i Nudi: A Tribute to Lovers [Mature material, discretion advised]

[DoubleOOJ]

Hello. My wife and I have spent the last year working on a playing card project.
We are new to playing card design and wanted to get feedback from the community before going live with this project.

All of the cards were illustrated by my wife Antonietta.

The artwork was influenced/inspired by erotic art of the Italian Renaissance and the floral motifs of traditional hanafuda cards.

We have created two different deck formats: hanafuda & ‘fusion’.
►The Hanafuda deck uses mini sized cards and a more traditional hanafuda design.
►The Fusion deck uses poker sized cards and combines the standard poker pips with the hanafuda art. The goal of the fusion deck was to create a single deck that could be used to play both hanafuda & western games, and to provide ‘training wheels’ to anyone interested in learning to play hanafuda games.

The Kickstarter page (preview link below) contains a video and more information about the inspiration, creation, and design of the decks.

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iws/377665093?token=ccdcd485

We would love to hear feedback and are grateful to anyone that can take a look at our project.
If there are any questions please let us know.

Thank you for taking the time to read our post, and thanks in advance for checking out our project!

[Slowhand]

Erotic decks are quite popular with a lot of collectors. . They've been around since the Mid-19th century..at least, maybe earlier, but they are quite scarce... I think your cards would be more appealing if the coloring was less garish/dense and a little softer and the designs were a little finer... but then again this would change the style from Hanafuda to not so much Hanafuda..lol, but maybe more appealing due to the subject matter.  My collectors opinion only!  ...  good Luck with the project!! 
 

[DoubleOOJ]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Slowhand.

Yes, the traditional hanafuda art style (solid colors, thick lines, limited palette, high contrast, etc.) is a core part of this deck’s intended design.

A softer styled deck does sound interesting, though. It may be a good idea for a future project. We will keep that in mind.

Despite this project’s traditional hanafuda art style, the ‘risqué’ content made finding a printer difficult. I imagine that less abstract figures would be even harder to locate a printer for.

We are thankful to hear that there is a niche for and interest in decks like ours. ^_^

[Don Boyer]

If you need help with finding a quality printer, there's a few that frequent this forum that could be helpful and wouldn't be phased by the subject matter.

As far as the cards and the art, it's a love and very unique project.  I'd say try finding forums that deal specifically with hanafuda to help promote your design.  There's a HUGE market for playing cards in Asia and it's the home of hanafuda, so you might want to find an Asia-friendly shipper as well.

As far as Asia-friendly shipping and high-quality printing, you're in luck - Expert PCC, based in New York, does high-quality printing and ships from their factory in Taipei as well as through their US distribution partner, Gambler's Warehouse, located near Dallas.  They share a print factory with Legends PCC, which ships from their headquarters in Hong Kong.  I know Expert deals in a variety of card size formats, including miniature - I'd be surprised if Legends didn't as well.

I'd suggest a minor design tweak.  For the non-expert, naming the cards of at least the Fusion deck might be a good idea.  In fact, you could even create extra indices on the upper-right/lower-left corners with the hanafuda names of the cards, making the deck capable of functioning as a sort of "training deck" for people just learning the game.  If you think the extra indices are too much, a simple label at the bottom of the artwork in the margin would work to allow identification, though the extra indices would be useful for real hanafuda gameplay with novices, much like how a beginner's shogi (Japanese chess) set will often use romaji (Roman alphabet letters) or animal pictures instead of kanji (traditional Japanese characters based on written Chinese), often accompanied by a drawing showing the piece's legal moves.  Western chess sets come in similar beginner's models, where the pieces have an extra base with the pieces name and moves on the label.

[Worst Bower]

I have a hanafuda deck from Hawaii that's like what Don described.

http://hanafudahawaii.com/ginstructions.html

I don't agree with everything they did (too many indices and they're in Japanese!) but it will give you a general idea of how it might work.

I'm very impressed with your 300 page book. I don't remember any other KS deck that had a book that big.

[DoubleOOJ]

Great points about the Asian market. As an anime/manga fan, I had been focusing on those growing subcultures in the US & EU. I’ll take another look into Asian fulfillment to see if I can give them bit more attention.

We are still willing to talk with more printers.
LPCC declined our project due to the nature of the content and the public campaign. It’s a shame, because I really liked their Diamond Finish decks.
I attempted to contact EPCC on a few occasions, but I was unable to get a response about their willingness/unwillingness to print the content. We really liked the look of the tuck (black matte & red foil) of their Zen deck.
USPCC also declined the project based on the content.

MPC printed a dozen or so prototype decks for us, and had no issues with the artwork.
We used the MPC mini template, which unfortunately turned out to be ~0.25” shorter than the templates used by other companies. LPCC had actually recommended printing the minis with MPC.
We also created our artwork around 600 dpi, since MPC requires 300 dpi. We found out later that other printers require much higher dpi (LPCC 600+, EPCC 1200+).

PrintNinja has been responsive & helpful, so currently we were planning to have them print the book and both decks. Having a single printer simplifies fulfillment a bit.
The sample deck we received from Printninja feels comparable to the decks from MPC, however we’re not experts by any means so… your mileage my vary.

We are familiar with the Hawaiian hanafuda decks. We want the Fusion deck to be friendly for newcomers. However, there are complications with the additional pips/indices. Since hanafuda games vary widely, especially between countries (Japan, Korea, Hawaii), markings that are useful for a particular game are confusing for another. Especially the ‘yaku’ (captured set) markings, such as Boar Deer Butterfly, which are only valuable in select games. Adding multiple sets of markings would quickly become far too busy and confusing.

Some examples from the link Worst Bower posted:
-The Ribbon cards are marked with 10’s and the Animals (often called ‘Tens’) are marked with 5’s. In many Asian games those values are reversed.
-The November/Willow Rain Man has a 5, however he is technically a Bright (20) in some Asian games.
-In Korean games the November/Willow and December/Paulowinia months are switched (i.e. November/Paulowinia and December/Willow).

We will review our design and see what we can offer.

Currently we have a few ideas we will investigate. I’ll post more info/pics when they are available.
-Tweaking the hanafuda art for the ‘Bright’ months to help them stand out more.
-Adding pips to the cards to mark their general type (e.g. Bright, Animal/Ten, Ribbon, Chaff).

We should probably also add a few paragraphs to the rules on our website (and include a link with each deck) that explains the art design and included cues that help differentiate the cards.
For example:
-There are 4 cards for each rank in poker and each Month/Flower suit in hanafuda. So, we combined these to make things easier. Aces = January/Pine, 2s = February/Plum, and so on.
-The figures on the Bright cards are larger than those on the Ten cards.
-The Boar/Deer/Butterfly animal Ten cards have Satyrs on them.

Yes, the book got large quickly with the decision to combine the rules and art into a single book. And, as our website (http://www.indianwolfstudios.com/sample-rules.html) shows, hanafuda rules are typically image heavy.

Thank you Don & Worst for your feedback.

[Don Boyer]

MPC's decks aren't too bad, but they aren't of the highest quality.  Expert is probably your best shot at high-grade poker-sized and mini playing cards.

I see what you mean about complex indices - but I was thinking of something rather simple, actually.  Each card has a name - the suit name (the month it's from) and the card's title.  For a novice, that alone would be enough to help with identifying the cards - no need for complicated kana or scoring numbers.  Just knowing what the cards are would be enough, and by having them on indices, people can play holding cards like a poker hand, whereas traditional hanafuda cards are indexless, like playing cards from the pre-1870s, and can't be squeezed into a fanned hand as conveniently as you'll have to constantly flip through your cards to know what you're holding.  The index and cheaper mass production are the two developments that really made playing cards in general take off like gangbusters, if you ask me.

A simple index with a month indicator (perhaps a number or two or three small letters side-by-side) and a letter under it for the name would work.  Nothing elaborate or fancy.  Considering the one-way nature of the faces, you could even just put them on one corner, the top right, in the margin just outside of the artwork.  Either that, or in small print under the upper left index.  Test it out, I'd say - it might work.

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10  11  12
Jr  Fe  Mr  Ap  My  Jn  Jl  Au  Se  Oc  No  De
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
A single letter wouldn't be enough, though a number would.

I'm not surprised that traditional hanafuda never developed to have indices.  There's possibly some Chinese influence there.  I'm told that in Chinese (I'm not certain as to which dialects in particular), the word for "card" and the word for "tile" (as in a game tile, such as a domino or a mahjong tile) is the same exact word and character - the Chinese considered them to be interchangeable, essentially the same thing in different shapes.  It's possible the Japanese did likewise, perhaps accounting in part for the small size and lack of indices.  From what little I've seen of hanafuda being played, players often hold their cards like they might play with a hand of mahjong tiles, facing them down on the table for concealment and picking up the cards side by side in a single hand to peek at them during play.

[DoubleOOJ]

I’ll reach out to EPCC again and see what we can figure out.
The mini deck size will continue to be an issue, but perhaps we can upgrade the poker deck.

Thanks for sharing the historical info about card indices. I didn’t realize the poker indices were such a recent addition. Western playing cards have been around for quite a long time (a few centuries at least iirc).

I hadn’t heard about the shared Chinese kanji for tile/card before. Hanafuda cards tended to be crafted from thicker materials like wood, tile, and (modernly) vinyl/plastic.

When Japan outlawed western cards & gambling, some of the first cards to gain popularity (before being banned as well) were Chinese. During the long ban (~200yrs iirc) the main focus was on gambling and cards with obvious pips/indices. Hanafuda cards were a natural evolution of card design in that environment. Small & easy to conceal, no obvious playing card markings, and gameplay that seemed unsuitable for gambling. It’s very interesting that they haven’t changed much since the ban was lifted over 100yrs ago.


We have reviewed our design and put together some mockups of the modifications we thought could work.

Note: There are 4 types of hanafuda cards Brights, Tens, Ribbons, and Chaffs.

Features that were part of the old design and kept:
1. The poker # indices indicate the base month (Ace = Jan, 2 = Feb, 3 = Mar, and so on.)
2. Figures on Bright cards are larger than figures on Ten cards.

New Features:
1. All months containing a Bright have colored backgrounds.
2. Flower Indices to indicate the flower suit.
—>The flowers on the card never change, while the assigned month varies. (Which is why we chose flower over month.)
3. Type Indices for the 4 card types (Bright = gold coin, Ten = silver coin, Ribbon = ribbon, Chaffs have no mark)

The decision for the card type indices was based on the general relative value of the card types. The 5 Brights tend to be the most value cards in most games, followed by the tens, then ribbons, and then chaffs.

We did not mark the sets because they are too variable. However, by marking the card types this should help players identify the cards they are looking for.

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
Original Design Sheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/afriri6k2pereo8/iNudi%20poker%20cut.png?dl=0
1. New indices placed under the poker indices: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcmvh8bra7nx671/PIP-1.jpg?dl=0
2. New indices placed opposite the poker indices: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wv06c9bf8r3kxmj/PIP-3.jpg?dl=0
—>These also include an abbrv for the flower/suit.
3. Possible ways of adding the names: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ezzbmjrwiormyr6/PIP-2.jpg?dl=0
Note: these are quick rough drafts, so the art for the indices isn’t perfect/final.

We are leaning toward the first option of placing the new indices under the poker indices, so players can continue to fan their cards in the same direction they are used to.
Note: There are 3 types of Ribbon cards, so we are thinking about modifying the ribbon index to reflect the ribbon type (Poetry, Red, or Blue).

We are unsure about adding text around the core image, however it could help with the learning and recognition process. But if we did we are leaning towards placing the text on the corners, as seen on the Jack of Diamonds in link 3.

Let us know what you think.

[Worst Bower]

When Japan outlawed western cards & gambling, some of the first cards to gain popularity (before being banned as well) were Chinese. During the long ban (~200yrs iirc) the main focus was on gambling and cards with obvious pips/indices.

Do you have more information or sources about Chinese cards in Japan? I'm looking for books or articles about this subject but they are hard to find. I know that they existed in Japan during the 19th century but I don't have any information about how popular they were, the games played with them, or when they were banned.

[Don Boyer]

There are likely a few reasons why hanafuda were never updated.  The Japanese in general love tradition.  Until more recently, hanafuda, much like tattoos, were often associated with gangsters/Yakuza and not used by most of the rest of society, so there was little by way of societal pressures to change the designs and update them.  The small size, as you pointed out, makes them easier to conceal, especially for gambling purposes - but at the same time, leaving little room for even a border, never mind an index.  The lack of an index might allow someone to trick a more gullible person into thinking they aren't even playing cards at all, just little "nature art pictures" (or provide someone in law enforcement or the courts a feeble excuse for overlooking gambling, as the Yakuza have been ingrained into Japanese society for centuries in part by the government tolerating certain activities as a "necessary evil" of sorts).  Combine these facts and it's not as difficult to see why the designs were relatively unchanged for so long.

Indices are a recent creation - cards are believed to have originated in China in the 9th century and moved to Europe around the 13th century or so, but even into America's early days as a free nation, cards were still relatively expensive.  In the days of the Old West, saloons often kept decks of cards that were purchased by the house for the use of their customers - in order to preserve their condition and make them last longer, after closing, the decks were placed into a deck press; a vise-like wooden box sized to hold the cards, using wooden separator tiles to keep the decks apart, and large enough to hold as many as a dozen decks at a time.  Pressing them flat help remove crimps and kept the cards from absorbing excess moisture much like how a squished sponge doesn't absorb as much water.  The big game at the time wasn't poker, but something called "faro," a simple (and easily fixed!) game requiring no cards to be held in-hand - a dealer dealt a single card face up and people wagered on whether the next card would be higher or lower in value, with the house winning in ties and play continuing until all 52 cards were played (the joker was another late invention, around the 1870s, the name being a bastardized version of the word "euchre," for which it was used as a trump card).  Cards as a popular pastime for the common person didn't occur until around the time of the Civil War and the early antebellum years and they weren't cheaply affordable until a handful of years later as the Industrial Age brought innovations that made printing cheaper.  Early European cards were treated like artworks and were often handmade (even out of precious metals, in some cases), generally making them only affordable by the wealthy, who in many cases kept them less for playing and more as a means of conspicuous consumption by which to impress guests.  Mass-produced cards were simpler in design - and as more people used them and invented new games involving holding cards in one's hand, the need for a simpler way to identify them became more pressing.

Looking at your designs has given me an idea.  Consider this - use the full word for the "suit"/flower but place it along the top edge of the art in a narrow font and right-justified to end exactly at the right margin.  For the various "pips" of gold, silver, ribbon and, well, nothing, place them just past that word, into the right margin.  This would allow a hanafuda player to hold the cards stacked in one hand vertically and see all the names/values at a glance, similar to how traditional players hold the tiles in one hand to glance at them.

For your designs of the pips, I'd suggest some tweaks.  Make the coin images a little bigger and the holes in the center a little smaller, so they still look like Japanese coins but also resemble Western coins more (right now they more closely resemble rings).  For "nothing", instead of a blank space use instead the inkbrush "circle" image often shown in Zen Buddhism - doesn't that have much the same meaning as nothing?  For the ribbons, YES, use colors for red and blue, and for poetry, use either white alone (the color of paper) or white with a single, generic kana on it, the equivalent of how word processors and e-readers often have an "A" on the button used to alter your font.  If there's a single kana associated frequently with poetry or that means poetry, all the better - use that.

[DoubleOOJ]

@Worst Bower

I was speaking from memory, however I can’t recall where I read about it. >.< We’re considering adding a small history discussion to our rule book (with proper citations ~_^), so if I run across any solid sources during that process I’ll share them.

In the meanwhile, here’s a list of resources I currently had on hand in case any of them interest you.

Websites:
http://hanafudahawaii.com/ghistory.html
http://www.wopc.co.uk/japan/index
http://cards.old.no/japan/
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Wilkinson/Wilkinson.html

Books on Google Play:
The Origin and Manufacture of Playing Cards
George Clulow
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ewkVAAAAYAAJ

The History of Playing Cards
Edward Samuel Taylor
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7F5LAAAAYAAJ

Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards
William Andrew Chatto
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Q7IUAAAAYAAJ

Korean Games with Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan
Stewart Culin
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=LXsTAAAAYAAJ

The Gambling Games of the Chinese
Stewart Culin
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=fYISAAAAYAAJ

Chess and Playing Cards
Stewart Culin
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=QrhAAAAAYAAJ

The Game of "Hana-awase": Japanese Cards
Rossetsu Uchiyama
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=V5FHAAAAYAAJ

The Origin of Playing Cards
Stewart Culin
<cited by other sources, but there doesn’t seem to be a copy available online>

[Worst Bower]

I've read all but Clulow and Uchiyama. The topic of Chinese cards in Japan seems maddeningly obscure, only a few snippets here and there in various books.  If you find your source please let me know.

I think you've researched most of the rules for hanafuda games. Here's an archive of a dead website with some rules if you need it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050825184125/http://hana.kirisame.org/rules.html

Pay particular attention to Poka, Hiyoko, and Isuri. These are games that no one plays anymore and are often left out of rule books. They are quite obscure.

[DoubleOOJ]

@Don Boyer

Thanks for all the design suggestions. We’re currently tweaking the indices and some of the box & card art, and will share what we come up with.

Completely agree about the cultural and historical influences leading to the preservation of hanafuda. Their design and popularity definitely relied heavily on the “its just flowers and cultural images” line of argument.

Overall, its always interesting to see products/practices that show little or no change over time (and the various factors involved). For example, our refusal to adopt the metric system in the US.

Thanks for sharing more playing card history with me. I really enjoy learning new things and seeing how everything connects. Playing cards in Europe seem to have progressed very similarly to books (which makes sense logically, but playing cards aren’t generally mentioned in history courses).



@Worst Boyer
Yes, even the source I was paraphrasing from memory only had a few lines about it.
Uchiyama focuses entirely on the popular hanafuda game of the time, but its an interesting read.

Thanks for sharing the link. We’re familiar with that site.
Some of those obscure games really throw some wrenches into all the ‘normal’ hanafuda rules by rearranging the months, capture details, and yaku. It makes them interesting additions.

From our past research it also seems that ‘house rules’ were a very common practice for hanafuda games, so there are many rule variants for some games. We’ve even read a few jokes that every household made up their own rules to make sure visitors couldn’t win (this joke also shows up in some anime & asian dramas).
There are also games like ‘hana-awase’ whose name was generically assigned to several completely different games over the years. Of course there are some language barriers/translation issues as well.

Some of the older games also tend to use obtuse scoring methods involving various chips and tokens of odd denominations (Imperial system style currencies), which we plan to convert to a standardized points system to make the games more accessible. If space and time allows we may include both versions for the sake of preserving the originals.

These are the games currently included in the draft of our book:
-Matching Flowers
-Mushi
-Hana-awase*
-Min-hwatu
-Koi Koi
-Higo-bana
-Go Stop
-Hachi Hachi
-Sudaoshi
-Hachi
-Tensho
-Poka
-Hiyoko*
-Isuri
-Sutda
*multiple versions

We may add some Kabufuda games as well.

We’re always happy to see more references for hanafuda games. There are a lot of variations and house rules and having more sources aids in making sense of them all.

The goal of our book is to make hanafuda games more accessible and introduce the cards & games to new players.

[DoubleOOJ]

We’ve experimented with the design based on the feedback & suggestions and have come up with a design that we are satisfied with.

Notable changes:
1. Some figures were modified to add more definition & expression to the faces
2. Thin outer border and text added (suit name in English & Romaji)
3. Improved the hanafuda indices
4. Changes to the indices:
—Empty circle calligraphy for Chaffs.
—Ribbon with Kanji for Poetry ribbon [Kanji is for ‘Say’, first half of the Kanji for Poetry]
—Plain Red/Purple ribbon indices will be used for the other ribbons.
—Silver ‘ring’ kept as a reference to Uchiyama’s drawings in The Game of "Hana-awase"

Here are the first three months:

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
Jan https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkgd0qqb624wdf5/Month1.png?dl=0
Feb https://www.dropbox.com/s/9leiorscsyojet6/Month2.png?dl=0
Mar https://www.dropbox.com/s/jw3t6eb3fmqmv2t/Month3.png?dl=0

[Don Boyer]

We’ve experimented with the design based on the feedback & suggestions and have come up with a design that we are satisfied with.

Notable changes:
1. Some figures were modified to add more definition & expression to the faces
2. Thin outer border and text added (suit name in English & Romaji)
3. Improved the hanafuda indices
4. Changes to the indices:
—Empty circle calligraphy for Chaffs.
—Ribbon with Kanji for Poetry ribbon [Kanji is for ‘Say’, first half of the Kanji for Poetry]
—Plain Red/Purple ribbon indices will be used for the other ribbons.
—Silver ‘ring’ kept as a reference to Uchiyama’s drawings in The Game of "Hana-awase"

Here are the first three months:

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
Jan https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkgd0qqb624wdf5/Month1.png?dl=0
Feb https://www.dropbox.com/s/9leiorscsyojet6/Month2.png?dl=0
Mar https://www.dropbox.com/s/jw3t6eb3fmqmv2t/Month3.png?dl=0

I like where it's going so far.  Tweaks I'd suggest: push the indices further into the corners and make the white border more narrow so you can make the art bigger and the indices easier to read in a fan.  Eliminate the lines you've drawn connecting the corner indices/text - they make the image seems smaller.  Instead of having the words go around the corner, have them in a straight line along the top/bottom edge of the art - they're easier to read and more pleasing to the eye that way.

[DoubleOOJ]

The previous images included the bleed area. There actually isn’t any space left on the template (image included in link below to show template overlay).

We’ve also included a few different text layouts based on your suggestion, along with the original for comparison. Let us know what you think. Thank you again for all your feedback.

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlltxdyjhvxeptr/Text.png?dl=0

[Don Boyer]

The previous images included the bleed area. There actually isn’t any space left on the template (image included in link below to show template overlay).

We’ve also included a few different text layouts based on your suggestion, along with the original for comparison. Let us know what you think. Thank you again for all your feedback.

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlltxdyjhvxeptr/Text.png?dl=0

Top row middle pretty much describes what I was talking about.

BTW: you can post images here as attachments or, using the BBCode for img, link them into the message body.  Attachments are limited to about a megabyte per image and five attachments to a message.  I prefer attachments - we keep our messages here in perpetuity, but links have a nasty habit of breaking over time.

[DoubleOOJ]

We chose four months and grouped them to compare the 3 different layout possibilities. This will give a better impression of what the cards will look like (than the singles did).

[Warning: Mature material, discretion advised]
Pine https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfwnjvbg4uvnhnu/Group1.png?dl=0
Cherry https://www.dropbox.com/s/15p20ub45mf8o3n/Group2b.png?dl=0
Chrysanthemum https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrg28gcupeetnom/Group3.png?dl=0
Paulownia https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5lp4od65nuinsk/Group4.png?dl=0

I used links so that the extra warning could be included. Maybe that’s overkill. lol
According to dropbox these links should be permanent.

[Don Boyer]

The middle row seems to be both the most informative while at the same time still retaining a clean design.

For the indices, the flags should be a little wider.  It's not what a flag of this type looks like in real life, but then again, hearts and diamonds don't really look like that, either.  If made wider, they're clearer and easier to read and it's also easier to tell when there's a "poetry" kana printed on the flag.  The flag need not look literally, exactly as it does in reality - just to function as a symbol or a reminder of what a flag is and that this card is a flag.  Think about the TV show, "American Dad!" and how Stan Smith (the lead character, a CIA agent) almost always wears a blue suit with an American flag on the lapel - it's missing a lot of stripes and has no stars in the blue field, but you know it's a flag pin on the lapel, just as you know a real hand doesn't only have four fingers but all the characters on the show with hands have four-fingered hands because it's easier to draw them that way.  The symbol is representative of the real thing, you know what the symbol means, so it need not look exactly like the real thing, just enough to evoke it in your mind.

BTW: recheck your art - one of the images has the cards changing value from row to row!

[DoubleOOJ]

>.< Thanks for catching that. I’ve updated the link with a corrected image.

We’ll see what we can do with the ribbons.

Thanks for your help in refining the design. We'll be going with the middle row's design.

We are working on updating the art and preparing the project for launch.

[Don Boyer]

The only other thing I could think of, and it's really a style choice as much as a functionality decision, is the font you chose for the text and indices.  Typefaces that look like handwriting aren't as easy to read as something cleaner, and for indices, you want a clear, clean font, easy to read and recognize right away.  I know it might not match as well with the art style you've chosen, but if you find the right typeface, you can find something that will blend with your design well and provide better clarity.  Again, it's a style choice as much as a clarity choice - not all decks need perfect indices, perfect design choices, etc., because it would suck the life out of the designs themselves, making them all appear too similar to each other.

[DoubleOOJ]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, especially Don.

We wanted to let everyone know that the Kickstarter is now live!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iws/i-nudi-a-tribute-to-lovers-hanafuda-and-poker-card?ref=uc

[DoubleOOJ]

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have reworked our project and relaunched with a much lower goal.

Thanks again for all the great feedback. (And because I had to use him at least once. lol)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iws/i-nudi-a-tribute-to-lovers-hanafuda-and-poker-rela