Something that has always vexed me with regards to a home brewed game design has been the box. It’s not enough to just come up with an idea. Just like a piece of home made furniture, you have to “finish” it properly. So, in that vein, you want a game to look aesthetically pleasing when put away on the shelf but building a box and then properly covering it with artwork can be a daunting task (at least for me). So I decided to experiment with eliminating the box entirely and making the board the box (or in this case the roll). I have taken simple abstact games and made a travel versions in the past by making the board out of cloth and wrapping or rolling the components into it. This makes it easy to pack for vacation and virtually indestructible. But they had very few and simple components. For a more complex game, you need pockets to store pieces properly and a durable yet simple system for keeping the whole thing from unraveling during transport. Plus, as stated earlier, you have to make it look nice when it’s resting. Anywho, here’s my latest experiment using one of my own game designs. The whole thing is very compact and I think that I like it even more than a box. It has an old world classic feel look to it. Tell me what you guys think please.
Here’s the game put away:
Size comparison next to a classic Game Master game:
Unfastened and then unrolled:
And two views of it set up and ready for play:
I’d love to seeall the pictures working :)
The pics are working just fine…
And this looks AWESOME Pac War! I would be interested in a “how to” and a cost estimate for making other games in this fashion. Please, let us know!
Awesome was already used, very nice!
Well done!
Outstanding!
Yep,
Pics are working now! Looks great!
The pics are working just fine…
And this looks AWESOME Pac War! I would be interested in a “how to” and a cost estimate for making other games in this fashion. Please, let us know!
Unless it was mas produced, I don’t think that something like this would be cost effective. The material cost alone $45 and it was on sale! The hexgrid was drawn by hand (HOURS and HOURS of mindnumbing work) as were the other graphics. Stitching it all up was not particularly hard but there was zero room for error due to the fact that so much time went into the play area. “Oh well, I screwed that up. Just cut another piece of fabric.” was not an option. You would have to start from point zero. If I were producing this board for someone, I would not feel guilty charging $250 because it was so labor intensive. However, if you could buy cloth with a grid already printed at the price I paid, price would drow WAY down……figure $100. That would be $45 for material and $55 for time and graphics.
