Puzzle Strike's chips went through dozens of graphic design iterations. While the +arrow and +draw icons are similar to some fan-made chips for the game Dominion, the gem chips, wounds, combine, crash gem, and double crash gems are all inspired from video games like Puzzle Fighter. Each one of those had its own challenges (especially the 4-gem chip which has to look similar yet more powerful than the other denominations), but the common theme is that they all need to be iconic enough to be recognizable from a distance across the table.
The character chips took particularly many versions before arriving at the subtle gradients and slight glassy effect. The first 10 characters each have an associated color so their character chips are easily distinguishable visually, but when it came time to add another 10 characters, I went with a two-tone graphic design. This worked well because it not only distinguishes all the characters from each other, but also the base characters from the expansion ones.