Author Topic: Organisers and storage for other games  (Read 9466 times)

Offline jungleboy

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Organisers and storage for other games
« on: September 26, 2016, 01:16:13 PM »
We all spend plenty of time making and/or thinking about Carcassonne storage. But what about other games?

After buying Isle of Skye yesterday, I punched out the pieces today and there are quite a lot of different components. I saw this organiser and it looks great, but spending 50%+ of the game price on organisers is not really a great idea long-term.



What organisers/dividers/storage solutions do you have for other games and do you recommend them? Post pictures and links in this thread.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2913.0
« Last Edit: September 26, 2016, 01:21:46 PM by jungleboy »

Offline Decar

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2016, 02:23:13 PM »
I've started to go down the foam-core and little bags approach.  Some games I use plastic baggies too.

Offline Paul

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2016, 02:27:12 PM »
The constant issue with so many board games.

I use plastic storage boxes with inlays that can be moved about to some degree. Cost 4 Euro each for me at the local store and is enough to fit the entire Isle of Skye content except the scoreboard and the hidden displays if they are assembled.

This box goes into another much larger box where I can store up to 7 of these 4 Euro boxes and a folder wrap where I keep the scoreboards and rules for each game.

UPDATE: Also, I never use zip bags if I can avoid them. With these boxes with plenty of dividers there's rarely any issues.
  Furthermore, I got a deal from a local store buying 2000 (!) CD covers for only 10 Euro. These are great to store tokens in to avoid them being jumbled up or packed tightly with a good chance of getting damaged. I also use these to back sensitive LEGO parts.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2016, 02:30:35 PM by Paul »
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Offline jungleboy

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2016, 03:03:00 PM »
I guess the issue for me is that I really like beautiful storage solutions to complement beautiful games. For a game like Carcassonne, which I had already invested so much in and had so many expansions for, it was an easy decision to buy a Basically Wooden box (or three). So for something like Isle of Skye, I'd love to have the solution upthread rather than using plastic. But to a certain degree I have to decide if the game itself is 'worthy' of an expensive storage solution.

Offline stalcupojoy

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2016, 03:43:51 PM »
AGRICOLA. I don't have a picture handy, as the game is still back in the US, coming to us with some other stuff next year when my parents visit us here in Thailand... but my best storage solution to date was to get a bunch of those little plastic salsa containers (mine were black, with clear lids) you can get at Mexican fast food restaurants, and use them to store all the tokens. They even fit in the game box.
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Offline Paul

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #5 on: September 26, 2016, 04:08:16 PM »
I guess the issue for me is that I really like beautiful storage solutions to complement beautiful games. For a game like Carcassonne, which I had already invested so much in and had so many expansions for, it was an easy decision to buy a Basically Wooden box (or three). So for something like Isle of Skye, I'd love to have the solution upthread rather than using plastic. But to a certain degree I have to decide if the game itself is 'worthy' of an expensive storage solution.

It looks ok. But beautiful storage is not imperative in my case. What matters is the convenience. Having to been forced to dismantle the hidden display cases everytime you want to pack the game is not practical.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2016, 05:05:58 PM »
It looks ok. But beautiful storage is not imperative in my case. What matters is the convenience. Having to been forced to dismantle the hidden display cases everytime you want to pack the game is not practical.

Fair point on practicality. Still, I'm very tempted!!

Offline ooh_jim

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2016, 05:36:38 PM »
I've been having fun with foamcore too, recently. I've looked up photos online of other people's designs, reverse-engineered the basic layouts, then tweaked them slightly to allow for extra pieces.

I'll stick the photos up once I'm done at work, but so far I've done: Catan, to include and organise a bunch of mini expansions; Roll for the Galaxy, to organise the dice and include the Ambition expansion; and Brewcrafters, which originally came with no insert at all, just a massive heap of components and a bunch of baggies.

The materials are dirt cheap, and I found the whole process to be a lot of fun; I'd certainly recommend people try it out.

Offline ooh_jim

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2016, 10:03:57 PM »
Here we go then.

The first insert I put together was for Catan. I wanted to give it a go so I could get an idea of what to do before building up the Brewcrafters insert. It probably ended up being the best of the three builds.

The instructions all fit on top of the first shelf, which holds the player pieces & terrain tiles.


Removing that shelf reveals the second, which holds all the other pieces of the base game.


The two card holders are removable to make the job easier for the dealer and to reduce mess.


The bottom layer holds all of the pieces for the Oil Springs, Frenemies, Helpers of Catan & Wedding Tower mini expansions, as well as a bunch of VP tokens and some blank number discs. I also have The River mini, however it was too big to fit in anywhere here, so I've stuck it in beneath the terrain hexes.


The next project was for Brewcrafters, a game very similar to Agricola based on the theme of building a brewery. As previously mentioned, it comes with a tonne of components, but no insert whatsoever.


The first layer is divided into eight parts. On the left side here there's all the ingredient cubes & multiplier markers. Top right holds cash, point tokens separated by value, worker & recipe cards, etc. At the bottom on the right are six small boxes holding the starting hand for each player. Their contents are all slightly different to compensate for first player advantage.


Removing those eight parts reveals the tray of beer on the right hand side, and the rest of the misc components in the tray on the right. Underneath that tray sits all of the player and game boards.


All of the pieces together. Again, all of this stuff just came with a small amount of baggies. Super unhelpful.


To conserve space, the boxes holding the individual beer tokens are all made from card held securely in a foamcore frame. The beers are colour coded: black for stout, brown for porter, cream for ale, and white for the starting beers.


Lastly, Roll for the Galaxy. On the left hand side, from top to bottom, we've got the objective tiles & bag, the starting faction tiles, the cups, the phase markers, homeworlds, then the planet/tech tiles. It just so happens to fit the exact number of tiles from the base game, Ambition expansion and the gaming grid promo. Nice. On the right is a pull-out tray holding all of the dice, vp chips, and vp/* chips.


There's a coloured piece of card bent beneath each of the piles of dice to make it easy to scoop them out. It bugs me to no end that each piece of card happens to be the exact same hue as it's corresponding die, with the exception of the brown.


Underneath that sits everything else. The cash marker, shields, plateaus and phase selection sheets. They look a bit like they're all just chucked in here, but they're actually very sturdy and keep each other in place.


It seemed a shame to throw the two inserts away, so I decided to chop em up and use them as a base in stead of a sheet of foam. The original on the left and the expansion on the right.

I've still got a couple of sheets of foam left, but no game that would benefit that much from a new insert yet.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 10:07:33 PM by ooh_jim »

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2016, 12:37:14 AM »
I desperately need a storage solution for Brew Crafters, but I will probably go with a tacklebox once I return to the US. It is kind of amazing that game did not come with anything except baggies. Very lazy on Dice Hate Me Games's part.

One random question: what is the Wedding Tower expansion for Catan? Even though I never play the game anymore (I still play Rivals for Catan, however), I still consider myself a bit of a smug Catan aficionado but this one is unknown to me.

Offline Chooselife

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2016, 10:02:40 AM »
As the Kickstart arrivals keep pilling up I got into tuckboxing.
I'm using the "Board Game Tuck Box Creator by Tyson Manwarren" and already done some for the decks of:
Tavarua
Kodama
Dale of Merchants
Saloon Tycoon

I've to say that for smaller games putting the card decks on tuckboxes is halfway to be able to tidy up the storage of the rest of the parts.

Saloon Tycoon presented a different challange so on top of the tuckboxes I went away and created a gamebox insert in order to have the tiles sorted and elevated for easy storage and access


For smaller bits, tokens and meeples I'm not a fan of plastic bags or leave then lose, even on dedicated insert space, so I always try to get a drawstring bag for each type/color although since I source them from Clever Baggers I need to wait for a bulk order to dilute shipping.

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Offline jungleboy

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2016, 10:42:56 AM »
As the Kickstart arrivals keep pilling up I got into tuckboxing.
Saloon Tycoon

Saloon Tycoon presented a different challange so on top of the tuckboxes I went away and created a gamebox insert in order to have the tiles sorted and elevated for easy storage and access


Nice! I feel as though Saloon Tycoon is fairly manageable with the insert that comes with the game, even though it's not great. So for now I am OK with not getting a better solution. But Isle of Skye is a different matter altogether!

Offline jungleboy

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2016, 10:47:29 AM »
Here we go then.

Wow, nice work! Especially the Brewcrafters one which looks like it would be a disaster without an insert.

Offline ooh_jim

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2016, 11:36:01 AM »
One random question: what is the Wedding Tower expansion for Catan? Even though I never play the game anymore (I still play Rivals for Catan, however), I still consider myself a bit of a smug Catan aficionado but this one is unknown to me.

The Wedding Tower replaces the desert hex. It just adds the rule that when the robber is placed, anyone with a settlement on that hex recieves a resource from that hex.

It came in the same promo as the three darmstadt carcassonne tiles.

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Re: Organisers and storage for other games
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2016, 11:48:59 AM »
One random question: what is the Wedding Tower expansion for Catan? Even though I never play the game anymore (I still play Rivals for Catan, however), I still consider myself a bit of a smug Catan aficionado but this one is unknown to me.

The Wedding Tower replaces the desert hex. It just adds the rule that when the robber is placed, anyone with a settlement on that hex recieves a resource from that hex.

It came in the same promo as the three darmstadt carcassonne tiles.
Ah. I kind of forgot about that tile. I did not realise it had such a silly name. But oh well. Do you collect the Catan Geographies maps? I really like them. I only wish the European maps were made available in the US, even as just imports untranslated. I get enough USA, I want more Spain, Mallorca, Westphalia, etc.


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