We own a lot of board games and, because we have so many, they need to be stacked vertically on shelves to maximize space. Some games come with plastic inserts that pieces nicely fit into and keep the box tightly packed. Other games come in an oversized box with no insert and it is difficult to keep pieces from going all over.
Last Saturday our local board game café, Card’s Board Game Café, was offering a workshop for making game inserts. It was the usual five dollar cover charge, they supplied the materials and tools and all you had to bring was a game you wanted to build an insert for.
I decided to build an insert for the game Agricola. It has lots of different small pieces. Here is a picture of the box before I started. All the different pieces were in baggies and the box was pretty full.
To build inserts you need Bristol board and foam board. Both can be bought at Dollarama with the foam board $1.50 for a sheet and the Bristol board 2/$1. I think I used about 1/3 of a sheet of foam board and 1/2 sheet of Bristol board for the one game.
The other things that you need are a cutting mat, sharp utility knife, pencil, metal ruler or sewing ruler, carpenter square, glue gun and extra glue sticks.
You start by measuring the inside of the bottom of the box. You then draw that shape onto your Bristol board and use the ruler and utility knife to cut it out. Make sure it fits in the box and trim slightly if it is not laying flat inside. This will be the bottom of your insert. You may cut it in smaller sections after making the foam walls if you want removable inserts for certain pieces.
I found it easiest to lay the pieces out on the cut out piece of Bristol board to see where things would fit. Then you have to decide how high your sections will be based on how tall your pieces and/or cards are. You want the inserts to end up at the top of the box so that the lid will close tightly against it. You cut and glue the foam walls of the insert together first then glue the bottom Bristol board to it.
Here is what the box looked like when I was done. Two layers with the smaller pieces on the bottom of one side and player pieces and square tiles on top. The card sections were the full depth of the box. The person leading the workshop gave me a hand near the end and made the section with the five colours of player tokens; the Bristol board compartments allow each section to be removed from the box.
I decided to make an insert for another game, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, on Sunday/Monday.
It was another game that just had pieces sorted into baggies and tossed into the box. The big difference with this one was that there was a lot of empty space so I had to create almost a full false layer. The only thing I couldn’t fit into the top layer was the cards. I added some card stock under the cards in their insert to lift them out…I might have to come up with a better idea. There is just enough room on top of the full insert layer to put the few game board pieces and rules. If we decide to buy any expansions, there is more than enough room to add inserts to the bottom layer.
The pieces are more visible and organized allowing for faster game set up and take down. Considering how much I love arts and crafts, I am not surprised that I am enjoying making these. Even though it does take a fair amount of time, four hours for the first one, I did notice that I was faster with my second one. Considering how much you can pay to buy inserts for popular games, this is a much cheaper alternative and you can customize it to your liking.
Well done 👍.