Lately we’ve been working out our card layouts. It’s an interesting challenge to find the cleanest, least obtrusive way to pack as much information as possible onto a 63mm x 63mm field.
While Aethermon: Collect is not complicated, the below information does still need to be shared:
- What Aethermon is on the card?
- What other Aethermon are in its family?
- How many points does this Aethermon grant?
- What elemental force does this Aethermon share?
This translates to the following visual features: the main image; the name; the points digit; the one, two or three family portraits; the elemental coloured ribbon; and the elemental glyphs.
You may notice that the element is represented twice in the above list. It isn’t more gameplay-important than anything else – in fact, aside from sorting cards before a two- or three-player game, strictly speaking you can play without it. So what gives?
Let’s say you’re a first-time player of Aethermon: Collect. In fact, let’s say you’re a first-time visitor to the Aethersphere. A large part of the gameplay is collecting entire family lines in order to substantially increase your score – but the cards are in a grid on the table, oriented in all directions, and you don’t know which ones share the same families. You need to be able to tell at a glance where to find your target. The coloured ribbon makes for a quick shortcut to which of the many cards you should check.
But what if you are colour blind? Estimates suggest that as many as 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of colourblindness. This is where the glyphs come in. Placed on the ribbon, they offer players additional information to ensure that mistakes are harder to make.
We want Aethermon to be for everyone who wants it, which means that as well as the obvious aesthetic concerns we have for our product, inclusive design is an important feature. It’s true the phrase ‘you can’t please everybody’ – we don’t have a solution for totally blind players, for instance – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be accessible with inclusive design features where we CAN put them.
And if I may, our cards are looking pretty good.
What do you think? Does it matter to you to play games that prioritise inclusivity in their design?
Stay welcoming, AetherRen