ICONIZE THIS!

There is one important thing that needs to be addressed, and that's what I call iconization.

This is relevant for prototype creation, but it is something you have to think forward, and start working on it very early in the design phase.

You must consider that, to be acceptable for an international audience, your game must be as language-independent as possible. This means that you should use as little written text as possible on the game components (card, board...). Instead, you should use icons.

What's an icon? Let's define it for game purposes.

An icon is a simple image that associates with an action or a rule. It must be simple, so it is easy to comprehend, and clear, so it is easy to distinguish from other icons.

Let's make an example, taken from game-icons.net.

This icon is a hand in the act of picking up a card with a question mark on it. Its meaning is easy to understand: "Draw a random card". The action will be written in the rulebook, but it will be just once; furthermore, it is a lot more cost-effective to produce rulebooks in different languages, than to reprint all the components for each different language.

Let's use a (quite ugly and simple) card that I created expressly as an example. Let's imagine we're making a game about witches, and here's the card (all icons come from game-icons.net):

In the upper right corner you see the cost to play the card. It is in that position because that is the best position for a card cost (I won't go into the reasons, for now; in the future I'll talk about graphic design).

On the right, at the center of the card, next to the name, there's a small icon of a cat. This tells us that the card is an animal (or a familiar, depending on the game: this is one of the things specified in the rules).

Finally, under the illustration, there's a space with an icon letting you know that, when you play this card, you can draw a random card.

In the end, the only text part of this card is the name - and that can be left as it is, or maybe changed to something more generic ("Jeff"). So, you card is ready to be used by people all around the world, even if they don't know your language!

You can do the same for all the game components: board, chits, tiles...Here's another (ugly) example of a piece from an imaginary board.

At this point, you can imagine the meanings assigned to each board space: take money, draw a card, lose money.

As usual, simplicity is the name of the game (pun intended). Also, keep in mind that everything is temporary. The publisher, if you go through one, will change the graphics; or you'll hire a professional graphic artist if you crowdfund your project; or playtest will change things.

That's all for today; but tomorrow, you'll get some homework - a little exercise for the weekend, to practice what I've exposed until now.