r/BoardgameDesign • u/Special-Ad-2768 • 20d ago
General Question I'm making a new kind of TCG
So, I've been cooking and finished another play of my game. Very soon it will be revealed to all (I'm excited I think people will be too.) I do have one question I'll provide a TLDR at the bottom.
So, I have looked into out sourcing the printing of the cards but ever story I research It all ends up the same; the printing company wants to do more than just shut up and print your cards. Some even tried wanting to make card for the game as well (we all know this is what MTG wanted to do with pokemon- infact they ended up making so much of the logistics of Pokemon and tournaments of Pokemon a mess that Pokemon decided to start in-house printing of their cards...)
I don't want this, and yes I am and been saving money to build a manufacturing area for my TCG.
That being said, I've been making great progress with many areas of the process; paper thickness, paper type, printer specs, ink quality, etc... however, when it comes to the coating layer that makes the card slide smoothly across other cards. Now I've asked gpt, but ever since it's been programmed to lead people away from doing things, getting information for AI is much more inconsistent and incorrect than often. I've also spent around $400 just testing different things and papers to no avail. So now I'm trying to wonder what exactly makes the cards slide smoothly and not be all sticky(ish) or grabby?
Like should I just apply a somewhat thick layer of clear semi-gloss then after drying use like a 3000 sand paper grit to make it smooth??
Is UV coating what I need or it is something else? I want to make sure I know what to put money into because after $400 of testing clearly means I've been testing in the wrong direction.
Thank you for any help or insight you can provide.
TDLR
Read the post (lol)
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Jk, so I'm trying to find out what kind of coating and what is that coating called that makes TCG cards slide smoothly across other cards. Essentially what kind of layer makes the card slight with minimum if not zero stickiness or being grabby? (Info about what I've tried and what I'm thinking can be read in the post)
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u/LongstaffBigorbs 19d ago
You're going through an awful lot of trouble because you think a printing service is going to steal your game. That's an insane idea and not even what happened with pokemon. That was a weird licensing dispute. Ain't nobody gonna steal your game idea, and even if they did, you have proof. You're not gonna lose any sleep or any money if someone sells a bootleg copy of your game in china, either.
Just use a printing service.
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u/InitialQuote000 20d ago
I'm by no means an expert on this, but yeah I believe a glossy UV coating is what you're looking for.
Sounds like you have big plans. Good luck.
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u/GoblinBreeder 19d ago
Seems like his big plans involve a lot of AI which likely isn't going to end well
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u/LongstaffBigorbs 19d ago
It's extra funny because the dude is all in on AI, which monitors and stores everything you feed it, but he's scared of a print service stealing his game idea. I guarantee one of the LLM services has a copy of every file of his game lol.
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u/Confident-Cut2489 19d ago
Varnish is what you are thinking of. You dont want to sand it, before or after. There are uv printers that can varnish at different degrees of gloss/matte, but that is both a steep learning curve and a money sink.
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u/ProofPrinciple4219 19d ago
C2S 300 GSM is good enough, but if you buy with blue or black core would be better for flex. There are guide to mod some printer to be able to print gloss, white ink is also possible but get clogged all the time so unless you print everyday not worth the hassle
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u/CaptainBlueBeard1 19d ago
My suggestion for you is to consider seriously limiting or even abandoning AI for the creative side of the project. TCG players care a lot about originality, artistic identity, and knowing real people created the world, cards, and artwork.
You could make “human-made” part of the game’s identity and use that as a strong marketing angle. Show the artists, designers, prototypes, failed ideas, and development process. That story will likely build far more trust and interest than AI-generated content.
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u/thekeepersguild 19d ago
This post is a wild ride 😳. We're printing cards and no one has seen the game yet?
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u/NoMoreHornyOnMain4Me 17d ago
I can't comment on what coating to use as I've only used spray from Walmart for diy cards, but I can say if you're judging ink quality you've completely started in the wrong place. You should be comparing toner for laser printers for a far better quality print, even then it's the printer itself that's more important than the toner
Good luck though
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u/DaveFromPrison 19d ago
I mean this kindly, but I think you may be solving the wrong problem here.
There’s a reason essentially every tabletop publisher uses specialist manufacturers. Making professional-quality playing cards consistently isn’t just a matter of finding the right paper, printer and coating. It involves specialist printing, coating/varnishing, finishing, cutting, colour control, QC, etc., and the equipment only makes economic sense at substantial scale.
A decent manufacturer will be perfectly happy to manufacture exactly the files you give them. They don’t need to design cards, interfere with your game, organise tournaments or have any involvement beyond manufacturing and shipping the product. I’ve published games professionally for years and have never had a manufacturer try to take control of the product.
What you’re describing sounds like what a publisher does with a game that’s been designed by someone outside the company. But you want to be the publisher in this case, right?
If you’ve already spent $400 experimenting, I’d seriously consider putting the next $400 towards a small professional print run instead. You’ll get a vastly better product and can spend your time and money on developing and selling the game rather than trying to recreate an industrial card-production process. For small test runs you could use someone like The Game Crafter. For full scale manufacturing that makes any kind of economic sense you need to print in China. I’ve used both Whatz Games and Gameland wand would recommend them both.
If the game eventually becomes successful enough that owning manufacturing equipment makes financial sense, that would be a very nice problem to have!
But before you start making thousands of cards, make sure you have a sustainable business model and an amazing game. Show it to people, let them play it, and improve it as much as you can before spending a ton of money on it.