1. Graphic Design Software
When designing the printed components of your game (such as the cards, game board, tokens, etc.), you will spend a lot of time in your graphic design software of choice. If you’ve never done any graphic design, it can be a little intimidating to learn and navigate these programs at first - but you don’t need to be an expert to create an aesthetic and functional prototype!
Below are some of my recommendations for graphic design software.
Adobe Creative Suite
The most expensive and robust software available. With a $60 monthly subscription fee for the whole suite, you’ll make a significant investment with Adobe.
For better or worse, Adobe is the industry standard for design work. You arguably get your money’s worth if you are serious about game design with Adobe products. Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop are just some of tools you get with the Creative Suite that have their value immediately realized. Some game manufacturing websites will even have component templates already set up in Illustrator which you can download straight from their website.
On top of graphic design software, you also get access to a variety of other platforms, including video editing software such as After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Premiere Rush, the latter of which is user-friendly and easy to use to put together a short video demonstrating your game for your Youtube channel, contests, or for publishers (something you definitely will need to do!).
In total, the Adobe Creative Suite gives you over 20 apps to use for your creative needs. You can save projects to the Adobe cloud and open them on any device, which is great if you swap between a PC/laptop/tablet.
Affinity Suite
The Affinity Suite is a great option for design work at a more affordable long-term cost (despite a higher upfront investment). The Affinity Suite can be purchased for a one time price of $165, which gives you access to three platforms - Affinity Designer (comparable to Illustrator), Affinity Photo (Photoshop), and Affinity Publisher (InDesign).
Although you don’t get access to all of the apps and capabilities that Adobe opens up (such as video editing software), the combination of Designer, Photo, and Publisher provides you with all the tools you need for basic design work. The trio of products are less robust than their Adobe counterparts in terms of features available, but are more than enough to get the job done, especially if you want to jump into design work but don’t want to pay the subscription cost of Adobe.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free alternative to platforms like Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Design. It does not share the same number of features as the aforementioned products, but as a free program, it’s a great way to put some simple designs together for prototyping and testing. Inkscape affords you all the basic tools you would expect to see in a graphic design program (text, shape building, snapping, grouping, manipulation, etc.) and is a great first option to check out if you are looking into designing cards, tokens, or similar objects. You can find a full list of features on their website.
nanDECK
nanDECK is a staple in the tabletop game design community that automates a huge amount of work when it comes to card creation. nanDECK uses scripting, coding, and excel sheets to easily create, edit, and manipulate the information and design of cards. It sounds a little intimidating at first and I won’t try and explain how it all works here - you can find in-depth information, tutorials, and videos on the nanDECK website. Additionally, nanDECK’s developer is incredibly active and has a Discord community for questions, troubleshooting, and collaboration.
Other Software
- OBS Studio: Free screen recording software that you can use to record videos on virtual prototype & game platforms.
- Canva: Free, user-friendly website with a large library of templates and images for a variety of graphic design needs.
- Component Studio: Paid tool on The Game Crafter that generates cards & components easily and quickly (similarly to nanDECK).