❖ Version History ❖

1st of July – 1st of October 2021
As we continue on from the previous story in the Design Journal, we have been talking about utilizing textures in the color design of the cards. Previously, we were using wood textures to not only capture some warm earthy colors, but also to add shading and depth to the lettering, symbols, and numbers of the cards. But… there was something important about this texture: it created a great simple background color for the small spaces, but it was terrible at adding textured depth to large areas of the card itself and made everything look blurry.

So, the question becomes: “is it even possible to capture a texture that can make a strong visual presence on the card, but not distract the eye from the gameplay details?”

As you have seen in our visual examples through the story, of course the answer is yes.
… But why? What makes this other woodgrain texture better?

Well. Lets take a look at it… but first, remember what we had previously:

Shown above here we have the first woodgrain texture used to capture the lettering.

And down below we have the second woodgrain texture.

Can you identify what detail makes it a better texture to use?

If you can even believe it, the detail that matters the most in using this second texture is the fact that it has an increased number of darker grain lines with less detail between the lines. This darker and more obvious linework allows us to do a pretty unique and clever trick with digital photo editing:

By altering elements such as opacity, highlights, brightness, and exposure, while using some filter effects, it is possible to isolate mostly the lines of the woodgrain and nearly separate them from the rest of the background visually. If done correctly, you can then take what is left of your original grain image and blend it into a matte color. When finished, this is how I ended up with the blend of color and texture that makes up the background of each and every card in Calendra.

During this phase of the design, it took a lot of effort to find colors that were similar to our original color pallets once blended with the textures. Everything about the color pallets shifted slightly from the original content of Calendra’s first printed prototype, and some colors shifted dramatically just to hone in on the overall aesthetic. The most obvious examples of which would be the background color of the Summer and the Ferric cards, I mean, just look at what Summer used to look like versus it’s new iteration:

Though overall the concept of what went on in this journal entry is fairly basic, it is drastically different than what we were doing with our other grain texture. I think it is cool to consider the idea that the only major difference visually to the two cards pictured above are two photographs of wood that have been spliced apart into 100 pieces that were then used for three totally different methods of graphical editing. The difference is astounding…

But there is still more work to be done on these cards before we are finished… So be sure to stop back in at the Librarium Games Design Journal soon to see how things continue to develop!