Well, with my sudden fetish for custom inserts, there was no way I was not getting one done for my absolute all time favorite game right? That would be inconceivable! :P
Likewise the insert was made by the very talented Chris Whitpan.
It was designed by yours truly; and Chris did a fantastic job making it to every specification I listed.
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| What you see after you remove the main board and player boards |
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| Insert, Transform! |
What I terribly dislike about Castles is the amount of fiddly-ness involved with the round washing up and setting up - taking away the old tiles, placing new ones. This insert doesn't help with that (for that you might need a machine), but it does help me to organize the pieces very simply and efficiently. I used to use custom made bags for them, but I found that reaching in and out of the bags (which were slightly too small) was very cumbersome, and mixing the tiles was difficult (also due to the size of the bag). So I got Chris to make an insert that was able to hold the pieces and yet be "torn apart" when we were ready to play the game.
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| Full real estate needed when laid out |
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| Compressed real estate when stacked |
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| How the trays may be divided further into half |
The top layer of the insert is made up of 6 equally shaped trays that could further be divided into half to convert them to 7-12 trays. Flexibility! Always nice to have. :)
This made setting up Castles slightly faster, mixing the tiles much easier, and the real estate required for the trays was low as they could be easily stacked one on top of the other.
The best part of all is that even when the box stands vertically, NOTHING FALLS OUT ! Amazing precision! I shook it, I did a mini dance with it, and when I opened it, viola! everything neatly in place.
I'm very happy with how this insert turned out. It actually works better than I thought it would. He also did some nice finishing touches which I didn't notice till I starting snapping the photos.
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| I was surprised to find the base of the trays had a slanted edge. Very useful for stacking the trays! |
One more down, I think I have another 3 to go?
Heh Heh Heh
Jonathan
Cool inserts and Chris is super innovative at his design! I have been trying to make my own foamcore inserts for Legends of Andor and Lords of Waterdeep recently but nowhere near what I see here haha. Still satisfying though. Even made an insert for Battleline because I couldn't fit my sleeved cards inside the plastic insert.
ReplyDeleteAnd whenever i get slanted edges, it's not intentional at all haha.
i once tried to make my own inserts and boxes
Deletei did a Dixit one which i am quite pleased with, and i should put it up sometime in the near future (although it pales compared to what Chris has done)
but overall it was very tedious and troublesome, totally not intending to do it myself again. hahaha
Yah all my edges are mismatched. Ugly but shipping those inserts over wouldn't be cheap.
DeleteMaybe I should make a dixit insert too, I have 8 pieces of foamcore and nothing to lose (except time and some shaved off skin) haha
Hi Jonathan, how much does the inserts cost?
ReplyDeletehi shiqin,
Deletei actually paid Chris in games cos i was selling some of mine which he wanted, so i shipped them to him in USA
but the inserts i had to ship back from USA on my own account. i dont think he ships to Singapore
so no price was discussed. something like a trade was done
Thanks for the kind words Jon, I am thrilled you like them! Glad they survived the trip!
ReplyDeleteHi Chris !
DeleteNo prob ! They are indeed mini works of art IMO. Haha
And i'm glad to see you are following our blog as well ! :)
Hey Chris, mind sharing how you did those slanted cuts? Really keen on learning the tricks of your trade!
Delete