Character Creation

Receiving really amazing art is definitely one of the most exciting parts of developing Destined Legends. Arguably, the art is what gives this universe its life and overall identity. 

Last week we revealed the first piece of official artwork for the game, the main character of Destined Legends, Roslynn. She is a runaway princess that is now making her living as a hired hand. The circumstances of her exodus begin to catch up to her as she is suspected of being chosen by the Dragon guardians to be Legend of the elements: A chosen few, bestowed with the powers of the elements to guide and protect humanity.

I began my conversation with the artist Scott Ferguson with a few sentences similar in gist to the above. I also provided him with some ideas about her general appearance and figure. Here is an excerpt from the initial email I sent him. 

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I know many of you have been wondering about DL’s gameplay. Well wonder no more. In this video documentary we outline the basic concepts of gameplay for Destined Legends. Hopefully this proves to give you a better idea of how the game works in a general sense.

Here is the first official character for Destined Legends. Her name is Roslynn and she is a Legend of the Dark Element. Not only that, but also the main character of the franchise. This is the first piece for our game done by Scott ferguson of Nerf This and Scout Crossing. He is slated to do all of our character (Legend) cards. I can’t wait to show you more of our art. We also threw it on the main Decobot site. This is pretty exciting for us because the game finally has a visual identity… and a pretty amazing one at that! 
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Here is the first official character for Destined Legends. Her name is Roslynn and she is a Legend of the Dark Element. Not only that, but also the main character of the franchise.

This is the first piece for our game done by Scott ferguson of Nerf This and Scout Crossing. He is slated to do all of our character (Legend) cards. I can’t wait to show you more of our art.

We also threw it on the main Decobot site. This is pretty exciting for us because the game finally has a visual identity… and a pretty amazing one at that! 

Our water deck: “Cohesion” is pretty rad so far. #games #fun #ipad #design #art #cards #gallery
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Our water deck: “Cohesion” is pretty rad so far. #games #fun #ipad #design #art #cards #gallery

The game is definitely getting more exciting with even temporary artwork! #fun #gallery #cards #iphone #design #tcg (Taken with instagram)
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The game is definitely getting more exciting with even temporary artwork! #fun #gallery #cards #iphone #design #tcg (Taken with instagram)

Just some package design for Destined Legends. #iphoneography #tcg #gallery #iphone #Hudson #design #packaging (Taken with instagram)
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Just some package design for Destined Legends. #iphoneography #tcg #gallery #iphone #Hudson #design #packaging (Taken with instagram)

Here is the First ViDoc for Destined Legends: Trading Card Game. The game will be debuting Summer 2012 and these Video Documentaries will chronicle the developmental journey. 

This first video kicks things off with a sneak peek into the card design process. The card in this video is one our main character cards called “Legend Cards.” Watch as I redesign the cards 4th revision, taking into consideration changes to gameplay mechanics.

We’re planning on a diverse range of topics for these ViDocs, but comment below with what sorts of topics you’d like us to cover. Also be sure to follow all of our updates at twitter.com/destinedlegends or destinedlegends.net.

Music Credits:

“Trailer Music” by Jan Morgenstern

“Movement Proposition,” ”Five Armies,” ”Private Reflection,” and ”Truth of The Legend” by Kevin MacLeod

Weapon Cards! I want to talk more about the process of designing the game mechanics. However, I realized that is very difficult without first revealing the weapon cards. This is how the game was born. At its inception, the core mechanic of the game was “ability cards.” You would draw an ability and attach it to your player. They would range is effect, strength, and element. Through the process of developing the game, those “ability cards” became the weapon cards of Destined Legends. These cards define what your Legends (party members) can do during battle. They define almost your entire element’s strategy. Based off of the sorts of abilities each weapon has, you arrange the rest of your deck to play along well.  Each weapon card is comprised of 1 or 2 different abilities. The roll of a die is necessary to determine which ability you can use. I have to be purposefully vague about how they work, but I hope to be able to reveal more about the specifics closer to launch. Take a second to look through the cards above and review their abilities. Getting the gist of these cards and some of the verbiage down will help in future discussions of the game.  I also decided to go ahead and use the latest design of the cards. Its really more for us to able to see them whenever/wherever we want. It aches to see the cards sans artwork. I can’t want to start talking about our plans for that aspect of development. I hope we’ve revealed enough to get you guys excited. Let us know how you feel about these cards. Also, what would you like us to talk about in future posts? What are you interested in learning about? 
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Weapon Cards!

I want to talk more about the process of designing the game mechanics. However, I realized that is very difficult without first revealing the weapon cards. This is how the game was born. At its inception, the core mechanic of the game was “ability cards.” You would draw an ability and attach it to your player. They would range is effect, strength, and element. Through the process of developing the game, those “ability cards” became the weapon cards of Destined Legends. These cards define what your Legends (party members) can do during battle. They define almost your entire element’s strategy. Based off of the sorts of abilities each weapon has, you arrange the rest of your deck to play along well. 

Each weapon card is comprised of 1 or 2 different abilities. The roll of a die is necessary to determine which ability you can use. I have to be purposefully vague about how they work, but I hope to be able to reveal more about the specifics closer to launch. Take a second to look through the cards above and review their abilities. Getting the gist of these cards and some of the verbiage down will help in future discussions of the game. 

I also decided to go ahead and use the latest design of the cards. Its really more for us to able to see them whenever/wherever we want. It aches to see the cards sans artwork. I can’t want to start talking about our plans for that aspect of development.

I hope we’ve revealed enough to get you guys excited. Let us know how you feel about these cards. Also, what would you like us to talk about in future posts? What are you interested in learning about? 

[UPDATE: EXPANDED] I thought it would be cool to give you guys a peek at our design process. Our initial concept was to get a very clean design. We had a pretty good grasp on the basic mechanics back then so the design was pretty decent.  The first revision includes more of the official mechanics and design elements of the final game. I decided to change the background color to the color of the element because the white made the card feel too empty. I wanted to really show the art of the design as much as possible, and we ended up liking the color background much more. The weapon and armor slots were also changed from numbers to symbols for a more unique look, and again also adding more graphical production value. The addition of skills also made us shorten the artwork window a bit, but they are still longer than all other types of card in the game. Also added were copyright and credit info at the bottom. The second revision is a refinement of the concept. I began the design from scratch with the mindset of “redesigning the card.” I pretended that our first revision had been out in the market for 5 years or something, and that it was time for the “update in design”. I have to say I’m really happy with it. The latest design features the official color palette. I spent a long time looking at reference photos and art online for successful multicolor pieces. A rainbow paIette proved to be the most challenging. We knew we wanted vibrant saturated colors, but I didn’t want to just grab the standard “crayon box” colors. Another requisite for the palette was that it needed to play nice with textures, and also be compatible with white and black backgrounds. I think we achieved a really great result in the end. Check our earlier posts for a peek at the full palette. I also worked to push the design to maximize space and lower the appearance of “wasted space” that so many card games suffer from today. I achieved this by getting rid of borders around objects, and widening the artwork right up against the bleed. This ended up giving us a cleaner, more modern look. I realized that when cards are stacked in a deck and facing up, if the cards have different colored borders, you can see those colors stacked. I realized that this may lead to potential awareness of what cards you would be drawing, so I implemented a consistent dark grey bleed around all cards. I have to say that I adds a lot, design wise, to the cards. It makes the cards seem more complete, as well as tightening up the overall layout.  Leave your thoughts in our new comment section below. I’m curious to get your reactions.
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[UPDATE: EXPANDED]

I thought it would be cool to give you guys a peek at our design process. Our initial concept was to get a very clean design. We had a pretty good grasp on the basic mechanics back then so the design was pretty decent. 

The first revision includes more of the official mechanics and design elements of the final game. I decided to change the background color to the color of the element because the white made the card feel too empty. I wanted to really show the art of the design as much as possible, and we ended up liking the color background much more. The weapon and armor slots were also changed from numbers to symbols for a more unique look, and again also adding more graphical production value. The addition of skills also made us shorten the artwork window a bit, but they are still longer than all other types of card in the game. Also added were copyright and credit info at the bottom.

The second revision is a refinement of the concept. I began the design from scratch with the mindset of “redesigning the card.” I pretended that our first revision had been out in the market for 5 years or something, and that it was time for the “update in design”. I have to say I’m really happy with it. The latest design features the official color palette. I spent a long time looking at reference photos and art online for successful multicolor pieces. A rainbow paIette proved to be the most challenging. We knew we wanted vibrant saturated colors, but I didn’t want to just grab the standard “crayon box” colors. Another requisite for the palette was that it needed to play nice with textures, and also be compatible with white and black backgrounds. I think we achieved a really great result in the end. Check our earlier posts for a peek at the full palette.

I also worked to push the design to maximize space and lower the appearance of “wasted space” that so many card games suffer from today. I achieved this by getting rid of borders around objects, and widening the artwork right up against the bleed. This ended up giving us a cleaner, more modern look. I realized that when cards are stacked in a deck and facing up, if the cards have different colored borders, you can see those colors stacked. I realized that this may lead to potential awareness of what cards you would be drawing, so I implemented a consistent dark grey bleed around all cards. I have to say that I adds a lot, design wise, to the cards. It makes the cards seem more complete, as well as tightening up the overall layout. 

Leave your thoughts in our new comment section below. I’m curious to get your reactions.