Metropol NOX (KS)

[Rob Wright]

Metropol NOX


Project by Mike Lambert
First created, USPC printing, $10,000CAD Goal, $12CAD + $6CAD Shipping outside Canada for 1 deck- $24+$9 for 2

So just what is your contribution going towards?  Here's a breakdown of all the costs associated with this project!
•$7,500 - Card production, taxes, shipping to distribution location, shipping to anywhere in Canada.
•$600 - Covers the cost of the minimum order for the metal coins and shipping to the distribution location.
•$600 - Shipping materials for all backer rewards (bubble mailers, tubes, boxes, labels, etc) as well as the extra cost for USA and international shipping.
•$900 - Kickstarter's fee (5%), payment processing fees (3-5%).

That leaves a little under $400 for the rest of the backer rewards including the prints.  If the final cost of everything somehow increases due to changing prices, or increased differences in currency exchange rates that cost is on me.  I will never come back and ask for money once the campaign has ended.

*All numbers are approximate

I swear Don, I'm really not trying to kill you. 

[speedyy400]

For some reason, this really reminds me of tetris. Unfortunately this deck seems very basic and something that could potentially be done by a child. I wish this included more specific detail and made the deck more intricate than it is. Sorry to the maker but it isn't something that I feel would require a backing.

[agera94]

I can only see these being good for 'XCM' or flourishing.

[Don Boyer]

It's almost as if someone attempted to suck all the life out of a deck of playing cards.  Damn near succeeded, too.  The four-color scheme is an assault on my eyes and the pip arrangements on the spot cards are the antithesis of minimalist design - it's like the spot cards came from a different deck or something.

I finally have it.  This is the illegitimate offspring of the Vanda deck and the Bicycle Tattoo deck, and it got all of the boring, uninspired genes!

[ronyo_faukx]

It's almost as if someone attempted to suck all the life out of a deck of playing cards.  Damn near succeeded, too.  The four-color scheme is an assault on my eyes and the pip arrangements on the spot cards are the antithesis of minimalist design - it's like the spot cards came from a different deck or something.

I finally have it.  This is the illegitimate offspring of the Vanda deck and the Bicycle Tattoo deck, and it got all of the boring, uninspired genes!

One good thing is the courts are a damn sight better than they used to be. I knew I'd seen this deck 'in progress' somewhere, then this evening I remembered that it was on 'the forum that shall not be named', and in its topic the original draft had just the name of the court inside a box:

[Loop Cuts]

I'm not sure the market is really into the modern & simplified concepts right now with Fed52 and Dale Mathis raising the bar.  We have acquired a taste for nicer things.  I do wish the project developer the best though.

[Don Boyer]

One good thing is the courts are a damn sight better than they used to be. I knew I'd seen this deck 'in progress' somewhere, then this evening I remembered that it was on 'the forum that shall not be named', and in its topic the original draft had just the name of the court inside a box:

Please, don't be silly - if you got valuable information from United Cardists, by all means, give credit where it's due.  Whatever "feud" may have existed in the past, as far as I'm concerned, stays in the past.  Jay was kind enough to stop by and post recently - I should sign up at UC myself.

I'm not sure the present design is really that much of an improvement...

[MikeLambert]

Hey Guys,

I want to introduce myself and my new deck design.  My name is Mike Lambert and I'm a video game designer / developer from Toronto Canada.  I'm also a poker player and a graphic artist.  I just recently finished my first deck design, and I wanted to share it with you guys to see what you think!

The NOX deck was designed to stand out.  It's got a minimalist design, with bold, high contrast colours.  The poker-size cards will be printed by the USPCC, and are currently funding on Kickstarter:

Metropol NOX on Kickstarter

I'm still open to changing up some of the designs, but considering the campaign is live I probably won't do anything too drastic at this point.  I'd love to know what you guys think!

Thanks for reading!

[Don Boyer]

Hey Guys,

I want to introduce myself and my new deck design.  My name is Mike Lambert and I'm a video game designer / developer from Toronto Canada.  I'm also a poker player and a graphic artist.  I just recently finished my first deck design, and I wanted to share it with you guys to see what you think!

The NOX deck was designed to stand out.  It's got a minimalist design, with bold, high contrast colours.  The poker-size cards will be printed by the USPCC, and are currently funding on Kickstarter:

I'm still open to changing up some of the designs, but considering the campaign is live I probably won't do anything too drastic at this point.  I'd love to know what you guys think!

Thanks for reading!

First, welcome aboard.  Always glad to have a new member!

Second, when a deck is still in development, we post it in the Design/Dev board, as you did.  But when it's either in print or launched on Kickstarter, we post it here on the Playing Card Plethora.  I've merged your topic with the preexisting topic on your deck here in the PCP.

Now, our criticisms will seem harsh.  But know that they're never meant personally.  We're a pretty passionate bunch here, and we love our shared hobby of collecting decks of playing cards.  If you ever wanted to ask for advice or simply raise a few questions, someone (probably more than one "someone") around here will be happy to answer and offer their opinions in a constructive manner.  (I also consult with deck designers to help improve their designs and solve project problems, for a fee.  My biggest client to date has been Uusi - I worked with them on Bohemia, Royal Optik, Blueblood Redux and their forthcoming Pagan deck.)

Finally, the last thing we ever expect is for you to agree with every single thing we've said.  We're human and just as flawed as all the other humans out there, thus our opinions mean no more or less than the opinions of any other potential customers in your market.  If you have an artistic vision and want to see that come to fruition, let nothing stop you, least of all us.  Though if you see a lot of people saying much the same things regarding your work, maybe it's something that's worth at least a second look...

[MikeLambert]

I've been a digital artist for almost 15 years, so I'm used to criticism.  I welcome it.  If it's not constructive though, it's just a waste of everyone's time.

If you don't like my design, that's cool.  I learned a long time ago you can't please everyone.  When I started this design I specifically went against the trend of intricately detailed, hand painted designs (I've backed a couple of them myself).  I wanted to design something that stood out from what was out there.  Whether or not that will pay off is up to the Kickstarter community.

Legibility was an important factor in my design.  I'm a poker player so I want cards that are easy to distinguish at a glance.  A lot of the newer decks on Kickstarter look amazing, but to me some of them are more a show piece than a usable deck.

After feedback from my backers I'm going to be revising the design of both the tuck case and the jokers.  I should have an update for those sometime this weekend.

[Don Boyer]

I've been a digital artist for almost 15 years, so I'm used to criticism.  I welcome it.  If it's not constructive though, it's just a waste of everyone's time.

If you don't like my design, that's cool.  I learned a long time ago you can't please everyone.  When I started this design I specifically went against the trend of intricately detailed, hand painted designs (I've backed a couple of them myself).  I wanted to design something that stood out from what was out there.  Whether or not that will pay off is up to the Kickstarter community.

Legibility was an important factor in my design.  I'm a poker player so I want cards that are easy to distinguish at a glance.  A lot of the newer decks on Kickstarter look amazing, but to me some of them are more a show piece than a usable deck.

After feedback from my backers I'm going to be revising the design of both the tuck case and the jokers.  I should have an update for those sometime this weekend.

I'd love to see it.

How familiar are you with cards that are printed black into the bleed?  They tend to show wear and tear more quickly - whereas a white-bordered card will chip only to reveal white paper underneath, a black, borderless card will chip to show white on black at the edges.  Consider a white border or at least a fade-to-white or fade-to-gray edge similar to Bee Stingers or Encarded's Tendril deck.

Regarding the colors on the faces: some people will greatly appreciate a four-color design, while others will be less enthusiastic, preferring something more traditional.  Consider one of three possible four-color conventions:

1) I've seen a number of vintage decks use black spades, red hearts, green clubs and blue diamonds.  Spades and hearts are easy enough to understand, clubs (clovers) are green in nature and blue diamonds...well, I never completely got that one, but yellow can be a bit harder on the eyes.  You'd need to swap white for black on the spades, in this case.

2) To give your deck four distinct colors while at the same time keeping close to the two-color tradition, consider shades.  For example, you could use red for hearts and pink for diamonds, while using electric blue for spades and sky blue for clubs.  They're different enough to tell apart from each other, but close enough to make solitaire games like Klondike easy to play without having a color key handy - many games do rely on having just two colors.

3) Another possible way to make the suits distinctive in a "four color" scheme without actually using four colors would be to combine colors with white borders.  For example, you could use blue for the black suits, red for the red suits, but place white borders around the club and diamond pips for easy distinction from their color counterparts.

Alternately, you could ignore me and stick to your guns!

If you'd like more advice, let me know.  I'm a consultant to playing card designers such as yourself.  My biggest client to date is Uusi - I've worked with them on Bohemia, Royal Optik, Blueblood Redux and their current deck project, Pagan.

[MikeLambert]

I was hoping to have something to show sooner than now, but managing a kickstarter campaign, a fulltime job and being sick all at the same time leaves me with little time for anything else.

I appreciate the feedback.  This is the sort of critique / suggestion I'm looking for. 

I had originally designed a companion deck for this one that featured different background colours on the faces.  I scrapped that though as soon as I realized you could see the colour of the card from the side when they're all stacked up.  I figured that's why cards usually have a white border.  I never thought it might be used to hide wearing on the edges.  The sample decks I had printed a little while ago have held up pretty well so far,

The Tuck Case:
I wanted to clean up the design of the tuck case and simply things a bit so I came up with some alternate versions.  I bounced them around between some friends and showed a short list of ideas to my project backers.  I personally prefer the alternate front design, but everyone seemed to prefer the original design because it featured all 4 colours.  Everyone unanimously preferred the new design for the back of the tuck case.

Final Tuck Case Design:


Alternate Tuck Case Design:


I like your suggestion for how to group the colours for the different suits, using warm colours for one set, and cooler colours for the other.  It would help for games that rely on red cards versus black cards.  Before I chose the suit colours I did some research to see if there was a standard for 4 colour decks, and I couldn't find a definite pattern, so I decided to just choose colours that work well together.  Unfortunately I think it's too late to do anything as drastic as changing a suit colour at this point.  I had a few backers get quite upset at the idea of slight changes to the court cards or tuck case.

The Jokers

I've been stuck on developing a good design for the joker cards for a while now.  The original design was the same as the front of the Tuck Case which was more for lack of a better idea than anything.

Below is an image of the direction I'm considering, but I'm still not totally happy with it.  Let me explain the idea behind it:

• I wanted a colour that stood out from the others so there would be no confusing this card with any of the other suits.
• I wanted two distinct joker cards since that's typical of most decks.  I really didn't want to introduce a 6th colour though, hence the outlined version

[li]For the corner symbol I tried a bunch of different ideas, a star, the word joker written both horizontal and vertical, the Bicycle "US" symbol, the metropol logo.  Nothing really seemed to fit.  I kinda settled with the double bar "||" design, since it fits with some of the other elements in the deck design.  The || also represents "or" in some programming languages which is kinda what a "wild card" is, so I thought that was sort of appropriate (albeit really obscure for most people).
[/li][/list]



So there's some ideas for the joker design, but like I said nothing I'm really happy with.  I figured I'd share that though just to show some of the rationale behind the design.  I'm sure that design will get torn a new one, but at least it'll start a discussion

[Don Boyer]

I'll go over your comments with replies of my own, a piece at a time.

Re the card back, it's not mandatory to have a white border.  But at the least, consider making the bars on the back design not extend into the bleed, past the edge of the card.  Some magic tricks involve inverting a card mid-deck and this would make such a card easier to spot.

Re the tuck case: it's almost too clean!  You might want to mention somewhere on the front that this is indeed a pack of playing cards, as opposed to something else - it might seem obvious to you, the designer, but picture Joe Six-Pack checking out the box and you can see how he might not realize what they are from the front.  Image #1 is preferable, since it's colorful and more eye-catching that way.

Jokers: have you tried a simple "X" for the index?  Have you thought of ways to use your "bars" style to represent the traditional joker's floppy hat?  Your court card representations all appear to be headwear, so doing so with the joker would be consistent.  Rather than plain white (making it identical to the spades) have you considered using all the colors of the four suits on different bars used to make up the design?  Your "X" can even be made using four colored bars extending from a center point.

The decision to make them identical or not is entirely up to you.  Some games call for a distinctly different pair, while others don't.  In magic, identical jokers can be used often in many tricks, but a style this far off the beaten path would be less likely to be used by a magician anyway unless he had a specific audience for it.  Magicians tend to stick with designs that are familiar and acceptable to their audience.  Some say it's because the audience would think anything other than a standard-looking deck would be considered suspect, but the real reason is psychological and visual.  Spectators feel more at ease when seeing a deck that's closer to the decks they use at home, and using flashy, non-standard decks can at times prove distracting, causing them to focus more on the pretty cards and less on the cool magic you're performing with them.  Distract someone too much, they won't have a clue of what's going on around them.  To that end, if you standardized (or at least mostly standardized) the pip placements on your cards, it might be a better magic deck.  (Though no one in their right mind ever designs a deck strictly for magic use unless it's a magic deck, since there's not all that many magicians per capita in even the most populous cities!)

[sprouts1115]

MikeLambert -  Final Tuck Case Design is best. The "X" idea Don suggests for the index would be best with all 4 colors.  Your Jokers should have all 4 four colors and maybe some simple circles at the end.  Your Jokers should be slightly different usually one outranks the other.  You could put some simple text on the hat very small in one of the Jokers.  "Bower", "Wild", "Joker"  Anything to make one seem higher in rank.  And since this a special card don't be scared to use slight curves.    I like your back just the way it is.  If you retract your bars from the bleed zone, you lose your fan.  I don't think to many magicians are going to use your cards.