What's the fastest way to print a card game prototype?

Question

My goal is to minimize the amount of time I have to spend, with a budget of about $40.

Also, I'm absolutely terrible at using scissors and glue.

Answer 1

Get some card sleeves and card-stock. Write/print whatever you need to on the card-stock and cut it down to size. After you sleeve it they will all be shuffle-able and readable, just like normal cards. Admittedly this isn't good for much beyond prototype testing, but it's definitely fast and cheap. :D

Answer 2

There are several card printers online; you'll be running right near the quality bottom edge, after shipping.

The other option is to use business card sheets, or to print to 3x5 cards.

Answer 3

I have two different things I do for prototype cards. The first is just to use scraps of paper and sleeves, as outlined in the answer above (which I upvoted) - it's cheap, easy to swap in cards and stops you from over-investing time into half-baked ideas.

After I have confidence in a design enough to bring it to outside play groups, I usually use stickers on existing cards. Piles of Magic cards are super cheap (commons are essentially free, just ask around gaming groups), and you can use several different labels to print out and stick to them. If you need a couple different backs, you can use different types of dead CCG commons.

Avery makes several different stickers, and there are clones of them that are even cheaper, along with pretty good templates. I've used this in the past as the biggest sticker I can fit on a card. Those are great if you have a lot of information. I used to use the 3 1/2" floppy labels for most of my cards, as they had enough room to fit a fair bit of info while being still fairly cheap on a per-label basis, but Avery appears to have discontinued those. I still have a stockpile, but that doesn't help you.

In searching a bit, these look to be the same size as those old labels, so that might work. The nice thing about this method is that it doesn't require any cutting, just sticking, and the cards are very durable and shuffleable, being based on CCG stock.

Answer 4

You can also get playing-card sized sheets for inkjet printers. This is the first one I turned up in a Google search - do some Google work and you can probably find more. Printing on your own printer on these is probably the quickest way to get something that's actually playing card sized. If you can live with off sizes, then go to your local office store and get inkjet printable business cards or 3x5 cards.

Answer 5

Assuming that you already have the following resources:

• A computer
• A decent color printer

Then the thing to do is to use a decent software imaging program to create your own cards and backs and fronts. A really good open source software tool is GIMP. Get good at using the image software, particularly understanding layers and work out how to run the same piece of card through your printer so you get fronts and backs to line up (I convert GIMP images to pngs and print from MSPaint, which is good for centering and lining up the images). So far, we have spent 0$ (but have spent some time downloading and learning how to use the software).

You still have 40$ to spend on blank card, either finishing spray or card sleeves and buy a cheap guillotine. The most time you are going to spend on prototyping cards (especially if you have a significant number) is the hours of using scissors cutting out cards (which you say you are no good at) and a guillotine will save you many hours and be much more accurate. You could use a craft knife but the guillotine is faster and more accurate.

Answer 6

What I do is buy some adhesive name badges from office max (office max number 412-587 or avery labels 5395) then a few decks of the same playing cards from the dollar store. Then I just print out the labels and stick them to the cards. The labels cost less than 20 bucks for 160 of them

Answer 7

I remembered this question when I finally found my bookmark: http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/Card/Multi-purpose-Cards-Rectangle-394 . Artscow will print custom one side (with all the backs being unform) and custom both sides (every card unique). If you google them you can find discussions on art prep and find example sets that others have made public. I think artscow also keeps a database of designs that anyone can have printed.