New Design Tools: Pen Tool, Boolean Operations, and Named Styles

Product Update · 7 min read · April 2026

Chitmunk already gives you 22 built-in shapes and 39 parametric generators for building board game components. But sometimes you need a shape that does not exist yet. A custom shield for your faction cards. An ornamental border that fits your game's theme. A card frame with cutouts in exactly the right places.

This update adds three tools that give you that kind of creative control: a pen tool for drawing freeform shapes, boolean operations for combining shapes in powerful ways, and named styles for keeping your typography consistent across an entire project. Together, they close the gap between "card design tool" and "full design studio."

The Pen Tool: Draw Anything

Press Shift+P to activate the pen tool. Your cursor changes to a crosshair, and you are ready to draw.

Click anywhere on the canvas to place your first anchor point. Click somewhere else to place a second point, and a straight line connects them. Keep clicking to build a polygon, one point at a time. When you are done, click your first point to close the shape, or double-click to finish an open path.

That handles straight-edged shapes. But the real power is in curves. Instead of clicking and releasing, click and drag. Dragging pulls out bezier control handles that bend the line into a smooth curve. The further you drag, the more dramatic the curve. Release, move to your next point, and drag again. In a few clicks you can draw flowing, organic shapes that would be impossible with straight lines alone.

Here are some things game designers are using the pen tool for:

• Custom faction shields and emblems: Draw a unique crest shape for each faction in your game. Fill it with your faction color, layer text and icons on top, and you have a distinctive emblem that no template could give you.
• Decorative card borders: Trace ornamental edges, scalloped frames, or asymmetric borders that match your game's visual identity.
• Map region outlines: Draw territory boundaries freehand for area-control games. Combine with fill colors and labels for custom game boards.
• Custom token shapes: Design tokens that are not circles, squares, or hexagons. Meeple silhouettes, resource icons, anything you can draw.
• Artistic flourishes: Swooping divider lines, corner ornaments, or background shapes that add personality to your card layouts.

Pen tool paths are stored as vector data, which means they scale perfectly to any size. Stretch a path element to fill a card or shrink it to icon size. It stays crisp at every resolution, from 72 DPI screen previews to 300 DPI print exports.

Once drawn, path elements behave like every other element in Chitmunk. Move them, rotate them, adjust opacity, add drop shadows, change fill and stroke colors. They appear in the layers panel, they support conditional visibility, and they export in every format Chitmunk offers.

Boolean Operations: Combine Shapes Into New Shapes

Sometimes the shape you need is not a single shape. It is two shapes combined. A rectangle with a circle cut out of the center. Two overlapping ovals merged into an organic blob. A star with a hexagon subtracted from its middle.

Boolean operations let you select any two shapes and combine them in four different ways:

Union (Merge)

Merges both shapes into one combined outline. Overlap a circle and a rectangle, apply Union, and you get a single shape that includes the area of both. Use it to build complex silhouettes from simple parts. Start with basic shapes and merge them together into something unique.

Subtract (Cut)

Cuts the second shape out of the first. Place a circle on top of a rectangle, apply Subtract, and you get a rectangle with a circular hole in it. This is incredibly useful for creating frames, windows, and cutouts. Build a card frame by subtracting an inner rectangle from an outer one. Create a viewfinder shape by subtracting a circle from a square.

Intersect (Overlap Only)

Keeps only the area where both shapes overlap and removes everything else. Overlap two circles, apply Intersect, and you get a lens shape. Use it to create masked regions, vesica piscis motifs, or any shape defined by the intersection of two simpler shapes.

Exclude (Opposite of Intersect)

Keeps everything except the overlap. Where Intersect gives you only the shared area, Exclude gives you everything but the shared area. It creates a distinctive "split" effect that is great for versus cards, duality themes, or decorative borders with interesting negative space.

To use boolean operations, select two shapes (hold Shift and click, or drag a selection box around both), then right-click and choose the operation from the context menu. You can also find them in the command palette (Ctrl+K). The result is a new image element that you can move, resize, and style like anything else.

The creative possibilities are wide open. Subtract a star from a circle to make a star-shaped window. Union several rectangles into a cross shape. Intersect a triangle with a circle to create a pie-slice. Boolean operations let you think in terms of combining simple shapes rather than trying to draw complex shapes from scratch.

Named Styles: Consistent Typography in One Click

If your game has 200 cards, it probably has 200 title elements that should all use the same font, size, color, and effects. Until now, if you wanted to change the title font across your entire project, you would need to update every title element individually. If you forgot one, your deck would have an inconsistency that only shows up when you fan through the printed cards.

Named styles fix this completely.

Create a style called "Title" and set it to Nunito, 24pt, bold, warm amber, with a subtle drop shadow. Now apply that style to every title element in your project. They all update instantly to match. Next week, when you decide the titles should be 28pt instead of 24pt, change the "Title" style once. Every element using it updates automatically. One change, 200 cards fixed.

Chitmunk comes with four starter styles to get you going:

• Title: Large, bold text for card names and headers.
• Body: Standard readable text for card effects and descriptions.
• Flavor: Italic text for flavor text, quotes, and narrative elements.
• Stat: Compact, bold text for numbers and stat values.

You can rename these, modify them, or create entirely new styles. There is no limit to the number of styles you can define.

Styles also support overrides. Apply the "Title" style to an element, then change just its color. That element now uses the Title font, size, and shadow, but with a custom color. If you later change the Title font, this element gets the new font while keeping its custom color. Overrides let you maintain consistency for most properties while allowing deliberate variation where you need it.

For game designers who work with multiple card types, each with its own visual treatment, named styles are transformative. Define a "Creature Title" style, a "Spell Title" style, and a "Location Title" style. Apply them consistently. Change them globally. Never wonder "did I update all the spell cards?" again.

SVG Export: Scalable Vector Output

Your pen tool paths, shapes, and text can now export as SVG files. SVG is a vector format, which means the output scales to any size without losing quality. A card exported as SVG looks just as crisp printed on a poster as it does on a business card.

SVG export produces real, selectable text (not text rasterized into pixels) and native vector shapes. This makes the files perfect for further editing in vector tools like Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or Affinity Designer. If you need to hand your designs to a graphic designer for final polish, or if your printer requires vector artwork, SVG export gives you a clean handoff.

Text elements retain their font information, so the receiving application can render them accurately. Shapes export as true vector paths. The result is a production-quality file that a professional designer can open and refine without having to recreate anything from scratch.

What You Can Build Now

These tools are strongest when you combine them. A few ideas to get you started:

• Custom card frame with art window: Draw an ornate outer border with the pen tool. Subtract a rounded rectangle from the center. You now have a frame with a shaped window for card art.
• Faction emblem system: Draw a unique shield shape for each faction. Apply a named "Faction Title" style to all faction name elements. Change the style once when you rebrand a faction.
• Decorative stat badges: Union a circle with a small triangle to create a pointed badge shape. Place your stat number inside it. Apply your "Stat" named style for consistent formatting.
• Complex board regions: Draw territory outlines with the pen tool. Use Intersect to create shared border zones between territories. Export the whole board as SVG for professional printing.

All three tools are free to use. They work with every Chitmunk feature you already know: data merge, generators, conditional visibility, all export formats. They add creative depth without adding complexity to your existing workflow.