A complete adaption and re-design of the classic card game Love Letter - a game of deduction and intrigue where you try to send a love letter to the princess.
In this version however, the Princess is dead! So instead, you are trying to find clues to uncover the truth!
Print and play! 🃏I was looking into small card games to play while travelling this Summer and found out about Love Letter. The game seemed very cool but the cards themselves (1st edition at least) looked very outdated, so I decided to make my own card designs and change the theme of the game entirely.
I went with Twin Peaks because the theme and gameplay translate perfectly, and it's my favourite TV series ever, so it was an obvious choice. I spent around 2 weeks working on them in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I designed every card from scratch to remake the game in the Twin Peaks universe, and even added some new cards to the game (the Magicians and Dopplegangers) but kept the gameplay the same.
In addition to this, I also designed an all-new type of card - Evidence Cards. They serve no gameplay purpose, but they are used to track the score! Every time you win a round, you get a new clue.
I started by making a moodboard of screenshots from Twin Peaks, and instantly noticed that there's a dichotomy between the earthy browns and greens that permeate the town and the woods VS the iconic red curtains that are ever-present in *other places* (no spoilers) - which each representing the sides of characters. Additionally, the black and white zigzag pattern presented on the floor of the Black Lodge is very iconic to Twin Peaks.
I combined this zigzag pattern with the colour scheme observered in the mood board, and excitedly realised that when applying a dark red colour palette to the pattern, it resembles the iconic red velvet curtains, and when applying the earthy palette it resembles the vast woods. Therefore, using the exact same design but playing with the colour scheme I was able to create two distinct versions of every character card - a Woods version (ie. the good side) and a Black Lodge version (ie. the dark side).
I went a step beyond with this concept and even used different character portraits that symbolise each side of the character. I believe I managed to capture the contrast of characters' two sides that is central to Twin Peaks using this design and I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.
As for the Evidence Cards, I wanted them to have a totally different design so it was clear that they're a different type of card. These are all clues/items/events that revolve around Laura and are uncovered as the series progresses, so I went with a police report style. In particular, I was inspired by how the FBI documents were designed in the book "The Secret History of Twin Peaks". Again, I kept up the theme of duality and made two different designs: a White one that represents real physical clues, and a Red one that represents supernatural items/events/dreams, complete with an Owl symbol stamp!
Beyond just changing the visual style of cards, I wanted to improve their readability and user experience. I started the visual hierarchy by making the card's Score Value the biggest element and positioning it both in the top-left and bottom-right. This makes it readable when fanning cards in your hand and also makes it clear to all players when you play the card on a surface.
The second most important element is the type of card (Princess, Prince, Baron, etc) so that's the second biggest element in the top-center. In small letters above it, I added the name of the character (ex: Laura Palmer) as that is not vital to the gameplay but just for flavour and immersion.
Then, I gave a large unique icon to each character placed next to their card effect. This makes it easier for card effects to reference other cards (ie. you can simply use the icon instead of spelling out the whole name) and it aids players in memorising the card effect.
And lastly, I re-worded all the card effects to make them clearer and more concise.
I had an absolute ton of fun making these and I'm very very happy with how they turned out. I would have designed more cards but I didn't want to over-extend the game and ruin the balance. The print came out great too. Me and my girlfriend have played this dozens of times already in the two weeks we've had them for, at home, in the woods, at the beach, at a cafe...
I shared these designs with the Twin Peaks community on Reddit, and everyone seemed to love it and want to own a deck for themselves! Unfortunately I don't own the rights to sell Twin Peaks or Love Letter merch, so I released all the card designs for free (but donations are welcome :) )
See what people think!