Card IDE (CIDEr) - Design game cards using HTML/Handlebars, CSS, and tabular data.
Website: Start using Cider
Download: Windows, Mac, Ubuntu
Sample Game Project: Cosmic Apple
Cider was created to fill a niche between ease-of-use and versatility. The current market of board game/card creating applications seems to fit into two categories: 1) advanced software with a steep learning curve and hundreds of pages of documentation, and 2) user-friendly graphical interface, but limited versatility. Cider is absolutely closer to the first category in execution since it currently provides no graphical template editor, but it makes up for the learning curve by using a templating language that many are already familiar with (HTML/Handlebars and CSS).
Create a template for each of the varying card fronts and card backs using HTML/Handlebars and CSS. Use variables to reference attributes that are unique to each card. Use control logic to conditionally display specific parts of the template.
Create attributes relevant to your game and fill out their values for each card. Choose the front and back templates for each card.
Preview the way the cards look with the tabular data applied to the templates.
Export the cards as individual images (PNG), or as card sheets ready to print (PDF). Adjust the paper size, paper margins, and spacing between cards. You can also export in low ink mode for quick prototyping.
Export card sheets for use directly in Tabletop Simulator. #Tabletop Simulator export guide
There are various ways you can save your project files depending on the form of the application you are using.
In the web application your project remains in IndexedDB within the browser storage. You can export the database as a single database.json file. This file can be stored somewhere safe and also transfered and imported to other devices.
In the desktop application, the primary project structure is a directory that holds an exploded form of the project as .csv, .html, .css, and image files. These files can be edited in other applications for batch tasks or to align with an existing user workflow. You may also export or import the project as a single database.json file.
Download the .dmg file, double click, and drag into Applications. You will then need to open up the terminal and run xattr -cr /Applications/cider.app to get around the misleading signing error: "{application} is damaged and can't be opened.". Apple requires a yearly subscription fee in order to sign apps for their platform.
Anything you create using CIDEr is your own intellectual property.
The website hosts nothing and all of your card data and assets sit
in IndexedDB on your browser. You may export and import your entire
database to a .json file to use between devices. You may host your own
version of the CIDEr website by downloading the source code and running npm install && ng serve.
The repository itself is protected by AGPL-3.0 to ensure the project remains open-sourced.
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