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I've been brainstorming a new card game idea for a while, something that could be described as "Cards Against Humanity" meets "Munchkin" but while I mostly have the rules and everything together I have been at a loss to find something to rapidly prototype, print, change, and make the cards?

I would like something that could read from a database, Excel spreadsheet, or something similar and then be able to produce Word document files or PDFs that I could then easily print to be able to beta-test the game with friends. Ideally you would be able to define the basic components/formats of each card and then just fill in the fields for each.

Anyone know of tools to assist in rapid prototyping and printing of CCG style cards?

Gregor Thomas
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RunJumpSleep
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  • Not sure yet whether I would call this a duplicate or not, but a strongly related question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/12174/1749 – Gregor Thomas Jun 04 '14 at 21:32
  • That does help, I looked at some SVG stuff before but wasn't fully satisfied for what I wanted. – RunJumpSleep Jun 05 '14 at 13:20
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    Not sure why there was an off-topic close vote added to this question, but per the [help/on-topic] page, questions about design are on-topic. – SocioMatt Nov 16 '16 at 16:30
  • @SocioMatt This question isn't about game design, but is looking for recommendations for tools. It looks just like our game recommendation questions, and those are off-topic. – Thunderforge Mar 27 '17 at 15:45

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NanDeck will do this: http://www.nand.it/nandeck/

Lets you script out card sets, fairly simple to change card sizes, etc.

The website Oil And Rope has a very slick prototyping tool called Paperize: http://paperize.io/beta which lets you upload graphics, use spreadsheet linking, etc. - super cool. Still in beta, but tons of folks love it.

T. Derscheid
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I was going to suggest Strange Eons http://cgjennings.ca/eons/ Whilst not specifically for card games, it can come in handy.

The question linked by @shujaa above also has some good links

link64
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While it sounds game-specific, Magic Set Editor is a good tool for this. http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/

If you don't like any of the magic card frames (or Yugi-Oh or the couple of others it has) you can create your own - it just takes a little digging around to find out how to do so. I often just use one of the magic card frames, though.

It has a big community of users so there should be plenty of help on how to use it if you need it.

Gregory
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I recently found https://dulst.com which bills itself as a platform to create card games.

Dulst

Harry
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I made a free extension for Inkscape to create counters or cards from spreadsheets (CSV files) combined with templates drawn in Inkscape (or imported from other applications). Recent versions have built-in PDF export.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/299033/inkscape-extensions-boardgame-development

https://github.com/lifelike/countersheetsextension

pelle
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