

I think red=danger works, and black=death works.  However, when I wanted to go a step further, only gold stood out to me as a clearly "superior" color.  Any new scheme would likely need to come up with something weaker than red that still feels dangerous.  Green and blue don't accomplish that in my eyes.

[griffinppatterson]

I don't really think you're going to get anything better. I know green and blue don't work terrifically, but your only step down from red is orange and that is too close between red and gold. Both the green and the blue are kind of weak levels anyways, so I don't see a problem with keeping them where they are. I know everyone is moaning about the low light situations, but we're just looking for problems. I don't think anyone's going to say "I didn't like this game because I couldn't tell the difference between blue and green when I was playing this in the basement with the lights off."

[seb.borchert]

Somebody said bronze, silver, gold as metallic color... for printing is this no issue, but it could be nice for the produced dice, or?

 

Griffin you´re right, we whine on high level ;-)