And here are the "Character" cards for my game. Unlike the regular "Item" cards, which are acquired during the course of the game, these cards are given out at the beginning of the game. Each player starts play with two of them, and they give the players unique abilities as well as influencing what dice they get. (The 'die' symbols in the bottom corner show what dice are given out.)

This is the one part of the game that is still in flux. Overall, I'm happy with the powers on the cards here, but they still need to be well tested and will probably undergo more tweaks.

Cut and sleeved with other game cards behind them to add strength, the same way the main cards are done.

Here are the prototype dice for my game. Some of the symbols are likely to change, and the final colors will almost certainly be a little different, but as an early version I think they work quite well.

Bought the dice themselves from blankdice.co.uk. Printed on sticky paper, cut into squares, and stuck on.

Here are the tokens for my game. The hexagonal shapes are Mana Gems in each of the four elements. The triangular ones are Mana Prisms. These are nice and large, approximately 1 1/4 inches in diameter.

Printed on sticky paper, cut with a circle punch, and stuck onto plastic chips.

Here are the cards in my prototype's three main decks, all 72 of them. Lots of placeholder artwork visible here, but I think it still looks good. And I'll be replacing the cards gradually as more illustrations are finished.

Whew. That's a lot of cutting and sleeving. :)

Mystic Tiger Games is please to announce its collaboration with illustrator Rastislav Le to make art for Manaforge's cards. He has done illustrations for many other board games, as well as art for the Dungeons and Randomness podcast.

Check out more of his awesome artwork on his DeviantArt page (artdeepmind.deviantart.com).

Welcome Rastislav Le! Here's to making Manaforge look fantastic!

Mystic Tiger Games announces that it will be demoing its game Manaforge at the upcoming FlaMinGoCon Cubed event in West Palm Beach, FL, on August 22.

Information and directions are here: FlaMinGoCon Cubed
Get your advance tickets here: FlaMinGoCon

Hope to see you there!

Here is card number four, an 'earth' type:

And here is card five, a 'wind' type:

Technically, the earth card is a 'nature' card, a keyword I use when a card has equal amounts of earth and water in it. Mechanically, this makes no difference, but artistically it explains the dominant green colors.

And with that, that's all five card elements in the game. Yay! Thanks to Justin Lynch and Jes Cole for making these look great!

And here is card number three, a 'water' type card. Like the arcane card, this card stays in play and grants you a benefit each turn. In this case, the card can be activated to produce the mana specified by the symbols.

When this card is first acquired, only the top ability line is unlocked. The hexagonal symbols on the left are Mana Gems, tokens that can be added to the card to unlock the rest of the card abilities in order from top to bottom.

And another one...

Yay second card! This card differs from the first in its purpose. Where the first card is an item (something you'd want to sell to customers), this card represents a tool, something the artisan uses to help create other items.

Whereas the first card is a 'fire' type card, this card is an 'arcane' type. Arcane is the game's fifth element, representing a fusion of the other four elements.

Same caveat applies...  this card is 'done' in the sense that the concept is completed. I might end up making font changes or other little tweaks.

Card template?
Check.

Illustration?
Check.

Game icons?
Check.

Fonts?
Errr...  ummm...  check?

Cleared for liftoff.
3...  2...  1...  launch!

The first completed card for Manaforge! Yay! I use the term 'completed' loosely, of course. Everything is subject to change right up until the game goes to the printers. And I'm not 100% happy with the fonts, so I might have more hunting to do in that regard. Still, I think it's a pretty good first step.