An early decision finds a new use
After building the coin foundation, it was time for players to bring the table’s appearance closer to their preferences. I worked on card skins and backgrounds, but did not want every new appearance to require changes throughout the shop and inventory. The core already separated a card’s identity from its picture, and that decision now helped customization. A card can retain the same suit and rank while using a different image. For me, this was an interesting connection between an early architectural decision and something the player sees directly.
Separate appearance and pricing definitions
In Dev Log 12, I explained appearance data in two parts. The first is the skin itself: its identifier, name, front-card images and card back. The second describes its place in the economy: the shop image, coin price and reference to that skin. This division kept the shop out of the details of constructing card visuals. It only needs to know what the item represents, what it costs and which appearance it references. I applied the same thinking to backgrounds so adding content would follow a familiar path.
Viewing, owning and selecting
Owning an appearance and using it are separate actions. In the earlier economy stage, receiving a cosmetic only saved ownership. That ownership then needed to connect to selection and in-game display. A player might see an item in the shop, own it or select one of their appearances. Those states should not look identical on screen. After building the information and economy flow, I returned to customization’s interface to examine how the player’s choice reached the table and how clearly each state was communicated.
A different table with readable cards
Alongside variety, readability remained important to me. A beautiful background that obscures cards or turn information does not help the experience. Changing appearance should also leave a card’s meaning and legal moves intact. I want customization to offer a sense of choice without making the table harder to understand. This part continued Dalo’s original idea: shared systems remain stable while content can change on top of them. I am not announcing final cosmetic counts or prices here; this article describes building the capability. Read the Dalo page to see its place in the collection.
