Last time we sat down to talk about how much effort to put into a rulebook at various parts of a game design project. While discussing this we used the game Phone Hacker which is currently being designed by Sir David Fryett.
As we discussed at this point in the design process it's probably not worth putting loads of hours into making a pretty rulebook and is definitely not worth hiring a professional artist to do it. But what if you just want to put a few hours in to make it look like something better then words in columns on a page?
Since David is an awesome guy and gave me the inspiration to write the previous article I decided to use my meager art skills to show how anyone (even art deficient me) can make a good starting rulebook. I'll only use free tools so any of you reading can do this too, and we'll go step by step in the process to show you how we turned just a page of text into something special.
As we discussed at this point in the design process it's probably not worth putting loads of hours into making a pretty rulebook and is definitely not worth hiring a professional artist to do it. But what if you just want to put a few hours in to make it look like something better then words in columns on a page?
Since David is an awesome guy and gave me the inspiration to write the previous article I decided to use my meager art skills to show how anyone (even art deficient me) can make a good starting rulebook. I'll only use free tools so any of you reading can do this too, and we'll go step by step in the process to show you how we turned just a page of text into something special.
So my first step in our little adventure was finding fonts! I wanted to find something that had a slightly futuristic feel to go with the hacking theme for the main text of the rulebook and something that looked cool for the title. For those not font savvy two great website FontSpace is a really cool place to look for fonts since it has a tool where you can type anything into the bar and see what it looks like in that font at any size point. That way you don't have to instal a font only to realize it wont read well in a small size, or looks terrible really large.
After finding the fonts I wanted it was a simple matter of installing them onto the computer. If you don't know how to do that don't here's a link to a simple tutorial.
Just remember when looking for fonts to find things free for commercial use. You don't want to accidentally break the law by using a font you were supposed to pay for.
After finding the fonts I wanted it was a simple matter of installing them onto the computer. If you don't know how to do that don't here's a link to a simple tutorial.
Just remember when looking for fonts to find things free for commercial use. You don't want to accidentally break the law by using a font you were supposed to pay for.
With my fonts installed and ready to go I opened up my main tool for the day: GIMP. GIMP is a free open source program very similar to Photoshop than runs in as many languages and operating systems as you can imagine. It also allows you to export your files as a .pdf file which is an amazing feature. If you do any kind of work with art this is definitely a program worth getting. You can learn more about it on the GIMP Website.
Now we can really start to see this rulebook turn into something amazing! Since I was trying to spruce this up from being just a blank sheet of paper with text I decided I would start with a simple background so there wasn't just white space. I had the brilliant idea to put the rules inside of a cell phone to make it look like the screen to match the theme. I hunted down some free to use clipart (again make sure you aren't using pictures illegally), resized it to fit a normal sheet of paper, and was ready to put the rules in!
Now it looks rather blank, so we gotta put the rules in! I took the picture we made and placed it in an OpenOffice document. here's a link for you!
So now we put in the rules. If you want to get really complex you can use settings to only allow text in a certain area inside the picture. Since I wanted this to be something anyone could do easily, I'll just use my tab key and other basics to format the text. So I added in the rules to the game along with the edits I provided to help make the rules better.
OpenOffice is free software for those of you without all of the Microsoft standard programs. It can even open word documents, PLUS it can convert any file into a PDF which is really convenient. If you want to download it
So now we put in the rules. If you want to get really complex you can use settings to only allow text in a certain area inside the picture. Since I wanted this to be something anyone could do easily, I'll just use my tab key and other basics to format the text. So I added in the rules to the game along with the edits I provided to help make the rules better.
OpenOffice is free software for those of you without all of the Microsoft standard programs. It can even open word documents, PLUS it can convert any file into a PDF which is really convenient. If you want to download it
So we made the rules look good, but David also wanted to add visual examples to the game as well to help players learn. I agree that it's a good decision as well. So we'll have to make a page 2! That's pretty easy, all I had to do was copy the phone to the next page.
But what about the pictures? David took some pictures of the game in progress which is more then a good enough thing to use especially at this point in the process. However since Dave gave me the inspiration for the last two articles and was kind enough to let us use this rulebook I'm going to go the extra mile and make the game more printer friendly by making my own little example pictures in GIMP.
But what about the pictures? David took some pictures of the game in progress which is more then a good enough thing to use especially at this point in the process. However since Dave gave me the inspiration for the last two articles and was kind enough to let us use this rulebook I'm going to go the extra mile and make the game more printer friendly by making my own little example pictures in GIMP.
Making some "tiles" was be incredibly easy as well, just have to make a square an type a number into it. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution! I can use these and other basic clip art (that I checked again to be sure was free) to make a quick example that showcases each kind of move available. Hopefully this visual will help people understand the game a bit better! I made a simple set up tiles to match the font from the rulebook so he'll be able to edit this easily in the future for it all to match.
We took a plain sheet of paper and with a few hours of time came up with this. Is it perfect? Most definitely not! But with time the rules might get work, things might change, and if the game really goes places it might evolve into something way more amazing. But for the moment and where the game is in the design process, it will do and look pretty snazzy as well.
If you guys have any questions on the process we took here or happen to know some awesome tools for art, design, or formatting of any kind let us know in the comments! One last special thanks to David for being so darn amazing and letting us use his game in our example. Until next time: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.
We took a plain sheet of paper and with a few hours of time came up with this. Is it perfect? Most definitely not! But with time the rules might get work, things might change, and if the game really goes places it might evolve into something way more amazing. But for the moment and where the game is in the design process, it will do and look pretty snazzy as well.
If you guys have any questions on the process we took here or happen to know some awesome tools for art, design, or formatting of any kind let us know in the comments! One last special thanks to David for being so darn amazing and letting us use his game in our example. Until next time: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.