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I wonder why it has the same color as Slow.
Generally, our colors for keywords / spell types fall into these buckets
Yellows - Defensive (Tough, Barrier, Fast)
Purples - Utility / Control (Stun, Slow, Vulnerable)
Reds - Health Related (Life steal, Regeneration)
Blues - Utility (Imbue, Last Breath, Burst)
Grey/Sepias - Movement (Can't Block / Can't Attack)
So the thinking is that Fast is yellow since it is often used in reaction to an action. Slow & Focus since they can't be cast in combat are about control. Burst since your opponent can't react & it can be cast in combat is more utilitarian. Obviously, there's a lot of interpretation here! So I'm definitely interested in if you all think that makes sense.
Color is a tricky one for us since colors can mean so many things all over the world, not everyone even sees the same colors, and many of our mechanics can't be dumped in single categories. Apologies for the essay, just something we're still thinking about a lot so we can get it right.
maybe this is gonna help you so I will write it down.
I have been working on a game in my free time and at some point i did reach this color problem. The way i solved it is by creating two questions.
-Who/What does the keyword affect? Myself (card), Allies, Enemies, Enemy player, Myself (player).
-Whoever/whatever the keyword affects is it a buff or a malus (from the side of the player)? Buff, Malus (and possibly a third option for Both).This allow for all keywords to fit in a single category with certainty and make the player understand vital information about the keyword without even reading what the keyword does but only looking at the color.
(For others reading: It is expecially useful in card games where you will have tons of keywords at some point and players will need to be able to categorize keyword instantly just by color. This also made me understand that you needed fixed and unquestionable rules about colors where there are two answers possible).
For colors in my case I ended up saying: Buff will be cold colors (green, blue, purple, ecc), Maluses will be hot colors (red, orange, yellow, ecc). Then check the first question and choose two complementary color for each answer (so like if it acts on Allies it is green or red).
Sorry for the long post but wanted to make sure that other people reading this would also understand the importance of colors in keywords.
Very cool to hear the reasoning you used for your game! Thanks and good luck!
Hey Jeff, I'm from the customlor subreddit and we absolutely love hearing more about the inner design processes of LoR. Stuff like this talking about the internal aspects of design are super cool for us, we'd love to hear more in the future!
Awesome subreddit! I hadn’t heard of it before. Sure thing if I see questions about stuff I’ll do my best to answer