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Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

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Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#11

Post by joemi »

michaericalribo wrote: post #6
eitland wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it is meant to generate printable pdfs with game gards for RPGs. When you click save it downloads a pdf that you can print.

yeah, I'm just curious what OP uses it for herself...what made him make it in the first place!

I'm not the OP, but as someone who dabbles in tabletop game design, I find these kind of generators very useful for game prototyping. (The one I've used most in the past is called Squib[1] and it's an open source Ruby codebase and very configurable.) It's often a huge pain to write prototype cards by hand, especially when you have to do it multiple times while iterating the design. (Though in some cases a generator won't cut it, and you need to do it by hand anyway.)

That said, since this is HN, it'd be nice to have some explanation of the technology behind the generator, too. Hopefully it's forthcoming.

[1]: http://squib.rocks/

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#12

Post by xixixao »

There's a bunch of (usually pretty arcane) software for generating cards. I like this because it takes JSON, as opposed to having to click around a GUI.

The real challenge though is to get a nice design. You should be able to put in some templates/generate some templates, and add image URIs/upload images. That would be truly awesome.

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#13

Post by ballenf »

hartator wrote: post #2

Okay, not sure why it’s on top of HN.

It combines quite a few popular trends:

- diy

- paper / offline

- game / boardgames

- simple & clear UI w/o flashiness

- not monetized / no data slurping / no email required

- no hype, no buzzwords

Not to mention that it just works. As to who needs it, I have no clue.

edit: Also the source is not minified or compiled.

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#14

Post by soneca »

Awesome! Just the tool I needed. I am developing my own board game and the hustle to create the cards to print and test was getting in the way of actually thinking about the game and the rules.

A small suggestion: add a image-top and a image-bottom fields where you put a URL and the PDF includes the image on the card.

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#15

Post by eitland »

ghrifter wrote: post #10
hartator wrote: post #2

Okay, not sure why it’s on top of HN.

Basic programming tasks amaze HN nowadays

Not everybody has to be amazed by the programming.

I guess

-some upvote because they like the idea (it could be monetizable via paid printing services, it lends itself to social - sharing of decks etc),

- some found it immediately useful

- some just found it refreshing that someone created something small to scratch an itch instead of going viral on a new blockchain.

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#16

Post by bsder »

ghrifter wrote: post #10
hartator wrote: post #2

Okay, not sure why it’s on top of HN.

Basic programming tasks amaze HN nowadays

Just because the task is basic does not make it uninteresting.

People dismiss so much stuff with "I could have done that...". Well, you didn't, and they did. So there.

(In this case, the task is probably more annoying than you think. There's a lot of little details involved in getting the alignment correct, getting the fonts wrapped, generating the PDF, etc.)

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#17

Post by michaericalribo »

joemi wrote: post #11
michaericalribo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, I'm just curious what OP uses it for herself...what made him make it in the first place!

I'm not the OP, but as someone who dabbles in tabletop game design, I find these kind of generators very useful for game prototyping. (The one I've used most in the past is called Squib[1] and it's an open source Ruby codebase and very configurable.) It's often a huge pain to write prototype cards by hand, especially when you have to do it multiple times while iterating the design. (Though in some cases a generator w…

This is neat. I'm curious, how does printing work after the prototyping stage? Would you usually find a publisher, who handles it for you? Are there other tools like Squib for making homespun tabletops?

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#18

Post by michaericalribo »

iamdave wrote: post #7
michaericalribo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, I'm just curious what OP uses it for herself...what made him make it in the first place!

I was just introduced to the Fluxx card-game system this weekend; it's a system with different variants, Zombies, Monsters, there's even a version for the TV show Firefly. Looking at the cards generated they seem to resemble the style/format of Fluxx and I wonder if OP plays themselves. I for one find it to be really neat, and may even use it myself for my weekly table-top night.

Aha, great point! Fluxx is fantastic...it reminds me a bit of Nomic [1] and 1000 Blank White Cards [2].

Have you tried making your own Fluxx deck?

[1] http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm [2]

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#19

Post by keerthiko »

I like the simplicity of the UX, I would find it much more usable open source so I can adjust the template easily.

I wrote a similar thing for my board game site [0], using yml files as data sources with jekyll includes to generate the html and a html2canvas conversion to make printable images of individual cards that I have to manually put on a print-sheet -- not quite as streamlined as this, and I would love to learn from the rest of this person's flow architecture on how to generate a pdf, make it downloadable, expose the json editor. I know I could learn each of these on my own, but this is so close to my usecase it would be nice.

[0]: https://gitlab.com/keerthik/dicestorm/

Re: Show HN: Card Proxy Generator – Generate printable game cards from JSON

#20

Post by iamdave »

michaericalribo wrote: post #18
iamdave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just introduced to the Fluxx card-game system this weekend; it's a system with different variants, Zombies, Monsters, there's even a version for the TV show Firefly. Looking at the cards generated they seem to resemble the style/format of Fluxx and I wonder if OP plays themselves. I for one find it to be really neat, and may even use it myself for my weekly table-top night.

Aha, great point! Fluxx is fantastic...it reminds me a bit of Nomic [1] and 1000 Blank White Cards [2]. Have you tried making your own Fluxx deck? [1] http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm [2]

Not yet but I very much want to; I'm thinking of doing one for the Star Wars universe :D
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