Thought you might like to have a look at how the card layouts have evolved.

This is a tremendously early prototype.  At this stage the game play is pretty much complete, but as you can see there’s still a lot of work to do on the card design, and also the puzzles were still very much being worked on.

The shields are there, as you can see, but their entire purpose got shifted around between this version and now.  There used to be a puzzle based on the hand image that you can see in the bottom right of the portrait, but that got - well, moved into something else.

The portraits at this point were just placeholders, to be used in the internal prototypes and no further.  I took the images from a D&D website; they were intended for use on character sheets.  I never intended those placeholder images to be seen by anyone but me and a few close friends, so I’ve pixellated this example. Thank you, whoever runs the web site where I got the placeholders.  I wish I could remember your address so I could link to you.

The original characters’ names mostly got changed too.  “Jonas” got replaced by someone else.  Can’t say much more about that, unfortunately…

This version came from about halfway through development.  As you can see, Paul’s version of the bat-girl is now in place, although it’s just on a white background at this point.  The shields have evolved into a form that’s much closer to how they finally ended up, although there are currently only four shields rather than the final five, and although they’ve changed shape a little, they are still rather more geometric than I’d like.  Still, they are more satisfying in this format than they were on the previous version.

The borders of the cards are now coloured.  On this version I’ve also added those little blobs that you can see around the borders, which actually won’t last too long.The colours on the cards are still all flat.

We’re going to get around to textures and shading in later versions, but at the moment I’m concentrating on making sure everything - the game itself and the puzzles too - works before making the cards look really pretty.

And here’s the final edition.  The shield shapes are much better now, and there are textures or shading on all the surfaces.  Some of the colours have changed, for example the dots on the second shield are now orange and blue, which fits the overall colour palette better.

Also, you might notice that I’ve changed the aspect ratio of the cards now, so that they’re narrower.  This is called “trumps” format, and changing it was a fairly late design decision.  Luckily, because the cards were all rendered in software, it wasn’t too hard to make the change.

According to Toy News, Mintel is about to release the results of a new study into the state of the UK Toy Industry.  You can read about it at the Toy News web site, but here are some interesting things I’ve particularly taken note of:

• The UK market for toys and games is large and robust, estimated to be worth nearly £2.2 billion in 2007, which is up by 22% in real terms on 2003. Nevertheless, Mintel has estimated a year-on-year drop to £2.1 billion for 2008.
• New product introductions have been a vital component in growth.
• Overall, the strongest-performing sectors are construction toys, games and puzzles, vehicles and action figures, while arts and crafts and outdoor games are holding steady. Again, perceived good value may well play a part here.
• The internet brings opportunities to small manufacturers and retailers to grow their sales.
• [The internet's] very convenience may also bring incremental growth to the market as a whole.
• There are too many positives for this not to be a strong and enduring market, most importantly the fun of toys, kids’ urge to collect and parents’ desire to give their children pleasure and help them learn, all reinforced with the major influence of licensed characters.
• The market faces challenges – most immediately from tougher economic conditions, and secondly from competitors for kids’ time like console games and social networking. Manufacturers need to promise and deliver good lasting value as a priority in their product development and promotion.