The Cards have Arrived :D

[Stig]

TRULY AMAZING JOB!!

I'm downloading the cards (most links working fine).

PS: my first post in the forums!

Welcome! This is the best place to discuss HQ. Enjoy!

[iKarith]

You could always use dropbox and post the link here.

my drop box is linked into work stuff as is google drive so can't be filling it with HQ stuff

Google accounts are a dime a dozen. Or less! How large is the image folder for the cards pre-rendered?


Actually, I've thought about this before … if you wanted to have the cards pre-rendered and translated into all the different languages HQ came in … that'd murder your disk space pretty needlessly. What if instead you had these components:

1. Card backs without text
2. A card front
3. A list of the border colors for different expansions (I like this idea!)
4. Images for card fronts
5. Fonts needed to produce the card text
6. Text of each card, in a format the community can translate to their preferred language
7. A mechanical description of each card (use this image here, add this icon there, put text here…
8. GraphicsMagick, a single script-friendly tool that can be told exactly how to build a card image and do it
9. A script that uses gm to build all the card fronts/backs for a given language

You'd want to combine the mechanical description and the translations since exactly what text goes where might change ever so slightly depending on the language—I'd have to play with gm and see how flexible that is. Can I just say here's a string and a bounding box… wrap as necessary? Or do I need to say put these words on this line, these on the next, etc. Both are fine, if I know what I'm dealing with.

You would need separate scripts for Windows and macOS/Linux, but they'd be easy to maintain because whichever one you modify, change the other with the exact same command line.

You'd need to include the gm command for Windows. "Hey, go install this random tool first" isn't how things are done on that platform. On Linux and macOS it is, and we can just tell people to go install GraphicsMagick using whatever facility they have for such things. sudo apt install and brew install are the commands I'd be using on my own machines. This could work, and it'd be small enough you could cram it into a repository on GitHub or GitLab which would allow you to easily provide a permanent download link to the latest version.

This idea needs a little more percolation time.

[phoenixcinder]

You could always use dropbox and post the link here.

my drop box is linked into work stuff as is google drive so can't be filling it with HQ stuff

Google accounts are a dime a dozen. Or less! How large is the image folder for the cards pre-rendered?


Actually, I've thought about this before … if you wanted to have the cards pre-rendered and translated into all the different languages HQ came in … that'd murder your disk space pretty needlessly. What if instead you had these components:

1. Card backs without text
2. A card front
3. A list of the border colors for different expansions (I like this idea!)
4. Images for card fronts
5. Fonts needed to produce the card text
6. Text of each card, in a format the community can translate to their preferred language
7. A mechanical description of each card (use this image here, add this icon there, put text here…
8. GraphicsMagick, a single script-friendly tool that can be told exactly how to build a card image and do it
9. A script that uses gm to build all the card fronts/backs for a given language

You'd want to combine the mechanical description and the translations since exactly what text goes where might change ever so slightly depending on the language—I'd have to play with gm and see how flexible that is. Can I just say here's a string and a bounding box… wrap as necessary? Or do I need to say put these words on this line, these on the next, etc. Both are fine, if I know what I'm dealing with.

You would need separate scripts for Windows and macOS/Linux, but they'd be easy to maintain because whichever one you modify, change the other with the exact same command line.

You'd need to include the gm command for Windows. "Hey, go install this random tool first" isn't how things are done on that platform. On Linux and macOS it is, and we can just tell people to go install GraphicsMagick using whatever facility they have for such things. sudo apt install and brew install are the commands I'd be using on my own machines. This could work, and it'd be small enough you could cram it into a repository on GitHub or GitLab which would allow you to easily provide a permanent download link to the latest version.

This idea needs a little more percolation time.

Yeah that's an enormous amount of work on cards I already have finished. I am already working on other HQ projects. Cool idea though

[magokiron]

All downloaded.

Thank you very much for sharing your work.

[iKarith]

This idea needs a little more percolation time.

Yeah that's an enormous amount of work on cards I already have finished. I am already working on other HQ projects. Cool idea though

I sort of figured you wouldn't necessarily be interested in doing it. Accessibility to more people is something the guy who often has access barriers thinks/cares about. It sounds far more bitter than I feel or intend, but most people really don't give much thought beyond their own project or interest. That's almost necessary on some level because if you waited for everyone to agree what the result should look like, it'd never get done.

Look at the RandoQuest thread… Several folks said they thought it would be a useful thing to have an independent set of rules that describe HQ's mechanics and could have specifics define either version of EU rules, or NA rules. But that's not what Davane intended RandoQuest to be, and its creator has set the design parameters whether it's what other people hope for or not. If you want something different, get your own project going. You don't have to use it if you don't like it, or if there's some part of it you like and others you want to change … do that.

I've sort of taken up the generic MB/GW/Hasbro-free rules as a longer-term project because it's not real critical (since if anything it's a slightly unfinished version of the rules we already have) but I too am making decisions others wouldn't—I'm using standard d6, because to explicitly use the 3-2-1 skull/shield dice from HQ makes it not "generic" and brings it into territory Hasbro would have to bless it in order for it to be legally in the clear. And I intend this project, at least, to be legally in the clear.

Another project of mine is yet another card deck combining several useful features of other card decks—drath's 2.5" wide (poker-sized) cards, cards with color-coded borders on the faces indicating their origin so you can quickly pare down to just what you want to play with, and adding several other cards others have created … and printing with a larger, bolder font for blind folks like me. Maybe someone will use it. Or not, we'll see. They might prefer the more traditional serif, normal-weight font even if they otherwise like the cards ready for MPC. I might make these available something like I suggested for your cards, because it'd be cool to have all of those things in that format, but I'm not going to take the time to find people to translate. If I do it that way, step forward if you speak a language I don't and would like to be able to make a card set like mine in your own language!

Another is my * of HeroQuest archive project. When I get it all organized the way I want it, it'll probably become available via some link. It's already guaranteed to be at least 6GB and will probably be larger. It has no effert whatsoever taken to ensure it's legally in the clear, because I'm what the lawyers call a "judgment-proof defendant" and I know it. Any money spent trying to stop me, specifically, from distributing any and everything I'd put into it would be totally wasted and never recouped. But if Hasbro's lawyers told drathe he had to take all those resources down here on the Inn, they'd live on. Them and others drathe doesn't dare post here because GW would go after him if he did. Coming soon to a magnet link near you. But I'm not really asking others how they'd organize it. I'll pretty much post a list of what's in it when I'm done putting it together, ask anyone if they have things I left out, and listen for any objections about how I organized it, and put it out there. If someone wants it … leave attributions intact when passing it on. (Not necessarily to me so much as I am trying to preserve credits to drathe, Phoenix, and others who actually did the work. I just leeched stuff, mostly!

And of course I'm making boards and tiles all my own, because the 22mm board doesn't do it for me. I'll document the whole process and upload details here because I want other people to be able to replicate it. If a blind dude with this level of crafting skill can pull it off, anyone can. But I'm aiming at modular tiles of the "German" style board because … that's what I want.

Java annoys me so I'm kinda working on a HeroScribe replacement in the vein of Mario Maker. Haven't really consulted anyone about how they want that done either. Will do it the way I want.

Those are just my projects. They scratch the itches I have. I don't expect anyone else to necessarily do things the way other people want them. Collabs are cool when and if people have similar ideas though.

[Daedalus]

Great set, phoenixcinder! One question--how do you plan to use your instant cards in a game? Meaning, how do Heroes get them?

[Spookyhappyfun]

This is such a great project! I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!

[phoenixcinder]

Great set, phoenixcinder! One question--how do you plan to use your instant cards in a game? Meaning, how do Heroes get them?

Honestly I don't know . But there are a bunch of ways people can imagine how to use them. I still had a bunch of images left and already made a ton of spells and treasure and artifacts so I wanted to do something different

[QorDaq]

Great set, phoenixcinder! One question--how do you plan to use your instant cards in a game? Meaning, how do Heroes get them?

Honestly I don't know . But there are a bunch of ways people can imagine how to use them. I still had a bunch of images left and already made a ton of spells and treasure and artifacts so I wanted to do something different

Something that occurred to me, was that these could be linked to "Limited Wish" sorts of magic items (Rings, Lamps, whatever). Find a ring for example, and then choose one of the three categories for the "First" wish. Same with the Second, and then Third. Each "Wish" allows one draw from the appropriate deck, for a random 1 time benefit.

Categories could also be random of course.

Another thought was that these could be used for minor "Boons". The old man found chained to the wall in the dungeon, "Blesses" you if you let them go. Or maybe the street urchin you tossed a GP to while in town, is really a Mage in disguise. Or what have you.

Point is these could be great one time use rewards for story interactions and similar.