Super Mario Card ideas

[Koopaul]

Hey there I was throwing around ideas and I edited my mock up Mario Card. I thought it would be neat if every card had a different color theme based on the character.



I don't know... Doesn't look so good. Maybe I should just stick with giving every card the same colors? Also, maybe this topic should be moved to the "Creativity" section instead of the "Gaming" section?

[Kosheh]

Actually, you'd be impressed on how much better the card would look if you gave it a solid border. Like. It looks good, but literally just add a border and it'll look even better. Like don't change the embossed borders it has now or anything. Just add a border.

Yellow border.

Black border.

Some weird glow border that doesn't look good in photos (but gives it a "worn" look)

This is just me here, but I'd suggest doing colored borders by their affiliation within the game's plot - but keep it simple. i.e. Mario, Yoshi, Rosalina, etc. have white borders as they're good guys and Bowser, Tatanga, Wario, Goombas, etc. have yellow borders as they're antagonists.

[Koopaul]

Why would an antagonists have yellow borders?

Erm... Thank you, I will add borders and see how it looks.

[Omega]

Oh yeah, I remember there was this one Mario forum that tried out a Mario TCG idea. Yours is actually p.similar to it lol

[Kosheh]

Why would an antagonists have yellow borders?

Erm... Thank you, I will add borders and see how it looks.

Well, when I look at literally any enemy in a Mario game, they've always got yellow in their design, be it their scales (Bowser), skintone (Koopa Troopas), or even shoe soles (Goomba). If you had like an "elemental" type of some sort going on, red/yellow, green/yellow or even black/yellow wouldn't look too bad.

The Mushroom Kingdom characters on the contrary all have white in their character designs (the exception being maybe the princesses) but like, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, the Toad people, heck even Baby Mario has white in there somewhere. Even the...orange dinosaur thing (Plessie?)


Also I feel like Gill Sans Bold would do wonders for the card print but that's just me

[Kriven]

The Princess' have white gloves... Rosalina's crown is silver...

But this changes when you get into the larger pool of characters, like RPG supporting characters and Kongs.

[Jermungandr]

But the Bowser logo is literally always red, or black on red.



So you gotta assume that that's the color that Bowser associates with himself ... and that Nintendo associates with him.

In my personal opinion, I'd say use red for the bad guys, and yellow for the good guys. Mario & Pals be all about that gold after all. Gold coins, gold crowns, gold stars.

Green would be a good color for power-ups, a reference to 1ups, flowers, and yoshi eggs. Or perhaps just green for healing items, and another color for offensive items? Orange would be a good reference to Mario's fireballs, feathers, the leaf power-up in modern games, and even the carrot from SML2 (the only issue being that orange might be too similar to red). Blue or Brown would be good choices for equipable items, as a reference to Mario's boots or overalls.


Also, I think the solid color around the edge serves another purpose than just making the cards look good in IRL card games. It also makes it difficult to tell what kinds of cards are located where in your deck when viewing the deck from the side or an angle. Have you ever looked at the side of a deck of cards that do not have uniform borders, and notice that all the different colors are visible on the edge? I think it's probably a safety measure to keep people from cutting the deck in their favor.

[Kosheh]

But the Bowser logo is literally always red, or black on red.



So you gotta assume that that's the color that Bowser associates with himself ... and that Nintendo associates with him.

oh



is



that



so???

I see a lot of greens and oranges - even yellow associated with Bowser. Y'know, the colors that actually exist on the character.

There's the red-on-black Bowser logo, but there's also the red-on-white associated with Mario's insignia on his cap. With the same argument, you could easily suggest "white" for the protagonists and "black" for the antagonists - the general balance of good and evil. But then you also have the neutral characters of the series like Wario, his brother Waluigi, Donkey Kong, etc. Which only kinda complicates this. :/

Also, I think the solid color around the edge serves another purpose than just making the cards look good in IRL card games. It also makes it difficult to tell what kinds of cards are located where in your deck when viewing the deck from the side or an angle. Have you ever looked at the side of a deck of cards that do not have uniform borders, and notice that all the different colors are visible on the edge? I think it's probably a safety measure to keep people from cutting the deck in their favor.

Actually, this is probably the best argument for keeping one solid color among the entire deck - not changing them up for character alliances, card types or even rarities or expansions. It'd too easily give away what your next draw is going to be to your opponent. Keeping a consistent colored border amongst the cards (or heck, any border) gives less information to either player what you're playing.

Though, to be fair I think usually when you're drawing cards, the deck points downward - therefore you're only going to see the BACK of the card half the time. 





idk you might wanna poll some TCG playing friends and see what works best in terms of border colors??? White, black or yellow would work fine IMO

[Jermungandr]

Well he could use a uniform-color border around the edge and still use alliance-based color-themes for the main card background. That's how Pokemon does it, don't they? Theme-colored backdrop colors with uniform yellow borders? (never played a pokemon card game so that's just a guess from what I've seen).

[Koopaul]

Yeah I'm thinking about giving everyone the same colored border but different background colors based on the individual character (like Pokemon). I think I'll use a yellow border to match the yellow item block color.

[Jermungandr]

Random idea: If you're making the backs of the cards look like gold ?-blocks, maybe make the border of the flipped card look like a "punched" block? You know, brown with the bolts in the corners? Giving the impression that flipping the card over is effectively like punching the block.

[Koopaul]

Well I'm already using the ? Blocks for where the writing is in the card. So if I did that I would have to change that too. Maybe I should just start over from scratch, implementing your idea.

[Koopaul]

Here, I'm experimenting with different styles. What do you think of the new font I'm using? It's the Paper Mario 2 font.



I wasn't sure what to do with the background so I kinda just made some red splotches.

[Jermungandr]

I like it. The font adds a lot of personality. I am 100% behind this current design.