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Printing Custom Board Game Cards?

mightyspacepopemightyspacepope Registered User regular
in Help / Advice Forum
I'm looking to get some custom cards printed for a board game. They'd be the same size as Magic the Gathering cards (63x88mm or 2.5 x 3.5 in). Does anyone have any suggestions for a good site to use to have them done? They'd have to be double sided and I'd need them by 10/24. Thanks!

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    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    You might be able to do something similar with cardstock and a normal printer.

    There's also these:
    http://www.makeplayingcards.com/promotional/custom-game-cards.html
    https://www.thegamecrafter.com/

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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    EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited October 2015
    ...you can get playing cardstock prints done at any Kinkos/print-shop for cheap and usually same-day-next day. The trick would be cutting them yourself (but that really isn't hard).

    It'll cost a whole lot less than specialty stores, but depending on your needs you probably don't need to jump to top-shelf quality for playtesting.

    Enc on
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    Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    I think everyone on Boardgame Geek prefers Printer Studio.

    www.printerstudio.com

    Here's an example of stuff someone made for Shadows of Brimstone

    http://www.printerstudio.com/sell/sell_render_design.aspx?type=11F48D428FF36AB59BE22C9B145D0EC9&id=8E82620183C49D3AE73D5E28DCCF93FFFE5BC27B3AE249B6746A028F3CE8F951AAC0FA2FE060BF77

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    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Yeah generally what people do for play testing is go buy a few pack of cards, and a gluestick, print off their 'card' on normal paper, and use the glue stick and a rolling pin to flatten it onto the playing cards.

    This way you can shuffle them too.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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    NeurotikaNeurotika Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Yeah generally what people do for play testing is go buy a few pack of cards, and a gluestick, print off their 'card' on normal paper, and use the glue stick and a rolling pin to flatten it onto the playing cards.

    This way you can shuffle them too.

    Or you can sleeve a card and slip the printout in there too, little easier to shuffle.

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    EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    ForceVoid wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Yeah generally what people do for play testing is go buy a few pack of cards, and a gluestick, print off their 'card' on normal paper, and use the glue stick and a rolling pin to flatten it onto the playing cards.

    This way you can shuffle them too.

    Or you can sleeve a card and slip the printout in there too, little easier to shuffle.

    This is what I used to do for custom risk. We put normal copy paper printouts sleeved over magic cards. Cost about $2 for the sleeves plus about 50c for the printing.

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    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    ForceVoid wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Yeah generally what people do for play testing is go buy a few pack of cards, and a gluestick, print off their 'card' on normal paper, and use the glue stick and a rolling pin to flatten it onto the playing cards.

    This way you can shuffle them too.

    Or you can sleeve a card and slip the printout in there too, little easier to shuffle.

    Cheep sleeve? The sleeves I have for collectibles tend to be super stiff.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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    DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    ForceVoid wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Yeah generally what people do for play testing is go buy a few pack of cards, and a gluestick, print off their 'card' on normal paper, and use the glue stick and a rolling pin to flatten it onto the playing cards.

    This way you can shuffle them too.

    Or you can sleeve a card and slip the printout in there too, little easier to shuffle.

    Cheep sleeve? The sleeves I have for collectibles tend to be super stiff.

    Magic sleeves are pretty cheap and designed for playing. They're just a light polyethylene sleeve with opaque backs basically. Those, with some cheap magic cards in the back for rigidity are the way to go for playtesting.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
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    EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Yeah, you can shuffle and bend magic sleeves very easily.

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    bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Well this changes everything.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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    mightyspacepopemightyspacepope Registered User regular
    My apologies. I'm using the cards as a participation prize and I drive them to stand okay on their own without sleeving. Thanks for the suggestions!

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    FiggyFiggy Fighter of the night man Champion of the sunRegistered User regular
    mightyspacepope wrote: »
    My apologies. I'm using the cards as a participation prize and I drive them to stand okay on their own without sleeving. Thanks for the suggestions!

    Almost any print shop should offer laser cutting. Just give them a call, explain what you want, and they should be able to provide you specs for the file you need to send them.

    XBL : Figment3 · SteamID : Figment
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    The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    mightyspacepope wrote: »
    My apologies. I'm using the cards as a participation prize and I drive them to stand okay on their own without sleeving. Thanks for the suggestions!

    I strongly recommend The Game Crafter so long as you have the necessary lead time. Exceptional PoD card quality, in my opinion.

    With Love and Courage
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    SleeperHoldSleeperHold Registered User regular
    I did this a couple of years back by taking PDF files of my designs to my local professional printers, they let me select my card style and a la, they printed them nicely. I got two copies of everything to account for future damage and the price wasn't too bad TBH. I had far less luck getting a decent board made up.

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