UPDATE: I Created My Own Minimalistic Deck and Now It’s Available to Print or Buy

EDIT: An official site has been created for the deck, you can access it here.

A couple of days ago I decided to share a project I was working on. You can read about that here. I was surprised on how well received it was. I got tons of feedback — which I really appreciated. All the great feedback led me to change a bit in the original design, which made the deck even better, I believe. This post is a summary of the changes that were made, but first:

Buy or print it

It’s now possible to buy or print the deck!

I have decided to publish the deck on Game Crafter for those who want to buy it, you can buy it on this link.

For those who don’t want to buy it — it’s completely possible for you to download the files and print them yourselves. You can download them from here. All 54 cards are available as separate PNGs in the zip-file provided.

There is however one difference between the two ways to get the deck:
The print files does NOT include the player aid or instructions for the games provided. If you buy them from Game Crafter, you do get 18 extra cards with player aid and instructions for the games:

• Love Letter
• Coup
• One Night Ultimate Werewolf
• Fox in the Forest
• 2 player Arboretum
• Schotten Totten
• No Thanks

You can read more about the additional instructions and player aid a bit down in the article.

So to sum it up:
YOU CAN BUY THE GAME HERE
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE GAME HERE

Here are, however, some of the changes that were made to the deck.

The name

Maybe not the most important part, but important nonetheless. This wasn’t based on any feedback or anything. As some maybe have seem, the username I often use is “banjoanton”, which made Banjo Deck the most appropriate name. Not too important maybe, but a detail worth mentioning.

The different roles

One of the most talked about subjects of the deck was how to differentiate the roles from each other. This was a problem I had thought a lot about without coming up with an actual solution. I had some ideas about icons, but I tried many different ways and it just seemed… cluttered.

After trying around some different solutions, I ended up with the most basic of them all. Changing the color on the number in the center of the card. It might seem boring — but it was actually the best solution.

I tried many different combinations; changing both the text and number, only the text, icons, circles and what not. In the end, changing only the color of the number was the best solution. The text is always black. Below is an example of how the three different colors look together.

It’s not a big change, but at least it’s something to be able to keep the different roles apart. This way you can only look through the deck quickly to find the cards you need for a game.

The circles

The circles have been changed to other shapes (besides the green one). Many people told me that the colors made it difficult for them to see the difference between the colors. I did not think about that at all when designing the deck, so I made this change which, in my opinion, made the deck much better.

5 new shapes have been added, but the same color is used.

The player aid and instructions

Some people mentioned that player aid is crucial in some of the games this deck can play. Coup, Love Letter and Ultimate Werewolf all have roles and rules that might be difficult to keep up with. Therefore I designed special player aid cards for those games. I also made instruction and rule cards for some other games the many people suggested. For the full list; look at the top.

As mentioned before; the player aid cards and instructions are only available if you buy the deck. They are NOT available in the downloadable print files.

Done?

I guess the project is done for now. Well, maybe not. If I someday come up with something new that could improve the deck I’ll probably make an update to the deck — but until then I guess you could say that the project is finished.

If some people still have feedback or tips for the deck I would love to hear them. Anything that improves it I would be glad to hear about.

Until then I just wanted to thank all of the people who helped me and gave me feedback on the deck. I really appreciate it.

THANK YOU!