Have you ever had a complete box set of games, only to be missing an accessory? Have you ever experienced that it takes too long to begin a game? Have you ever experienced that when trading games it takes too much time, or you always need someone to help you? These things don't affect the gameplay, but they do affect the experience of the game. If you’re a gamer, congratulations, you will see something can be changed after you read this article. But if you’re a designer, you will find you can change something at the beginning to custom board game ideas.
We fully know inspiration is a magical force that can ignite creativity and bring positivity into our lives. But, let’s face it, finding inspiration can sometimes be a challenge. Here that’s why we’re here. So, today let us introduce you to storage solutions that we ever have made of custom board games and have even seen.
In general, our storage options include ziplock bags, cloth bags, plastic trays, etc. If the publisher has no specific instructions, the board game manufactureing company usually prioritizes the most cost-effective option. That is, recommending materials that fit within your budget to match your designs. So far, at least, this has been an ideal and widely practiced option. But some top board game manufacturer maybe do something different. Based on what we've learned during production and playtesting, I'd like to give you more inspiration.
First, we will introduce you the storage options like clothes bags. Cloth materials are usually classified as flannelette, satin, organza, polyester cotton, peach skin, micro suede, polyester, and pip-stop linen-type cloth. But you can do something to change on materials. Such as the Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition (2023), as you can see, the clothes bag can stand on the table. The material has been adjusted, using a combination of leather and fabric. This design brings more convenience to your gaming experience. However, if you use this presentation in a game like Flamecraft, you might still be caught in some trouble.
While playing Flamecraft you'll find that we often need to trade, when you receive or replace different tokens in the same turn and are not caught into a mess, you need more people to help you able to complete a quick trade in one turn. So the updated material may be more suitable for you. We can exemplify the creative material combination for you like leather on the bottom and top, the organza in the center, and things like that.
There is also a style of design we had seen in the Flamecraft Game Fan Group that I thought was interesting to share here. This form of storage can quickly help us to take inventory of the number of accessories, as well as quickly complete the transaction and the organization of the accessories in the course of the game. What a amazing work.
The design of this separate accessory will undoubtedly increase the cost of production, so in general, some publishers may use this concept on the deluxe version. But if it can be accepting of a small change to the cost, we suggest that you combine the storage applied into the plastic tray, such as the design of the Catan.
For more delicate, I'd suggest taking a look at the Tainted Grail's plastic tray storage solution, which combines storage and functional attributes. If eco-friendly is your priority, you can also consider a pulp tray solution and integrating it into your design, as we mentioned in our 2023 Sample Box. Pulp tray can also be a great way to fulfill your functionality and storage needs, but the cost can go up considerably;
We often buy popular board games kit to play on our Game Nights, and we always play them with a more critical perspective from professional making habits. So as we play some games, always find myself looking for some extra accessories to set up my game. At this point, I always wonder if these had been avoided altogether at the beginning of the design, it would have been a much more seamless experience. Of course, ziplock bags are the cheapest way to go, we're just here to give you more production possibilities.
Every month we will make a recommendation and cost suggestions for creative samples, so please subscribe and keep following us if our content is helpful to you. If you are in the process of designing your product and are not sure if it can be produced perfectly, please don't hesitate to contact us and we would like to offer you a free production consultation. Rest assured that we are an ethical production company that will respect and keep every one of your unpublished ideas confidential.
