TG Design/Production/Publishing: Shameless self-promotion is good, actually

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Design/Production/Publishing: Shameless self-promotion is good, actually

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

I'd be happy to throw Strike! into a charity bundle.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2020 01:48

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:35

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Hey, I'm doing some layout tests for my game I'm about to publish and I'm looking for feedback on the tables I'm using. I had these fairly compact d66 tables similar to things I had done in Strike!, but then I compared them to Fiasco and it spreads its d66 tables out over a full 2-page spread with tons of white space, which got me thinking about other ways to present the information

I've mocked up a few different versions of the tables and some selected pages from the game in a pdf, and I'd like opinions on:

1. Which of the 3 versions of the d66 tables is best? The compact version on page 5, the spread out version on pages 6-7, or the compromise 2-column version on page 8? Or is there another good way to organize those tables that I haven't considered?
2. Fonts! I'm not a font guy - this is the same font I used for Strike! I'm happy to change it to a different font if this one sucks or something. Or to have the table font be different from the body text font. I know some of you have font opinions, so please tell me.
3. Colors - the table colors currently match the logo (seen in the awesome cover art by our very own Ferrinus!). I would like opinions on those colors and on the color of the call-out boxes on page 2, and the color of the ribbon going along the top and left of each spread.

Ariadne and Bob Layout Test

Once I get this stuff sorted out, I'll be just a handful of hours of grunt work away from publishing!

# ¿ Oct 17, 2021 18:26

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

JMBosch posted:

I'm no layout expert, or even particularly good in that area, but if you're just wanting opinions:

I like the compact, page 5 version. I personally appreciate one-page references wherever they're possible without being too dense, and that page seems to be right in that zone. If you had any more information trying to be conveyed there, I would probably break it up more like the two tables on pages 8 and 9. I think the two-page spread works well in Fiasco because the design is so clean and sparse. There are no colors, no table borders. Just white with some lines of text. The background colors and table borders in your two-page spread on pages 6 and 7, in contrast, seem to emphasize how much empty space there is on each page, and I kind of get the feeling of "Why is this spread out so much? It's a waste of space." Fiasco is also a smaller book than yours, so the white space in those spreads isn't as big and feels more like a reprieve from that denser text and art of the rules page rather than a space where stuff could go but is instead empty.

I know even less about fonts, so I'll just say that a tad more whimsical font for headers might fit the theme as long as readability doesn't suffer. But I can't really give any recommendations.

I think all the colors are good, except that the BG colors for the title of each table are maybe just a tad too dark for having black text in front of them. Maybe consider bumping them up a bit lighter and, if necessary, similarly bumping up the other table BG colors a bit lighter to match, if they are then too close.

Hope that helps.

Side note: Has your book already been through copyediting? I've noticed a few issues on page 2. They're mostly minor, but there are a couple of missing words as well. I'm a freelance editor if you want another set of eyes. You can check my website in my profile and PM or email me if you're interested.

Thanks for the feedback! I've talked it over with some other folks on Discord and I think I'm going to go with the 2-column tables for the book, but then separately lay out printable condensed playsets using the smaller tables. It's a bit more work, but it's sort of the best-of-both-worlds.

And no, I haven't done final copyediting yet - I was still messing with the text up until a few days ago. I think I've already got someone for that, but if that doesn't work out I'll get in touch with you. Thanks for the offer!

# ¿ Oct 22, 2021 16:30

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Hey everyone, as I try to wrap up Ariadne and Bob and turn my full attention to the other projects I've got in the pipeline, I am getting into the final layout, playing around with using free art.

I need opinions on a couple of options for the textboxes for the layout:

Layout Test

I need to know a) which of the first two spreads is better?
and b) are they better than the basic no-background layout I currently have?

# ¿ May 13, 2022 18:53

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

UnCO3 posted:

I think between the first two maybe the first is better, since it groups together info that's connected together. As for whether it's better than no art, that probably comes down more to your taste.

One small thing I'm guessing is gonna be fixed anyway: the tiny margin on the left of the left column in the first spread makes it look crowded. Another thing: the gap between the "Fantasy Babble"/"Power Sources" headings and the text above is kinda narrow and makes it a little harder to distinguish the headings as separate from that text (made worse by "Babble" having a capital and 3 ascenders). The basic layout has better spacing there but you could also maybe pull the tables and headings down slightly towards the example box instead.

Yeah, that was just me playing around with different ideas. I bet the columns are different widths and it's not symmetrical because I was just eyeballing it. I'm going to redo all the widths properly on master pages in a new file once I have the design and colors worked out. So the margins will all be worked out then.

The gaps between the headings and text will take some manual fixing because each playset has a different fancy heading font in all kinds of sizes that I'll need to standardize.

Thanks for the feedback!

# ¿ May 14, 2022 22:29

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:35

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Thanks for the tips!

The overall idea with the background images is to have a splash page with the image and just a title so you see the full thing, then it sits in the background for the rest of the section (1 to 3 more spreads). Which means I narrowed the area where text could go to make a bit more of it visible (not much point even having a bg image if it's only visible in the gutter for the printed version). More of it might be visible on other spreads as well---that spread is pretty full.

I'm looking at other sources for the art, but because my remaining budget is essentially $0, it's tough to find images of sufficient quality to be a full spread that are landscape orientation and match up with the various genres I have playsets for. (Time Loop in particular is giving me a hard time.)

# ¿ May 19, 2022 01:21

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