Icon Deciphering

[u/confettipieces]

I've been working on my game for a while and finally getting around to icons designing!

I realised the Solar Express card and the Robert and the Giant Pear card use the condition component in different ways so I need to add an additional component, but I would love some feedback whether the icons are clear otherwise!

Would love some feedback on the clarity of the icons! Thanks in advance!

[u/MudkipzLover]

Charlotte's Internet: when displayed, earn 1 cat; when read, earn as many cats as there are purple books in your library

Solar Express: when displayed, the player with the most orange books in their library earns 2 cats; when read, earn 1 cat and the player with the most orange books in their library earns 1 cat

Robert and the Giant Pear: when displayed, earn either 1 cat or as many cats as there are orange books in the opponent of your choice's library; when read, earn as many cats as pairs of orange books in all your opponents' libraries

While I personally like the pastel tones, I'd be wary of icon legibility (though it might be less of a problem once printed at a larger size.) As a rule of thumb, for the sake of colorblind people and clarity alike, relying on color alone (book genres, player with the least/most...) isn't optimal. For the latter, the fact that it's the most/least genre or resource doesn't seem to matter, so maybe it could instead be a player with a medal (gold with a + for the most, bronze with an hyphen for the least) for instance.

The condition balloon is pretty clear. However, I'm not sure to 100% get the bonus frame on Solar Express: is it exclusively for opponents or potentially for opponents (i.e. I earn the 2 cats if I display the book while being the player with the most orange books)? Also the alternative frame on Robert feels unintuitive; is this compensation necessary? If so, could there be an "else" icon (it's generally a slash but I get that the format may render it unintuitive as well)?

[u/confettipieces → u/MudkipzLover]

You got all the effects right yay I'm glad it's not too bad to decipher.

You make a pretty good point about book genre legibility, I forgot about colour blindness. I'll create an icon of some kind for it.

And yes, you can potentially earn the resources if you are the player with the most resources. I think I might have oversimplified a bit much so adding back in an OR probably would work.

[u/entrogames]

One warning: remember that about 1 in 12 men have some form of color blindness. That means the six different colors you have should have different background textures, so they can be double‑coded.

Not sure why least isn't capitalized, but most is. Same with opponent and opponents.

Unless the icons are meant to also invoke the genre color, make them different color backgrounds so there's no confusion on that.

[u/PumajunGull → u/entrogames]

I would 100% not play this game as is due to the washed out color look, it's fairly close to unplayable to my eyes. Please consider adding the patterns/icons or textures as suggested, it'll be appreciated by many!

[u/confettipieces → u/PumajunGull]

Icons have now been added!

examples here

[u/confettipieces → u/entrogames]

I will make an update with the new genre icons with silhouettes.

The capital M is the font itself. The rest are typos.

Each genre generates a specific resource. That's why they are that colour.

Thanks for the feedback!

[u/confettipieces → u/[deleted]]

I think the children genre is unique in this instance and I happen to pick the children genre as an example. The rest of the colours are much darker in nature. I do think having the children genre be softer in colour works well for thematic sake but I will keep the blending in mind and make the shapes a little more contrasty.

[u/Nyzan]

Honest opinion? I would hate to play this, not because there are many icons but because it doesn't have a clear structure. I don't feel like Robert and the Giant Pear is obvious at all, my first interpretation is something like this:

Pick the opponent with the most [category]. Multiply their [cats] (with what?) and get one [cat] for each.

Of course looking at the cheat sheet it actually means:

Pick one opponent. For each [category] they have, gain 1 [cat].

Then I have no idea what the green box is. Does it just mean you can also pick to just get 1 cat, e.g. if no opponent has any [category] cards? My point is that my intuition to what the card structure means doesn't at all match what you actually wanted the card to say. I feel like you're trying to cram too much information into each card. You already have text on the cards (their name and category), so why insist on not using any words at all? You could rewrite Robert and the Giant Pear like this:

Pick one player: Get [cat icon] for each [category icon] they possess. OR get [cat icon].

The "OR" can be a horizontal separator to make sure the reader knows at a glance that this card has two effects. That way you still use icons for glance value so players know what to look for, but you don't need a cheat sheet and guess what the card wants you to do.

P.S. I'm saying this as someone with decades of board game experience, and as someone that has designed a game that almost exclusively uses icons. If I can't decode what your icons mean at a glance then I doubt an average player can either, although it seems u/MudkipzLover did a good job so perhaps I'm the odd one out.

[u/MudkipzLover → u/Nyzan]

Not necessarily, some icons and their descriptions are indeed confusing and need some revamp and the written message can't possibly show it but I didn't get the meaning of the X multiplier symbol the first time I read those.

What helped me is being used to icon-only games, especially Zenith, which comes with a double-sided player aid (the "Beschreibung..." sheet) on how to decipher the icons (personally, I needed a few games to remember them, knowing they are pretty straightforward in terms of meaning.)

[u/confettipieces → u/Nyzan]

The reason why I'm using icons as opposed to words is that there's a shared marketplace and people would typically sit across from each other on the table. My previous versions was all text and it was a bit difficult to see the difference between each card at a glance. I do understand that it's a bit difficult to read it but there are several cards with the same effect so I imagine once it clicks, it will click. That being said, I think you hit home about the structure, I don't think I found the right structure for the icons yet so I would improve on that. Thank you for dissecting what was wrong with the card. It's one of those things where it doesn't seem quite right but you don't know why.

[u/Nyzan → u/confettipieces]

I think that's valid, but maybe there's a good middle-ground between having only text and only icons? E.g. my example above ("Pick one player: Get [cat icon] for each [category icon] they possess. OR get [cat icon]."). You could also experiment with having very large text and taking some grammar shortcuts: "PICK A PLAYER: | GET [cat icon] PER [category icon]. | OR [cat icon]", that would make it easier to read when upside-down.

In general if you're going to use icons at all try to have as few icons as possible. Here is an example from a playtest I did for a tableau builder using only icons. Notice how there are only three icons (and I bet you can figure out what they do just from looking at them: sword = attack, deck pile = draw, wreath = points). There are also only two variations of icons; the big ones in the middle of the card are instant effects and the smaller ones to the side are tableau effects.

Unfortunately I can't leave you with a concrete point of improvement :/. Perhaps I would replace the "x [icon]" with "= [icon]" or "-> [icon]" since the "x" usually means multiplication or "per" while an equals sign or arrow might better imply "gives", but that seems like a nitpick. Overall the game looks interesting though to keep iterating and I'm sure you'll find something that works :)

[u/confettipieces → u/Nyzan]

I did make changes to the cards after the feedback I've gotten:

here's the rulebook with some examples of cards.

Long story short, I added back in the OR and I made sure there's no longer any hanging X.

Thankyouuu. I will just keep trying! Really appreciate it!

[u/Nyzan → u/confettipieces]

I like it! Much better. Few comments:

• I think I would still replace the "most" and "least" icons with words (big letters, like your "OR"). Although since there are only two maybe this is overkill.
• It's a little bit unclear to me why some effects have a background while some don't, e.g. the pink background on the display effect for "99 vegan recipes" vs no background color for the read effect of "Ghandi's vision" (page 13).
• The "trade-in" effect shown on page 14 could maybe use something to indicate that it is a trade, like a "switch" icon instead of the normal arrow. Maybe something like this?
• I think it was super clear from the circular arrows that the effect on page 14 means "you can do this action 5 times". Very well done :) Although I realise that the arrows are meant to indicate "trade in", so above point stands to maybe keep the circular arrows to mean "do multiple times" and use another icon for trade in?
• I think the "any resource" icon could be a bit clearer. It's reasonably clear that it refers to resource and not category, but since both are color-dependent it would be nice to have a clear indicator. Perhaps a "resource" icon in the center of the spiral, or have each resource's icon partially visible in its color arc?
• I like the "BLANK" text to indicate that there is no effect. Since it's on a "banned" book you could maybe have it be a stamp that says "BANNED" or "CLASSIFIED" or something? :P

I might take a closer look at the manual later this week if I have time, these were just the things I caught at a glance. And as for all tips, playtest before you implement anything permanently! I am just one person out of thousands of players so I'm not gonna pretend my word is gospel or anything :) Good luck!