I love the game, and have a suggestion for future printings: I think the readability of the cards can be improved with the use of more icons to stand in for text that tends to be repeated often. In the same way that Magic: the Gathering cards eventually added the “tap” symbol rather than typing out the word “tap” all the time, many cards can be made less verbose with icons. Examples:
Use an icon to indicate the start/end of each of the hero/villain/environment turns. So for example, a card that currently reads “at the start of the villain turn play a card” can be made to read “[SV] Play a card”, with "[SV] being the icon for the start of the villain turn. When you’ve got lots of cards on the table and you’re scanning them quickly to find all the “start of the villain turn” effects, this would make them easier to pick out, especially if, say, all the start icons were some shade of green and all the end icons were some shade of blue. That way when the villain turn starts, you just scan all the cards on the table for a green “S” icon and you’re good to go.
Use an icon to substitute for “the hero with the highest hp” and “the hero with the lowest hp”. Possibly an upward- or downward-facing arrow with an “H”, “V”, or “E” inside the arrow to indicate what kind of target it’s referring to (possibly use a “*” to indicate any target). So for example, text that currently says “Baron Blade deals 2 fire damage to the hero target with the highest hp” could be reduced to “Baron Blade deals 2 [H-uparrow] fire damage”. Much more concise.
Use an icon to indicate each damage type. So text that currently says “this card deals 3 toxic damage” would simply read “this card deals 3 [T]”.
Combine all three, and you’ve got a card that used to say (as a made-up example): “At the start of the villain turn, Baron Blade deals 3 toxic damage to the hero with the highest hp and 1 fire damage to the hero with the lowest hp” is transmogrified into “[SV] Baron Blade deals 3 [T] [H-uparrow] and 1 [F] to [H-downarrow]”, substituting my bracketed text with the actual icons themselves. I think the shortened version is just as understandable and is much more readable, especially when you’re quickly scanning a table full of various cards.
I think it’s really interesting to see the split among people who would prefer icons and those who were happy they didn’t have to learn a new set of symbols. I personally lean towards more text, but I do see what you mean about scanning a table full of cards. I don’t think either one in inherently better. I think it depends on your gaming preference and Experience.
I also think it can be hard to find that design balance between simplifying text with a few symbols and needing a glossary to decipher what the cards mean
I think if something like this happened I’d hope to see it very limited. End of Turn and Beginning of Turn are really the only ones I could justify actually needing it.
The powers are simple, but they’re very verbose. Because there’s nothing easy for your eyes to pick out, you’ve basically got to re-read the full text on each card on the table (especially bad for minion-heavy villains like Voss) each round until you’ve memorized each one. I’m surprised that others seem to prefer all that text, but I can see it must be a preference thing.
It’s an interesting idea. I think it would actually be helpful if ‘start of villain turn’ and ‘end of villain turn’ text were a different color from the rest of the card. The original poster is right, it’d make scanning the villain’s popcorn much quicker.
Interesting, I didn’t realize it was really a problem for anyone. We read the cards fully when they first some out, and then just scan through the cards quickly after that. It only takes a couple seconds unless you have an outrageous number of cards out.
I am of the same mind, I never noticed there was a problem with reviewing the cards at the start/end of each Villain and Environment turns.Especially if there is one person that handles all those phases (its usually me ).
I like the idea of icons only if they are intuitive. If anyone can, for the first time playing, look at a card containing said icons and immediately know what they mean without having to check any reference material, then it would be great, it would clean up text clutter, would quickly draw attention to the important areas quicker, and would make the effects of the card much simpler to comprehend. However, making an intuitive icon set even for trivial operations is a very difficult operation, and most attempts would likely be the opposite.
I think it’s better without symbols. It makes it easier to get new players, as they can just read what the card it suppose to do. Instead of reading it, then finding the symbol in the book, and reading what it does. Though I can see the benefit of symbols for veteran players.
That’s my point exactly. In nearly all cases, icons will confuse people who haven’t memorized them, which make them unintuitive. The reason most symbols will be unintuitive is because trying to come up with some icon and expeciting anyone to know exactly what it represents is nearly impossible. In fact, I can’t think of a single icon to replace any common text that someone can look at an know exactly what it means without looking it up at least once. Now, if that could be done, it would be great. But I doubt it’s anywhere remotely possible to create such an intuitive icon set. I would say it’s impossible, but such a phrase is almost never true.
Just want to throw my two cents out there. I personally prefer text over icons. Personally there aren’t too many games that actually benefit to icons, unless it is in the top corner and is referenced in other cards that state “cards of [type] deal x damage” which is best for games that have a massive amount of cards that any character can use. For sentinels since each character has their own decks and thus own powers, it is fairly easy to know “oh i’m playing Bunker so i’ll do a lot of projectile damage and some fire” or Ra where it is all fire all the time, unless you throw the staff of Ra of course.
I have to say, I LOVE this discussion. Adam, Paul, and I went through a very similar discussion early on in the development process of the game, and we ultimately decided against icons (with the exception of Hero icons used for the Nemesis rule). We made this decision, because we wanted the game to be very accessible, even to non-gamer sorts. I play plenty of games rife with icons and keywords (another thing we avoided) and I don’t mind them at all. I totally understand why they exist, and I think, when used well, they are a good thing. However, there are plenty of fans of this game for whom this is their first foray into tabletop gaming. We knew this would be the case because the comic-book heroes theme draws from outside the normal gaming circle - in fact, many die-hard tabletop gamers are driven away by the theme as they associate it with games made to hit a certain marketing point: many will disagree with me, but I, personally, do not like ANY of the large established comic-book company’s board or card games. I find them all awful. Thus, this game was created.
Anyway! We decided against icons, which did make the cards rather full of text. We felt when we made the decision, and still feel, that making it so the rulebook is referenced as little as possible is best, and that means putting the bulk of the rules on the cards themselves. If this is a hindrance to some, so be it. That was not our intention, and we apologize. But we still go through this same set of thoughts whenever designing new cards. Yes, icons would make things considerably more concise. It is a constant struggle. So! As I started this long post with, I am THRILLED to see people going back and forth on this exact issue. We do the same thing all the time over here.
And for the TL:DR crowd? I love this forum. You guys are great.
One thing that I could see working would be moving the text around the card like how some games have symbols… for example, the hit points are in the top right and then the damage amount and type could be below that, then text for the more complicated mechanics (as in Blood, Sweat and Tears). That sort of thing to make scanning the table easier. But then again, until I tried it, I don’t know if it would actually be any easier.
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