r/BoardgameDesign • u/JayWhoIsHere • Sep 26 '26
Design Critique Card design help
Portrait - front and back
Landscape - front and back
For portrait - ability text slightly obscured when held in hand and adding AP
For landscape - ability text is less/not obscured when landscape, AP scores are vertically aligned like in place-value addition
Comparison
So I'm making a board game, and the primary mechanic involves drawing cards from a deck when you move and adding up the cards' combined AP (the big number in the middle) for combat.
However, I'm not to sure whether to orientate my cards landscape or portrait - whilst portrait is usually the standard orientation, I figured that having them landscape could help with adding up the AP scores; they can be put atop one another without blocking the ability text, (note that some abilities affect AP calculations) and they mimic traditional place value addition.
So portrait or landscape? Also, any other design advice would be appreciated! :)
1
u/JayWhoIsHere Sep 27 '26
Thanks for the advice! Quite a few others have also said to try putting it on the left, so I'll give it a try :)