Modifications – Sundered Realm

Gaming Accessory: Bit Trays

Lots of games have bits. Lots of bits. Teeny-tiny bits. Some games even need bits to be passed around the table. A well-designed foam core box insert can help with this, but this is the 21st century. While I can’t order, “Tea, Earl Gray, Hot” from a box in the wall I can create things with my MakerBot Replicator 2 printer. Continue reading “Gaming Accessory: Bit Trays”

Terraforming Mars Custom Play Mat

Terraforming Mars Box — Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars had been on my “shelf of shame” for about a year or so. I recently wrote about my first impressions of the game (after playing a couple of times). I also wrote about buying acrylic overlays for the player boards. Today I want to write about a custom play mat that I had printed from Inked Gaming.

One of the frequent complaints related to Terraforming Mars is that the components are seen as being lower quality. The board is one of the main challenges. Even new out of the box, my board does not unfold to be completely flat. The other day I noticed that someone on Board Game Geek had posted a preliminary copy of some artwork that he was creating for TM. I thought to myself, “That’s awesome, because you know you need another custom game mat.” 😉 Continue reading “Terraforming Mars Custom Play Mat”

Terraforming Mars Acrylic Trays

Terraforming Mars is a great game! Unfortunately some of the components are somewhat lacking. As part of your goal of terraforming Mars you keep track of production of six different resources (money, steel, and so on). In the regular game this is tracked by placing a colored plastic cube on the appropriate number on your production track. Unfortunately this important information is easily lost by bumping the table, nudging your card, or an invading cat on top of the table. 😯

Fortunately there are lots of options, ranging from 3D printed plastic to wood to laser cut acrylic. Despite the fact that I own an 3D printer I opted to go with one of the acrylic options because they allow me to continue to use the standard play mat without worrying about bumped cubes. I purchased from the Etsy store for Board Game Boost. Continue reading “Terraforming Mars Acrylic Trays”

Game Night! How To Transport Games…

I love Game Night. Or even Game Day Lunch. We don’t have nearly enough of them, unfortunately. When we do, we are not always the host. That spawns the question: Where are we going to play? What games do we want to play? How are we going to transport them? Wait, that was actually three questions. 😉 Today I’m going to post about options I’ve tried for carrying games, other than this:

Elder Sign Character Stands

Yes, it’s another 3D printer game accessory topic. When will the madness end? Actually madness is a very real concern in Elder Sign as your investigator could potentially go insane. Or be devoured by the Ancient One. But at least with this cool game accessory you can go mad in style… Continue reading

Forbidden Island 3D Printed Tile Holders

Forbidden Island is a fantastic and fun game. It’s easy to teach and is great for kids and adults alike. The basic premise is that the players are all treasure hunters, looking for the four elemental temples in order to retrieve the magical idols. What makes the game exciting is that the island was built to protect those idols and it starts to sink under your feet as soon as you land. It’s a race against time and flood waters to make it to the end!

I’ll have a more detailed review at some point, but this post is going to be more about game “bling” than game play.

As mentioned previously, I picked up a MakerBot 3D printer a while back. It sat idle on my desk until recently. (Or in the case of Forbidden Island it sat “idol” 😆 ) Today I want to show you a really cool accessory that I was able to print for this game. Continue reading “Forbidden Island 3D Printed Tile Holders”

Custom Box Inserts Are Awesome

One of the first things I notice when opening a new game is how is the box insert designed. Is it cardboard? Plastic? Are there dedicated spots for tokens and game bits so they don’t go all over the place? How well does the game fit back into the box after everything has been punched? Does the insert handle sleeved cards? How well is the game box designed (or not) to handle future expansions?

The good news is that I enjoy creating new box inserts. It’s yet another way I get to enjoy my hobby. In this post I’m going to show the results of one effort but not go into a lot of details as to the “how” things were done. I’ll have more posts on that later. For now, I just want to show off. 😎 Continue reading “Custom Box Inserts Are Awesome”

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X-Wing TIE Fighter Repair

I’m a huge fan of the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games. I’ll have plenty of posts coming about that game in the future. Today, however, it’s a quick note about repairing your X-Wing ships. I happen to have two TIE Fighters with broken pegs. They’re too expensive to throw away (retail is about $15 / ship) so what do I do? Continue reading

3D Printer Iris Box

Last year I picked up a used MakerBot 2 from my company charity auction. One of our departments bought it, used it for a while, but had finished their project and no longer had plans for it. I was able to pick it up for less than $600! I had big plans for printing Heroes of the Aturi Cluster terrain bits, but got sidetracked a bit. For a few months.

Okay, for over a year. Continue reading “3D Printer Iris Box”

Painting Miniatures From Shadows Over Camelot

I played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) for a long time. Part of the fun was buying the (formerly) lead figures and figuring out how to paint them. When they’re done, they can look really impressive. What a lot of folks don’t realize is that they’re basically a tiny little paint-by-numbers project. 🙂 Continue reading “Painting Miniatures From Shadows Over Camelot”