A game as book or cards?

On the one hand, I’m familiar with books. I know how to produce them, print them and distribute them. It’s my happy place, as it were.

On the other hand, I’ve come across a couple of games which are packaged as a deck of cards, and you use the cards to play the game. For the Queen is one good example of this. For my purposes the lesser known but more fascinating game is Fedora Noir (see my review).

As I look at the gaming scene, I can’t help but think about Fiasco by Bully Pulpit Games. That started off as a traditional rulebook in 2009 (now known as Fiasco Classic) and a decade later became available as a card game in a box. Their blog about the two editions explains that the card version of the game overcame some of the disadvantages of the earlier edition. Most significantly everything you need comes in the box, and it was much quicker to get started.

In discussions with people on Bluesky it seems that there are a number of considerations on the production and their use during play. I’d like to divide these up into the things which are good about a card format and the things which are problematic.

• As a player, with a card game everything has to be on the cards. Also there has to be good replay value.
• As a player, there is an expectation of higher production values (especially with respect to art). This along with the higher production costs may mean that a bigger print run is needed in order to make it affordable.
• Layout can be more difficult for cards, and there are fewer people with the skills who are used to it.
• A card based game can be less intimidating for new players. A box of cards on the table doesn’t seem as overwhelming as a giant book of rules.

What is good about a card format?

Portability

A box of cards is easy to throw in your luggage (or a pocket) for a trip, and it means you have a game which doesn’t require any additional material to play. No dice, no playing cards, nothing else.

I have been told anecdotally that sadly card-format games are more often stolen from convention stands, equally because of their pocketability.

Accessibility

A card-based game can be less intimidating for new players. A box of cards on the table doesn’t seem as daunting as a giant book of rules or complex character sheets. It may be particularly good for the kind of narrative-driven story games that I enjoy creating and playing at the moment.

Visual Appeal

Cards are a lovely tactile thing, and there is the opportunity for lovely graphical presentation which can enhance the experience at the table.

Structured introduction to play

One of the things that I find really appealing in card format games is that the ordered deck of cards can be used as an instructional tool to guide the players step-by-step through the sequence of play. Helping people to understand what they have to do at each step of the game.

What are problems with a card format?

Information Design

While a structured introduction to play is a great advantage of the card format, I anticipate that it is much more difficult to design the experience of the game. To ensure that enough is explained to make it easy for people to pick up and play. I often think of the quotation attributed to Mark Twain but apparently originally from Pascal:

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

It takes a lot more time and effort to encapsulate ideas in a concise form. A book gives more space, and room to expand on the concepts.

Layout

There are more restrictions on the layout, and you have far fewer words to explain things. There isn’t a luxury of expansive tables or the space on a page to lay things out clearly. You can’t rely on a table of contents or index for the players to orient themselves to the rule.

In addition, the flip side of the visual appeal is that you probably have to have a larger art budget in order to realise that visual appeal!

VAT liable

Books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK. Cards are not! This adds additional cost to the consumers and complexity in accounting for everything properly. This is clearly a big subject and one which I need to understand better and get professional advice on!

Production Cost

This is the big one. Producing cards is more costly. As a book, I might expect the cost per copy to be around £2.80 for the number of copies I’d print. For the same number of copies of cards in a nice box I’m looking at between £11.40 and £15.10 per copy depending upon the type of box at Printerstudio, or between £5.70 and £7.20 at Spingold, but that doesn’t take a box into account (and has a maximum of 78 cards)¹.

Conclusion

I think the big variable for me will be production cost. If it isn’t viable to produce and sell at the volumes I normally produce and sell, I don’t think that a card based format is going to be possible.

However, while I’m researching that, I also need to find out whether a card based format will actually work in play - so I’ve created a draft set of cards and I’m going to take them to Metatopia, the game designers conference. I’ll be running some playtests there to understand whether the card format works in play like I think it should.

I don’t think I’m at the stage where I’ll have a set of instruction cards to lead people through playing the game without my intervention — that will come later.