I do the same spreadsheet thing in photoshop, it's not that difficult actually. It's slower to produce because it renders each card individually, but the spreadsheet can be used for everything. I am currently using it for a game, and yeah, making the cards there is way easier than just one at a time.
I've been painstakingly (and unsuccessfully) trying to design a game in MS Paint for months now. The day before yesterday I found this video and I now have several complete variations of my board, my event cards, and every token in my game. Your videos are a godsend. Subscribed!
I saw this thumbnail and doubted, but while watching this video, my jaws were absolutely dropped. Thank you so much for creating this video and sharing this amazing find for fellow designer!
I made a homemade Mandalorian board game based on Maldo Kreis. It recreates the "The Passenger" episode. Two to four players, four games to complete the episode.
Wait, what?? This is a game changer!! (Pun absolutely intended). Thank you for showing us this, updating pdfs that quickly will save me so much time. I'm a level 2, making cards in Illustrator and testing with a physical copy. Trying to learn simulator, and this may be the push I need. Thank you again!!
So I've used Nandeck which is an awesome spreadsheet based card generator but linking to TTS takes it to a whole new level! (Oh yeah, level 5). Thank you for making this video. I would say "just take my money" but free?! Holy Guacamole Batman! Of course you show me this while I'm at work. Eh. It's Friday.
cool to see it in all its glory. You can do the same with indesign and file structure to generate card icons. Ira has a video on how he uses this for Arydia. all we need from you now is a step by step tutorial on - how to set up a card game entry in tts, and - how to create a new project with 1 card in that dextrous tool of yours.
Man! This is just what I needed! I mad my first 2 prototypes in drawing programs on my PC, and have been putting of my 3rd version cuz time it takes to do so. XD
while making my current game i was looking for a game in mind i couldnt remember the name of so i could credit it for inspiration (stolen mechanic). i failed in this mission. but i stumbled upon something greater. your videos about this app. This will help me greatly, thank you for informing me!
Nice :) Could you point us to tutorials on how to replicate your dropdown lists like in "Card Type", "Stone" and "Action Type" ? It looks really useful.
That is exactly the video i was looking for! I was trying to make my cards with inkscape but i was already scared of needing to do little changes on every card individually
MVP! Now maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to finish a project (I have some playable level 1 prototypes lying around, tho) However, you forgot level 0: Cheap deck of playing cards + permanent marker I have a bunch of those, too...
Amazing! Thank goodness I found this early. I was in-between level two and three. I had the good sense to start with Photoshop design so I only had to change art and text and numbers. This will make a big difference I think. Thank you!
Damn super useful stuff. I've been wanting to make my own game for years, ideally a video game but can't for the life of me learn to code. Though I think a board / card game is something I can actually make progress with. Thanks.
Thats super cool and efficient but i really am a sucker for handcrafted components. I buy blank playing cards and design them with a graphite pencil so that i can erase and change information or costs on the cards. I only do very minimum doodles for the art on a 1st prototype so crafting a new card takes me a minute or two. Might not be the fastest way to do it but me and my friends enjoy live play with a couple beers!
You're a Godsend!!! This is exactly what I was describing to my wife, the gaming community honestly, never disappoints! Thank you for the tremendous help, Dave!
Is there a way to save these cards into a PNG or JPG file to be used by a game prototype company to make a hard copy of the game? something like "The Game Crafter" I only see the options to save the project as a JSON file to be used by Tabletop alone.
The discord links aren't working for me. Tried joining through a community search and that also didn't work. Would love that Google Sheets template. Thanks for the great video either way!
How does this compare to Nandeck? They seem similar but this is probably more polished. What I worry about is that this probably won't be free forever so might be better to learn nandeck
I love nandeck, but what I'm interested about this is that it has an auto-upload to TTS feature. nandeck doesn't currently have that. However, nandeck does have an easy upload to the Game Crafter, for order print on demand versions of your cards quite easily.
Love this video! i went to look for the spread sheets example but it seems to not be the one you mentioned in the video. Would you beable to go check on the discort again for us?
The starter kit I put together is just a simple example to get you started, the stuff I show off in this video was a snapshot of out game at that time and not something I intended to hand out.
I already have a tool for generating card images, and a spreadsheet where i store all the card data, but is there any tool available for building decks from an imported set of images and cards (in the form of spreadsheet data)? Building from the sheet is super annoying and difficult relative to being able to filter and look at images
I'm super excited to start getting into this site, I have a handful of half-finished card games sitting in Sheets that really would want this kick! The one catching point, though, is the price of TTS... Are there any free alternatives/demo versions to use?
I haven't looked into it, I imagine it would work, but the only reason I work in google sheets at all is so I can worth with my co-designer at the same time.
I gave it a try and wasn't unable to modify the back of cards. Any idea? I watched the tutorials but they are using a different tool version, which looks nicer 😢.
They update very rapidly, which is awesome. Just to check the obvious: have you created a separate layout for the card back and then gone into the project to assign it to a specific component? If that doesn't help then I would highly suggest heading over to their discord, they are very active and will be able to help you with this anything else you come across. discord.gg/BB9tMEdv
Where has this been all my life?! Thank you for this man! I have a question. What do you do about adding game icons with ability text since it appears you can't add both images and text to google spreadsheets, so you can't make quick changes that way. I'm trying to think of a way to not have to manually add my game icons with ability text to every different card and make easy changes without needing to move the ability text and icons. I know you mentioned in a video using icons for common abilities instead of text, so I imagine you know of a good way to do this.
You can edit the layers in dextrous to have a text field over the image if the images location is static. If you'd like it to be in something like effect text then you can duplicate the image 3 times instead of having a 3 on it, or you can edit the image itself.
@@davejeltema3 I don't understand. How does duplicating an image three times help? I used your starter kit and am also having trouble figuring out why it deletes the zone for card type, Type Underline, and text box when I delete the Effect Container zone even when I move all of them off of the Effect Container. I want to change it to something else but seeing that I added other zones with zones added on top of them and I did not have the same problem when I deleted a zone that was on top, I don't want to mess with the Effect Container zone without understanding why it's removing the other zones. I wish there was a guide for what everything does somewhere and how certain features work. I can't find anything that explains why the zones are being deleted.
@@davejeltema3 Also how do you paste into all of the columns like you did here in Google Sheets? I have been trying to figure out if there's a way to do that and couldn't find a way and noticed you did that here. 2:07
@@GuardianAngelEatos The Dextrous website has some tutorials that might help, also their Discord is the place to ask questions like these. The guys over there are super helpful.
thank you for this video Dextrous it seems to work verywell for me but i have a question how i can put icon background to text? for example in order to create a damage symbol with a broken shield as background or cross sowrds and the damage number front this broken shield.. hope I was understood 😅😁
You could place the image in the layout and have text over it, but if you want it in the text then there a few things you could do. Place the number before the icon or you could put multiple icons. If you specifically want a number over the icon then you'll have to create a specific image for each number value you intend to use and then place the image string in the text.
Yup, easy as hitting a button and selecting your printer settings. Exports to pdf or other formats. I've made a handful of physical prototypes printing at my local ups store.
Thanks for reaching out! I have no idea why the link isn't working for you, I've had others say something similar, but the link is still active and working properly for others. I guess the first place to start is if you have discord installed, if you have a brand new account in the last day my community has a bit of protection to prevent spam from new accounts. Beyond that I'm at a loss, simply click this link to be invited. discord.gg/sjtRZsMAWt
I did a quick search through their discord and found this response to someone else who asked the same question: "as long as you have the font installed locally, you can just add them as your own custom fonts in the layout editor. Just type " 'Ariel MT' " (with the single quotes) into your custom fonts and hit save. From now on you should be able to use that custom font in any design." Hope this helps!
This is great! I've been working on cards using illustrator, is it possible to import them to dextrous without losing the progress I've made designing them?
Double-checked with a friend, and the link works. The only thing I can think you might be running into is that my server is a little ban happy against new accounts.
I've been using Dextrous for a couple years now and haven't spend a penny (unless you're talking about something else?) I did pay $20 for Tabletop Simulator though, could have saved $10 if I waited for a sale.
