A Nostalgia Remastered (Long Post)

The year was 2003.
Just like today, for only 10Rs you could buy a packet of Uncle Chipps (yes, that's how it is spelled on the pack) or Cheetos.
But unlike today, the packet consisted of one special item. A Pokémon Tazo/Jenga Card, which was the primary reason kids used to buy it.

A Tazo was a circular plastic disk with an image and stats of a Pokémon.

Posted by
u/_buttery_ in r/IndiaNostalgia

 A Jenga Card was a rectangular plastic card with image and stats of a Pokémon and other mini-games.

Posted by
u/Proud-Organization28 in r/IndiaNostalgia

These were not just simple toys. These were collectible items which had kids in mad craze back then. These came as freebies, but 20 years later, these are priceless now. People have these things in their original packaging and only a few of them are willing to sell their collection, that too, at a very high price.

As a kid growing up in the same era, I was also crazy about them, and there was a time I had quite a collection. My collection not just included these Jenga cards and Tazos but also the 3d motion cards (lenticular cards), stickers, playing cards and basically anything freebie that was related to Pokémon. I also watched a lot of Pokémon on TV whenever I used to visit my Nani's house.

As years passed by, they were eventually discontinued and other freebies took their place, which I was not into.
Now, if I could go back in time, I would not only keep my collection in mint condition but also make sure that I don't lose them, which sadly is what happened 😞

Even though they were my prized possessions, I was careless enough to lose ALL of them.

Fast-forward a few more years i.e., around 2008-2009, one of my classmate brought his collection to school to show everyone which, of course, caught my attention. By then, these were already discontinued and there was no way for me to have them again.

UNLESS..........

I take some of his….

Yes, I was planning to steal them from him. I didn't just plan. I succeeded. I am not proud of it, but that's how much I was obsessed with these things.

My plan was to take just a few so that it would not be noticeable. But when I was swiping them, I got greedy and took more than I had planned, which was enough for him to notice that some are missing. I was his number one suspect because I had asked him to give me a few initially, to which he said no. Also, my obsession for them was apparently so obvious that he put two and two together and complained to my teacher.

My bag, pockets, and socks were thoroughly checked. To their disappointment, they were not able to find anything. Even though he WAS right to suspect me, even though I WAS the culprit, the lack of evidence coupled with my denial was enough for me to get away with it.

How? You may ask.
It's because I had already prepared for such a situation and didn't keep them on me. I kept them at a “safe place” in my school, which I knew no one would look into. I visited them every day for one week just to make sure they are there but didn't take them, out of fear of getting caught somehow. After a few more days, when the storm was over and everything was calm, I took them home.

Finally...... My own.....

I want to make it clear that I do not intend to show off my stealing skills in the above paragraph and as I already mentioned, I am NOT proud of it. I am just describing the events that happened back then.

Now, a fact about me:- I believe in Karma.

I believe in it because I faced consequences. Not only I stole, which itself is a terrible thing, I stole something that was very, very dear to that guy and caused him a lot of grief. As a result, just in the matter of few months, I lost them again!

Approximately 15 years later, I still regret my actions and haven't touched a single Pokémon related freebie yet.

I have been using Reddit for almost 2 years now and am a member of a Subreddit known as IndiaNostalgia where people post about old and nostalgic things. I saw multiple posts from people who still have their Pokémon collection, which re-fueled my obsession over them once again. There is no question of stealing them now, so I sent a mail to PepsiCo, which is the parent company of Cheetos and Uncle Chipps now.

I even got a reply from them:

It is my theory, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think the only reason stopping them from doing this again is not having the proper rights. They would have to get Pokémon rights from Nintendo to do this again. The thing is, today, Pokémon is a much bigger deal than it was 20 years ago so it would be a very big “business decision” surely involving a lot of factors. I can practically guarantee that the digital assets for these freebies are archived somewhere and their production and distribution would be very easy for a big company like PepsiCo, but only if they have the proper rights.

So, I cannot be dependent on them, as there is very little chance of them doing it again. After weeks of obsessing and watching these posts, I decided -

YES! I WOULD DIGITALLY CREATE JENGA CARDS AGAIN IN PHOTOSHOP AND PRINT THEM!

The reason I decided to make Jenga Cards is that they were exclusive to India (AFAIK). They were not made for any other countries, unlike the circular Tazos which people had already recreated digitally since they were available in multiple parts of the world. I was under no false pretence and knew very well that even if I succeed, they will never be as good as the originals. But at least, I will have them in some form. Something is better than nothing.

I started researching the internet for anything related to these. I downloaded a bunch of photos from Reddit, Quora, Google Images, X (Twitter), and even YouTube videos.
Since I also needed their dimensions, I made a post on Reddit stating my intentions and to get any help possible. Though I did not get any response on the post itself, I saw Reddit user u/SirAdusparx post about his collection on the same day and asked for his help and he agreed. You can read the comment thread here.

He sent me the dimensions and a close up images of front and back of “Dragonite” Jenga Card on my e-mail.

 

At this point, I had enough reference material to help me create a break-down of all the elements of a Jenga Card.

 

 As I mentioned, people have already digitally created the circular Tazos and the same designs were used in these cards as well. After scouring the internet, I was able to find those designs in .psd format on Deviantart.com, which made my life super easy. It meant that all I had to do was extend those designs in a rectangular format and “assemble” the card for every Pokemon.
The other elements like Pokémon logo etc. were easy to find. The Pokemon images were easily obtained from pokemon.com using few lines of python.

 

import os
import subprocess

for i in range(1,152):
	subprocess.call(f"wget https://assets.pokemon.com/assets/cms2/img/pokedex/detail/{str(i).zfill(3)}.png", shell=True)

 

Finally, I started making the Dragonite one. It took a little time in placing all the elements at their correct places and locking down the common ones. I decided to make 2 variations in the design:

• I removed the notches that are present on corners and sides. I knew that I would be printing on paper and card stock first and cutting these notches by hand for every single one would take ages and also would not be perfect.
  
  
• In the original cards, Pokémon attacks and physical info was written in a green bean shape below the Pokémon image. Since the bean was curved, I would have to manually fix the angle of the text every time based on its length. I decided to change the shape from a bean to a rectangle with rounded corners, so the text would be straight.
  I also changed its position to the top right corner. In this way, the top right corner would not be empty and the Pokémon image can be a little bigger.

New Design

Once my design for one was ready, even though I knew the dimensions, I printed out multiple sized versions of it just lock down the dimensions.

The next step was to design one card of every Pokémon Type. It took a while, specially because a few of them required a lot of tweaking. After making those, I printed them out on a sheet of paper just to see how it will look before proceeding. There were little misalignment in the first few prints, but I corrected everything one by one.

All Pokemon Types

At this point, I had made good progress and since I had a template for every type, it was time to start from 001 (Bulbasaur) and go to 151 (Mew). The first generation, which is the one that I followed in my childhood.

Since I also had my office work, I decided to make 10 on weekdays. 20 on weekends. The process was repetitive but also enjoyable. All the info (moves, height, weight, description) is available online through multiple resources, however, I resorted to an old school approach where I ordered an illustrated book off Amazon for 250Rs which had all the info for the GEN-I Pokémon. It also had a checklist at the end, which I used to keep track as I made 'em all.

 

Once I reached the halfway mark (76/151), I stopped and started to work on the back design. I knew that I would have to create the back design from scratch. It took me a weekend but slowly and steadily, it happened. I designed it a little different from the original design. I also created multiple variations just for fun and printed them for testing.

Multiple variations of back design

At last, I completed designing the other half and was finally done!

It was time for printing. I created A3 and A4 sized templates with every card image (front and back). Since I have access to a high quality duplex printer, printing them was a breeze.

Now it was time to cut 'em all. I could have done that using a ruler and a cutter, but it would have taken a lot of time. I ordered a paper cutter off Amazon specially designed to cut straight edges using a sliding blade for 300Rs. The whole process was over in a couple of hours and finally.....
I had Jenga Cards...again...after all these years....

SPECIALS AND EXTRAS:

While researching on these cards, I found out that they were made for only 72 Pokemon. Doing this project allowed me to make all 151 of them. Which means I have Jenga cards with Pokemon that were never even printed officially. Not only that, but the .psd file that I got had designs for Pokemon types that didn't even exist 20 years ago. As a result, I have Jenga Cards with later generation Pokemon as well.

Umbreon & Steelix with their back designs

Towards the end, I had enough practice in Photoshop that I made a background design from scratch for Mega Evolution of Gen-I Pokemon. Again, it makes me the only one that has Jenga Cards showing a Pokemon's mega evolution(s).

Gen-I Mega Evolutions (custom design)

FUTURE PLANS:

Firstly, I would stop now. This is a rabbit hole and after all this time, I have reached my saturation point. But yes, I will pick this project again. I have quite a few ideas for the future.

• Making more of these. Currently, I have GEN-I Pokemon only. I am not very familiar with all Pokemon of the later generations, but I will be making the ones I know and have seen in battles (Regi*, Dusclops, Rayquaza).
• The original cards were made out of plastic. I have them in paper form. I will try to get them printed on a similar type of plastic.
• Laser Cutting: Plastic would not be as easy as paper to cut. I do want the notches cut out on them and for that laser cutting is the best approach in my opinion. 
• Both of the above tasks would require some special resources/tools and also money, so I am keeping them for later.
• Printing the same cards in bigger (poker) size, so I can have a deck of Pokemon Jenga Cards.
• In the current Pokemon TCG (Trading Card Game), there are certain cards called "Holo" cards (short for Holographic cards). I can get these printed on A4 holographic sheets, which would improve their looks even more. Holo cards are more valuable than regular cards so maybe I'll only print some special ones on holographic paper.
• I will make the plain version of the 3d motion cards also. They will not move in 3D, as lenticular printing is not something one can do in a household, but at least they will be there. Something is better than nothing.
  
• I will also make trainer cards. Specially the ones I like (Brandon, Cynthia, Paul). I might create a special template for them from scratch.
• Automating: As great as Photoshop is, it also has an automating feature. One can execute .jsx scripts in order to automate quite a number of things in there. This, I was aware of, but I WANTED to put manual effort on GEN-I at least. I will be automating the creation of later ones. Furthermore, I even wrote a python script that pulls the data in the form required for a Jenga Card to help my future self.
  

DISTRIBUTION:

In simple words, NO DISTRIBUTION FOR NOW. I would be happy to do in an ideal world, but the problem is, in the real world, there is a concept called "Copyright". The background designs that I have used, are created by other artists, so I cannot just distribute the high-resolution images of Jenga Cards that I made. They are derived from someone else's work. I have used logos of companies like Cheetos and Uncle Chipps. Explicit permission may be required for distributing with those on them. What if someone uses those high resolution images and starts selling them unofficially? There will be A LOT of buyers, I know. I also know that people try to make money with anything they get their hands on. So my personal use is the safest for now. Copyrights and licensing is a very sticky web of technicalities and legalities, so, I just don't want to get into it.

However....

In the future, I will be creating a v2.0 of these Jenga Cards in which I will make the new background images for every Pokemon type from scratch. Will change the looks of traditional Jenga Cards. Since I will be sole owner of those designs, I will have no problem in releasing them in high resolution for personal use (no commercial use).
I have many ideas already, but won't be revealing those here. Also, I don't have any dates decided for this yet. I will do it when I am in the mood.

CONCLUSION:

This was an epic project. It took its time because of my office and complex nature of the project, but I am glad I did it. I learned a lot about photoshop and design principles. This is the project I started to keep some of my anxiety away. I mentioned about this in one of my previous post, A for Anxiety. I finally have an item that I had 20 years ago, and this was a good curbing of my obsession. I am low key proud of myself.
As a hobbyist and a DIY enthusiast, I like to build things that I cannot get easily, even if I lack the skills required to do so. I am greatly inspired my Mark Rober and would like to end this post with one of his quotes:
"By reframing the learning process and focusing on the cool end goal, the fear of failure is often taken off the table, and learning just comes more naturally."