So it seems that this is the season for Kickstarters to ship! I've been getting quite a few lately. One that surprised me (I wasn't anxiously following it like some others) was by Folded Space - their second board game inserts and organizers kickstarter.
Let me back up a bit here.
I've always been a big fan of board games. I don't get to play as much as I'd like anymore, but that doesn't always stop me from buying them (unfortunately).
Sometimes when you have a favorite game however, it can start to feel the same after a while. A lot of games fix this by publishing expansions - adding rules, boards and components to give you more ways to play. This is great - it provides more revenue for the company, more fun for the players. Unfortunately, these can be difficult to store.
Some companies have addressed this issue. Heroes of Metro City is a fun, super hero based deck building game that allows you to make your won unique heroes each game. I actually had a chance to playtest it at Gencon years ago, and bought it when they kickstarted the game. One issue it had however is it was meant to be co-operative - yet in the base game there was no way to interact with the other players - you couldn't help them at all.
So they published an expansion - Sidekicks and Storylines. This added more cards (of course), but those also allowed for interaction between the players, and just made the game much better. They also did some min-expansions (Powers & Enemies, Vile Fiends, and Time & Space ). The only problem was the box was carefully designed to old the game cards (and make them easy to access)
There was a slot for each type of card. But once you added the expansions there wasn't enough room. So they took the solution to make storage of the game more compact - getting rid of the plastic insert and instead going for rows of cards with dividers in the expansion box.
The cool thing is the expansion box now holds ALL the cards, with lots of room for more cards. (Unfortunately the rulebook has to be folded to fit inside as it was sized for the base box).
Other games have mapped out their expansions and planned accordingly. Apocrypha from Lone Shark Games was always planned to have 10 chapters (though they snuck in an 11th as well) - but when it initially shipped it only had the first 2. But is came in a big box.
There is lots and lots of room in this box, in preparation for the next two releases.
These expansions came in boxes that were the same size, but not as deep. This was to make them fit together on the shelf for retailers - the sides of the boxes even make a triptych.
The expansions don't require this size though, as they only have five or six card decks, and more standees for the game.
But everything still fits in the original box, room to spare should they decide to expand it further.
Other games realized the need for more space later on. Cards Against Humanity came in a small box, but kept adding more and more expansions, so they came out with a big, black box to hold them all. And then they came out with a bigger, blacker box because the first one also wasn't big enough. Someday they may actually come out with the biggest, blackest box!
AEC did this with Smashup did this as well. They also did it with their unique card building game Mystic Vale. The original came out, then three smaller expansions.
Then they released a 5-6 player expansion, in a HUGE box to hold everything.
The box has two trays (on the left, the bottom one is empty), and three bins for cards, of which the first is not full yet. Which is good, as there is already a fifth expansion out that I don't have yet.
Another fun board game with lots of expansions is Flashpoint. This game of fire and rescue has grown to include many different boards, tokens and scenarios. And it won't easily fit in the boxes. Yes, plural. One box hold nothing but boards. The other has everything else.
If you are a really big fan and play a lot, Broken Token makes some nice wooden cases for games, including this one. However I don't play it enough to justify spending more than the base game on a storage solution. However I did see a kickstarter (the second actually) for Folded Space - and they make an organizer for it for only £10.00 (about $13 right now) - less than a quarter of the wooden one.
It came in a simple package - with a bonus die!
Four sheets of foam core
about a quarter inch thick
There were two pairs, that made six different size compartments.
There is also a sheet of labels for each compartment, though it took me a little bit to figure out what was intended to go where.
All the bins form two layers. I would have liked these to have a single bottom to make them truly trays instead of individual bins - though I did glue them together with a piece of cardstock underneath for a little support.
Some of the compartments are obvious - like the cards and damage tokens. Others less so.
The ones with the slight gap are meant to hold the fire fighter figures
These would fit the box perfectly, except it didn't leave room for all the rule books. Put those between the layers and they stick up just bit, but are easily covered with the lid.
A big advantage here is for setup it will be a lot easier to pull the needed tokens from their respective compartments instead of sorting through a bag of bits each time. However some of the lesser used tokens had to be doubled up to fit all of them, and in reality not all the tokens are needed. Do I need to have both the colored generic figures and the brown role specific figures (with snap on colored rings)? Do I need both the 'normal' POI markers and the 'realistic' versions? Not really. But I'm not going to throw them out!
Folded Space is having a third kickstarter to make organizers for 20 more games that runs through January 15th, 2019 - check it out and pick up an organizer for your favorite messy game box.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
Let me back up a bit here.
I've always been a big fan of board games. I don't get to play as much as I'd like anymore, but that doesn't always stop me from buying them (unfortunately).
Sometimes when you have a favorite game however, it can start to feel the same after a while. A lot of games fix this by publishing expansions - adding rules, boards and components to give you more ways to play. This is great - it provides more revenue for the company, more fun for the players. Unfortunately, these can be difficult to store.
Some companies have addressed this issue. Heroes of Metro City is a fun, super hero based deck building game that allows you to make your won unique heroes each game. I actually had a chance to playtest it at Gencon years ago, and bought it when they kickstarted the game. One issue it had however is it was meant to be co-operative - yet in the base game there was no way to interact with the other players - you couldn't help them at all.
So they published an expansion - Sidekicks and Storylines. This added more cards (of course), but those also allowed for interaction between the players, and just made the game much better. They also did some min-expansions (Powers & Enemies, Vile Fiends, and Time & Space ). The only problem was the box was carefully designed to old the game cards (and make them easy to access)
There was a slot for each type of card. But once you added the expansions there wasn't enough room. So they took the solution to make storage of the game more compact - getting rid of the plastic insert and instead going for rows of cards with dividers in the expansion box.
The cool thing is the expansion box now holds ALL the cards, with lots of room for more cards. (Unfortunately the rulebook has to be folded to fit inside as it was sized for the base box).
Other games have mapped out their expansions and planned accordingly. Apocrypha from Lone Shark Games was always planned to have 10 chapters (though they snuck in an 11th as well) - but when it initially shipped it only had the first 2. But is came in a big box.
There is lots and lots of room in this box, in preparation for the next two releases.
These expansions came in boxes that were the same size, but not as deep. This was to make them fit together on the shelf for retailers - the sides of the boxes even make a triptych.
The expansions don't require this size though, as they only have five or six card decks, and more standees for the game.
But everything still fits in the original box, room to spare should they decide to expand it further.
Other games realized the need for more space later on. Cards Against Humanity came in a small box, but kept adding more and more expansions, so they came out with a big, black box to hold them all. And then they came out with a bigger, blacker box because the first one also wasn't big enough. Someday they may actually come out with the biggest, blackest box!
AEC did this with Smashup did this as well. They also did it with their unique card building game Mystic Vale. The original came out, then three smaller expansions.
Then they released a 5-6 player expansion, in a HUGE box to hold everything.
The box has two trays (on the left, the bottom one is empty), and three bins for cards, of which the first is not full yet. Which is good, as there is already a fifth expansion out that I don't have yet.
Another fun board game with lots of expansions is Flashpoint. This game of fire and rescue has grown to include many different boards, tokens and scenarios. And it won't easily fit in the boxes. Yes, plural. One box hold nothing but boards. The other has everything else.
 |
| baggie after baggie of components |
 |
| The board overflow the box, but stay in with the lid in place |
 |
| Base + 6 expansions (the last doesn't have full size rules) |
It came in a simple package - with a bonus die!
Four sheets of foam core
about a quarter inch thick
There were two pairs, that made six different size compartments.
 |
| This is interesting - it specifically has a gap on one end |
All the bins form two layers. I would have liked these to have a single bottom to make them truly trays instead of individual bins - though I did glue them together with a piece of cardstock underneath for a little support.
Some of the compartments are obvious - like the cards and damage tokens. Others less so.
The ones with the slight gap are meant to hold the fire fighter figures
These would fit the box perfectly, except it didn't leave room for all the rule books. Put those between the layers and they stick up just bit, but are easily covered with the lid.
A big advantage here is for setup it will be a lot easier to pull the needed tokens from their respective compartments instead of sorting through a bag of bits each time. However some of the lesser used tokens had to be doubled up to fit all of them, and in reality not all the tokens are needed. Do I need to have both the colored generic figures and the brown role specific figures (with snap on colored rings)? Do I need both the 'normal' POI markers and the 'realistic' versions? Not really. But I'm not going to throw them out!
Folded Space is having a third kickstarter to make organizers for 20 more games that runs through January 15th, 2019 - check it out and pick up an organizer for your favorite messy game box.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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