Web-Based Talisman Card Creator (Early Prototype)

By Ignorance2, in Talisman Home Brews

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I’ve started fiddling with creating a website for the creation of Talisman cards (including character and rule cards).

It’s only in EXTREMELY early development (it looks awful and only does a start on making basic Adventure or Purchase cards), but I’m curious if people would be interested in it. No point making it pretty if there’s nobody out there who wants it.

http://push-a-button.com/cardmaker/

Would anyone be interested in it, should it be much more attractive and complete?

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eehhh , this is cool. a great device to make cards in any computer

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I would definitely be interested!

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Kewl I like it. I want to see more.

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An interesting tool. :D

I look forward to seeing how it appears after some fleshing out.

That said, and since you asked I'll venture my opinion. I'll qualify my statements by quickly adding that I have no programming or coding skills of my own so I have nothing but respect for anyone who does. My comments are around aesthetics and functionality as I believe a web / or agnostic interface is the next logical evolution to this type of tool.

  1. Firstly as I have said, your heading down the right path in terms of functionality. If all you need is a browser and somewhere to store your creations (possibly exporting the images as JPG or PNG) then anyone can do this at any time.
  2. Drop down or pre-populated areas. I know its pre-alpha but assume that even hard core players of Talisman won't remember the "Type" of card. Its still nice to be able to manually edit and add your own, but what are the known card types if you just want to add on.
  3. Next are priorities. Build yourself a list of critical, standard and "nice to have" items that you want to build into the tool. Its web based so I imagine that that the possibilities here are only limited by code.
    1. So as a sub section to priorities I would recommend keeping it simple to start. Build in the functionality for the base cards and then work to "pretty" the interface.
    2. In terms of functionality, again simple to start. Giving more control to adding and manipulating the images can be tricky. Keep where and how images can be added to a dead simple method. Adding more text customization and spelling assistance can be helpful.

Again, excellent start and keep an open mind to different possibilities. I don't know what the ramifications are for Talisman specifically, but if you made the tool more "generic" you might want to consider a Kickstarter campaign to build custom cards for any game. Of course its more work and if your like most of us you have a day job, and possibly one or more small humans running around your home calling you dad.

Who are these children anyway :wacko: ?

Edited by caeaston
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Yes to the job, and the kids.

This is EXTRAORDINARILY early, just throwing up prototype code that I wrote to prove the basic concept that I could generate a 300DPI image that closely matched the HTML/CSS version shown in the editor. My initial focus is on functionality, not user-interface :P

But yes, the system is rigged to be generic. You should be able to slot in other card types and even other games quite easily should you have the images required. As a developer, there is simply a little 'template' XML file you'll need to edit to describe the new kind of card.

I'm working on talisman character cards now - getting the rotated HTML/CSS text to match the PHP-generated GD2 text is proving challenging, but not impossible.

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Very nice so far. Give me an email if you want any help with the creator, or even general feedback.

A couple of people have tried making online editors, but then Chris Jennings developed additional functionality for Strange Eons and they went by the wayside.

I can only think of problems if you were offline, but if you able to use a local copy it would not be so bad.

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Being offline is a little less of an issue now-adays (and I live in Australia, land of horrific Internet connections), and while Strange Eons is great, I didn't love the export process (does it REALLY have to put it in a Zip file?), or the fact that the Talisman plugin has never been upgraded for v3 - the latest Strange Eons has great features for printing multiple items on a single page.

I was going to update the SE plugin for Talisman, but when I looked at the back-end, I decided it may be better if I just build something from scratch and get some practise with GD2 rather than learn a very specific API that I won't get the opportunity to use again :P

That, and I like the idea of a platform that lets people share and build their own expansions.

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It is a good idea if you want to make up some cards on the go on a computer where you aren't able to install SE.

Even tough I don't find any real use for it yet, I see the effort you're putting into it can give the community a cool tool for homebrews.

;)

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Ahh, it has? Well there goes the whole reason I was working on this in the first place :)

Awesome work, by the way. Can't wait for the download to become available again.

Edited by Ignorance
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The website doesn't support PM or show an email address - should I contact you via the Talisman Island contact page?

I certainly would like to get in touch - particularly about using the assets (with attribution, of course) if I released this as Open Source.

I'm notorious for starting projects and never quite finishing them, so I'll probably release the source to the public in the not-too-distant future so that it doesn't die out if/when I lose interest - and to let people add more games that I don't own myself.

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Yes, regular email is fine via the site.

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Starting to look really good ;)

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Spoilers?