Sharing a small HeroQuest card tool I’ve been working on

[markforster]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been playing HeroQuest again for about a year now, and started properly getting into homebrew around six months ago. A huge amount of what I’ve learned and been inspired by has come from the homebrew community, especially here on Ye Olde Inn, but also from the wider HeroQuest community across the web. So first of all, thank you. There’s an incredible amount of creativity and generosity in this space.

As part of my own homebrew journey, I started building custom cards for my games. That eventually led me to put together a small tool for myself to make card creation easier and more consistent. Over time it grew into something a bit more complete, and it felt like the right thing to do to share it rather than keep it to myself.

The result is a HeroQuest Card Creator, which lets you design and manage custom cards for your own quests, campaigns, and ideas. It’s something I built primarily for my own use, but my hope is that it might also help others who want to create their own cards without needing to start from scratch every time.

The app is available here if anyone’s interested:
https://mark-forster.itch.io/heroquest-card-creator

You can run it in browser or download a version that will run either on your local machine or can be hosted.

I’m actively working on it, adding features and improving workflows as I go, and I’m very open to feedback, suggestions, or ideas for where it could be useful. The source code is also 100% free and open for anyone who’s curious or wants to look under the hood:
https://github.com/markforster/heroquest-card-creator

This is simply a way of giving something back and hopefully contributing in a small way to a community that’s given me so much inspiration already. If anyone gives it a try, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, and happy questing!

[MULE]

This is such a great tool. I wish I'd had this to develop my stuff.

Some critical feedback if wanted:

For printing. Can you change the export settings so it can be exported at 300 dpi?
Is adding a 3mm bleed possible?
I'd happily provide an extended background to include the 3mm bleed.

I'd like to see an optional "movement" category so this could be used to make monster cards as well.

FInally it would be great to have some kind of mask below the stats box so if you include extra text then the images feet don't sit behind, ruining legibility. Making an image crop in the right place proved tricky.

FInally - what about the reverse? Could you offer a "load reverse artwork" section? In fact (getting overexcited) could you make this for Spells, Artificats, Treasure and more... I love it. Great tool. It has been saved in my browser.

Thank you for developing it.

[markforster]

Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to write this, and for such thoughtful feedback. I’m genuinely really happy to hear you’ve been using the tool and finding it useful. Feedback like this, critical or otherwise, is always welcome. It’s exactly the kind of input that helps shape where the project goes next, and it’s a real testament to the passion people bring to card creation in this community.

On the print side, the cards currently export at 750 × 1050, which corresponds to 300 DPI at poker card size. The real limitation at the moment isn’t DPI itself, but the resolution of the underlying HeroQuest card assets I was able to source freely. Those cap the quality of the final output, and simply exporting larger would just upscale the same artwork. If I’m able to obtain higher resolution base assets in future, improving the final output quality and DPI handling is absolutely something I intend to do.

Bleed is very much on my radar and already on the roadmap. At the current resolution a 3 mm bleed would be around 36 px, and I have plans to introduce configurable bleed and, longer term, PDF export where physical sizing and DPI can be handled much more explicitly. Your offer to provide extended background artwork is hugely appreciated, and that kind of help genuinely moves features like this forward.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by an optional “movement” category, but it sounds interesting. If you’re thinking in terms of monster cards or a different stat layout, I’d love to understand that better, so please feel free to expand on what you have in mind.

The masking or fade beneath the stats box is something I’ve been aware of since the early versions. I’ve long felt an optional fade or overlay there would help legibility, especially with taller artwork, but it’s been lower down my priority list so far. I’ll make sure this is properly logged and tracked.

Finally, on reverse artwork, I think I know what you’re getting at and you’re very much thinking in the same direction I am. I have plans to support front and back pairing of cards and, eventually, exporting properly paired double sided PDFs for print. It’s a bigger piece of work, but it’s very much part of where I want the tool to go.

I'm tracking all future feature work here https://github.com/users/markforster/projects/9/views/1 so keep an eye out and hopefully i'll get these features in soon! As a heads up the latest version is out today https://itch.io/t/5894861/-heroquest-ca ... s-now-live so do check it out if you have the time.

Thanks again. It honestly means a lot to know the tool is being used, pushed, and thoughtfully critiqued. This kind of feedback is exactly why I chose to build and share it in the open.


Mark