Vector Game Icon Wishlist?

d20-vector
If you ever need a source of vector icons for your board game prototypes, I highly recommend The Noun Project. They have an extensive crowdsourced collection of vector icons released on public domain or Creative Commons Attribution licenses. You can now also purchase attribution-free licenses for a nominal fee.

There are some gaps in the collection when it comes to common game icons. There is a meeple, but a very limited supply of dice and definitely no "victory points." I just uploaded an icosahedron, better known as a the 20-sided die or d20.

I'd love to upload some more generic game icons, but where to begin? What would you want most? I posed this question to my Twitter friends and got lots of suggestions.

  • die faces 1-6, ?
  • fan of cards 1-5
  • players 1-5
  • tiles in various shapes
  • victory points in various shapes
  • time: 15min, 30min, 45min, 60min…
  • ages
  • players: 1, 2, 3…
  • bid
  • most/least

And there were some other suggestions that stretched the boundaries of "noun" into "verb," so may not be allowed on the Noun Project. I'm checking with those in charge to get their say.

  • gain/lose points
  • gain/lose goods
  • draw x cards
  • keep x cards
  • discard x cards
  • steal cards from another player
  • flip card
  • pass
  • flip

And of course, I'd be happy to make a whole bunch of these icons into one big dingbat font for a few bucks. If you know of a good Mac tool for making a font, I'd be glad to try it out. I've already used fontifier, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the results.

So, any other game icons you would want to see in this suite?

Comments

  1. Ulf PerssonOctober 1, 2012 at 3:55 AM

    Wood? Sheep?

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielSolisOctober 1, 2012 at 8:46 AM

    They already have sheep and wood, but there's certainly room for alternates.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JoeOctober 1, 2012 at 3:35 PM

    The Noun Project options for in game money is also a little weak.
    Maybe some generic coins in various numbers would be good.Also a "first player" icon would be useful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gary KacmarcikOctober 1, 2012 at 11:13 PM

    Inspired by things like piecepack, I've been toying around with the idea of having a generic deck of "game designer" cards that provides basic game verbs.


    Here is a list of the verbs that I came up with.


    (Note that some of the verbs overlap with other verbs. That's somewhat intentional since it would allow the designer to have verbs that are similar (but perhaps act on different resources), or they can select the verb that most closely matches the game design. I was thinking of having 4 versions of each card - one for each suit.)
    + (n = 1..4)- (n = 1..4)+/- (n = 1..2)Cancel (cancel action or effect)ChooseDiscardDraw (draw n cards, n = 1..4)Excuse (Fool, Joker, "get out of jail")
    FreezeGain (1, 2, many)Lose (1, 2, many)Protect (protect card/resource from other players)RemoveRepeat (repeat turn or action) (aka: Again)Request (request card or resource from another player)Re-roll (dice)ResetReverse (change direction, order of play)SelectSkip (skip turn)Swap (swap cards, resources) (aka: Trade)Swap All (swap all cards or resources)Take (take card/resource from other player)WildWild & Draw (n = 1..4)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gary KacmarcikOctober 1, 2012 at 11:18 PM

    For font creation/editing, TypeTool is probably the best place to start: http://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/typetool/

    ReplyDelete
  6. DanielSolisOctober 2, 2012 at 5:01 PM

    I've requested input from them on whether they would accept "verbs" in the Noun Project.

    ReplyDelete
  7. DanielSolisOctober 2, 2012 at 5:01 PM

    I'll definitely look into that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. DanielSolisOctober 2, 2012 at 5:01 PM

    Ooh. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  9. MaitresinhOctober 3, 2012 at 7:29 AM

    Daniel, you're my hero.


    I've been posting about something very close to this a few time ago:


    http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/17047/a-complete-rule-without-a-single-word-#Item_13


    So i think it would be the oportunity to go further. I mean : a "normalized", complete iconic system for gaming: an architecture, like programmers are using (oject/values) with a sort of intuitive logical grammar (each "verb" involving expression would use a mouth before anything).


    I've been writing some thought here (in french), but you're yet almost ahead
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ang4RuRE_STKdDF4UWtTLUFfUEVNSDFfVlRKNXMzalE


    The main benefit of something like this (not just an icon that you use as you want to), is that:


    - You don't have to "learn" a new codification each time you're playing something new.


    - it open the door to a more abstract writting of rules and to summarize the rules.


    - it can help authors in the process of making games by manipulating gaming concept as legos.


    I think that this way, what you are doing it's worth an international Kickstarter campaign Daniel !


    Both for players and editors all around the world.


    (as usual, sorry for my english, and for the lyrical excess)

    ReplyDelete
  10. JohnOctober 3, 2012 at 1:05 PM

    You may well be able to recast some of your verbs as nouns:
    lose X ==> loss of X
    steal ==> theft

    Or, perhaps, a different tactic: "Where my gerunds at?"

    ReplyDelete
  11. DanielSolisOctober 3, 2012 at 1:20 PM

    This definitely gives me some ideas for how to use the IKEA presentation style for rule books. Hm!

    ReplyDelete
  12. DanielSolisOctober 3, 2012 at 1:26 PM

    Ooh. Nice solution there.

    ReplyDelete
  13. MaitresinhOctober 3, 2012 at 2:19 PM

    Well it's not exactly what i mean but yes, with an organigram it could replace a lof of text.

    ReplyDelete

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