Since I didn’t manage to recreate the digital version of the game in playingcards.io, for the playtest I have to make the physical cards first. Being a game artist, this is the part I’m most comfortable and familiar with. I don’t think this step requires much documenting and describing since it’s not the main focus of the course, so I’ll mention it briefly.
I wanted to attach the style to the time and styles, popular at the time of the novel, which is the end of 19th century. We’re talking about opera atmosphere, wealth, art nouveau, balls and masquarades. Thus during experimenting I decided to take turn to art deco instead to give it some modernity. Classic colour scheme is gold, red and dark brown. So I based my design on these references.
I had to create 9 artworks for all 7 types of cards + 2 card backs (for regular and bonus cards)
I printed them out afterwards and the full set of cards was ready. Though it took additional time to make, it worked out as actual printing test which was more than successfull. I personally recommend double-side printing on a thick paper ~ 300 or more gsm, so that players won’t need to glue back and front together as I had to.
The whole set of cards required 4 pages for the standart size poker card, which is 88.9×63.5 mm
So the printing test went well and the game is ready for playtesting. By that time I have designed the rule set, which, hopefully, won’t need major changes after the playtest.