A first look at the Cards

I have my first prototype of what the Cards will look like so wanted to share it with you.

The new Hotness!

It has taken a lot longer than I originally thought, partially because of work monopolizing my time, all the gaming I have done over the Holidays, and the complexity that my Data Sets have taken on.  In addition, while working on creating the new Data Sets, I became unhappy with some of the Event Cards.  I have been struggling with how to make the old Event Cards, which only affected an individual player, work on a Global Scale to affect all players evenly.  Many of the Cards just didn't work, so I had to scrap them and create new ones.  Some of the ones I kept needed to have their mechanics changed.  

The Deadly Storm.

The Storm Cards were the most problematic Events.  Where they once just hit a single player, they now needed to affect an area.  I played around with dividing the map into 3 section, north center, and south.  To make it simple I even thought about making Storms affect the whole map, but this felt cheep.  Instead I choose to use the same mechanic that I use on a lot of Event Cards.  Draw a Cargo Card to choose a random city and then any ship up to 2 spaces from the city at the end of the round will receive damage.  This lets players avoid the area and escape it if they happen to be caught in the area when the storm hits.  This way, if a player takes damage from a storm, in most cases it will be their choice if they want to risk the storm.

The Pirate Bounty, a dangerous way to make some extra cash. 

To complete the Data Sets I needed to include the pointers to the Images that will be on the cards.  Once I had the place holders for the images, I couldn't stand looking at the empty Data Sheet "Fill Space" where the image would be placed when the Data was called.  So I got to work on inserting the image references into the Data Sets.  Even with the much faster process for creating the Art Images, it is very time consuming trying to find images that fit the theme and time period, and are free and/or Public Domain.  This is why it is always good to make a game themed to a fictional setting so you don't need to worry about being historically inaccurate. 

This photo for Ship Upgrades does not look right and will be changing.

It is very difficult to find images that fit for the cards I need to represent.  It has forced me to choose a few images I am not happy about and will be changing the first chance I get.  This image doesn't fit the other images because its built from a photograph.  This is one of the images I will change when I find a suitable replacement.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

I have been working on a combination of Game Designs for the latest version of Taipan and new Art.  I have to admit that the Art is derailing me a bit and keeping me from getting my cards printed.  But since I don't have the time to organize and play my game this week, it's not that big of a deal.


I have added a new Debt system to Taipan that should make for a clearer Win Condition for the game.  Players must return to Hong Kong to pay off the 50 Coin of Debt they start the game with. The first player to pay off all their Debt ends the game.  The player who has the most Money and is Debt Free, wins.

I have created Coin Art for a 1,5 and 10 Coin.  I also have the Debt Coins made (The red one on the Right).  I searched for a while to find coins that were minted close to the same time the game is set.  I think the Silver Coin was the only one that was not made in the same time period (about 40 years later).  Also, the Debt Coin is not a Coin at all. It's a Wall Plaque that was created in the same time period.

In addition, I have been experimenting with paintings from the same time period (1750-1850) to try out some different ideas for what the final card images will look like.  It's very hard to get them all to match perfectly.  The art from that era was all so different from one another.  Also, there really isn't a lot that survived very well.  Much of it is too dark or too damaged to modify and ends up looking bad after I do my process to them.

 The Rebellion City Modifier Card

This will be one of the City Cards

This will be ether a Storm or Wrecked Ship Event Card.

I am playing with some textures to make them look like they are painted on rough canvas, but those are not ready to show yet.  I have a lot more images as well, but I will save those for another day.  I hope to have a sample card ready to show some time this week, depending on free time.  I am also going to get one last night of gaming in tomorrow.  We are supposed to play Automobiles, so I will have an update about that tomorrow or the next day.