Some criticism about the design of the board (long, effort post)
Note: I don't think the current board is that bad, I would probably still enjoy the game, I just think it has HUGE potential.
I made this post because I think the board could stand to improve on some things. Let's look at the gwent board: https://www.playgwent.com/img/screen...explored.3.jpg
I think the cold, neutral coloured theme does not work well with gwent, and the witcher world. It just overall looks bland and boring. The buff icons and the weather icons also have a blue/grey old colour. Even the red colour on the enemy's icons on the rows ooks washed out. The glowing, strong colours where your and your enemy's hand are placed, however are highlighted. By highlighting these spots, as well as having bland and washed out colours everywhere else, tells the player that your hand is the most important area/thing in the game, which is obviously isn't. Also, the sides of the board has a generic wood texture, which adds to how bland it looks like, especially if the board is overall bright. The weather icons are also emerald-green, which just looks out of place. The board as a whole also looks a bit claustraphobic, or isolated I guess? You made a weird decision regarding how to highlight the actual board. It's liften up a few inches and is surrounded by iron frames. It doesn't really work. Like I said before, It's really at the player's hand the player's eyes gets attracted to. The numbers at the left side of the board are white/grey with nothing to highlight them, which also adds to the blandness. Heck, even your own total damage counter isn't highlighted, only the player with the most damage has it highlighted, but it's highlighted in the same area as where your hand is placed, which makes an area with tons of highlighting even more highlighted. The board honestly kinda looks like the hearthstone board, but desaturated to fit the darker tone of the witcher games.
I think the gwent board from the witcher 3 surpasses the board in gwent in many fields: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160617201824
First of all, it got a warm, dark colourscheme, which really fits the tavern theme. It is dark overall, and is lighter at the middle. That's perfect. It also makes the weather effects look more effective, because of their cold colours. Second of all, they don't have any exaggerated colours. They highlight things with yellow, which fits the theme of the game, and makes it easier on the eyes. It also has some really cool, but subtle wood carvings.
Rather than having the board like it looks like now, it would be cooler to having it looking like a homemade gwent board carved from wood, and having the coloured overall warmer and darker.
You know, this standalone gwent game feels more "digital". By digital I mean, like, it feels more like a video game than playing gwent with a stranger you met at a tavern in the 13th century. When zooming a card, we see a fancy glow behind the card, some fancy, stylized, minimalistic interface shows up telling you the details of the cards, lifted board with iron frames and with detailed icons on each row, coloured and glowing spots on each player's side... I don't know about you, but I envisioned the game as some kind of roleplaying of some guy playing gwent at the local tavern, not just playing with someone online. That is also what the witcher 3 did to us, it threw us into a world heavily affected by war, and everywhere you looked reflected that. I kinda want the witcher card game to have a atmosphere paralell to the average witcher tavern.
Although it's far from the same game as gwent, I think the dota 2 hud is a good example. http://i.imgur.com/opURJ.jpg
The hud isn't at all distracting to the actual gameplay in the middle of the screen, the lighting isn't too much or too little, creates a neat 3d illusion, buttons and stuff are intergrated well, and fits the setting of the game; a medieval world riddled with magic.
What made the witcher 3 my favorite game since when I started playing it in december 2015, was because it felt good, and that's what makes a game good. The witcher 3 had tons of flaws, more than most games, but it still felt like one of the best game I've ever played. Like, when obi-wan died in the first star wars film, it had pretty damn bad effects, but it still made us sad. I want the gwent game to make me feel the same way. I want the same atmosphere as in TW3 and I want to make one of the best mini-games to date to be ported to an actual game the best way possible, because that is what this game deserves.
pls guys dont let 1.5 hours of my life go to waste.
Note: I don't think the current board is that bad, I would probably still enjoy the game, I just think it has HUGE potential.
I made this post because I think the board could stand to improve on some things. Let's look at the gwent board: https://www.playgwent.com/img/screen...explored.3.jpg
I think the cold, neutral coloured theme does not work well with gwent, and the witcher world. It just overall looks bland and boring. The buff icons and the weather icons also have a blue/grey old colour. Even the red colour on the enemy's icons on the rows ooks washed out. The glowing, strong colours where your and your enemy's hand are placed, however are highlighted. By highlighting these spots, as well as having bland and washed out colours everywhere else, tells the player that your hand is the most important area/thing in the game, which is obviously isn't. Also, the sides of the board has a generic wood texture, which adds to how bland it looks like, especially if the board is overall bright. The weather icons are also emerald-green, which just looks out of place. The board as a whole also looks a bit claustraphobic, or isolated I guess? You made a weird decision regarding how to highlight the actual board. It's liften up a few inches and is surrounded by iron frames. It doesn't really work. Like I said before, It's really at the player's hand the player's eyes gets attracted to. The numbers at the left side of the board are white/grey with nothing to highlight them, which also adds to the blandness. Heck, even your own total damage counter isn't highlighted, only the player with the most damage has it highlighted, but it's highlighted in the same area as where your hand is placed, which makes an area with tons of highlighting even more highlighted. The board honestly kinda looks like the hearthstone board, but desaturated to fit the darker tone of the witcher games.
I think the gwent board from the witcher 3 surpasses the board in gwent in many fields: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160617201824
First of all, it got a warm, dark colourscheme, which really fits the tavern theme. It is dark overall, and is lighter at the middle. That's perfect. It also makes the weather effects look more effective, because of their cold colours. Second of all, they don't have any exaggerated colours. They highlight things with yellow, which fits the theme of the game, and makes it easier on the eyes. It also has some really cool, but subtle wood carvings.
Rather than having the board like it looks like now, it would be cooler to having it looking like a homemade gwent board carved from wood, and having the coloured overall warmer and darker.
You know, this standalone gwent game feels more "digital". By digital I mean, like, it feels more like a video game than playing gwent with a stranger you met at a tavern in the 13th century. When zooming a card, we see a fancy glow behind the card, some fancy, stylized, minimalistic interface shows up telling you the details of the cards, lifted board with iron frames and with detailed icons on each row, coloured and glowing spots on each player's side... I don't know about you, but I envisioned the game as some kind of roleplaying of some guy playing gwent at the local tavern, not just playing with someone online. That is also what the witcher 3 did to us, it threw us into a world heavily affected by war, and everywhere you looked reflected that. I kinda want the witcher card game to have a atmosphere paralell to the average witcher tavern.
Although it's far from the same game as gwent, I think the dota 2 hud is a good example. http://i.imgur.com/opURJ.jpg
The hud isn't at all distracting to the actual gameplay in the middle of the screen, the lighting isn't too much or too little, creates a neat 3d illusion, buttons and stuff are intergrated well, and fits the setting of the game; a medieval world riddled with magic.
What made the witcher 3 my favorite game since when I started playing it in december 2015, was because it felt good, and that's what makes a game good. The witcher 3 had tons of flaws, more than most games, but it still felt like one of the best game I've ever played. Like, when obi-wan died in the first star wars film, it had pretty damn bad effects, but it still made us sad. I want the gwent game to make me feel the same way. I want the same atmosphere as in TW3 and I want to make one of the best mini-games to date to be ported to an actual game the best way possible, because that is what this game deserves.
pls guys dont let 1.5 hours of my life go to waste.
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