Pimping Out Our Castle Panic Game - Part 2

Okay, so maybe part one of this post was published over a year ago. Meh. If I wasn't a slacker, I wouldn't be the charming nerd I am today. The point is, I am taking time out of my chaotic holiday schedule just to show you the amazing results--so sayeth the most humble person in the world--of our attempt to craft some upgrade pieces for our Castle Panic game.

If you'll recall from Part One, we decided that the cardboard pieces that come with the Castle Panic game--cardboard castles and walls stuck in plastic stands--we insufficient for our panicky castle hijinks. So we devoted some time last year to crafting some 3D walls, castles, and fences, primarily using Crayola's Model Magic as our medium. The crafting was trickier than we figured it would be (who's surprised?) and we had to scrap our game plan a couple times.

To read the full nitty-gritty, CLICK HERE for Part One.

The good news is that they all dried beautifully, and were ready to paint! Here are some pics showing the results. Sorry the pictures aren't better, but I'm a gaming nerd, not a photographer, so you get whatcha get.

Above is a side-by-side of the original pieces (on the right) with the new pieces (on the left). Dave was in charge of the painting, and decided to make the walls a steelier gray, with lots of dirt and moss covering each one. The towers, on the other hand, looked more like weathered stone with the occasional subtle blood spatter. The fence barricade pieces have the best blood spatters, and are painted to look like battered rails.

Here is the final assembly (okay, minus a few pieces, but you get the idea).

The bottom line is that this was a lot of fun to put together, and I'd especially recommend this as a family project with kids. Not only does it add another dimension to the game, quite literally, but it makes the game more personal and exciting. Maybe one of these days we'll add some custom-built creatures to the mix.

On the other hand....maybe we'll just make some cocktails and get back to gaming. Crafting is nice and all, but only in gaming can I delight so much in squashing my husband. When I squash him (read: his clay pieces) during crafting, he just tends to cry.

Print and Play Birthday

So in honor of this birthday for the best-wife-ever, I have decided to get off my lazy rump and finally post. As you can tell by now we are a little obsessed with gaming. So much so that I decided to craft a game for Katie's birthday. Now let me say this right up front.... Despite the plethora of craftiness on this blog I am not a crafty guy. C+ was the highest my penmanship score ever reach. And just between you and me I need my four-year-old's help with scissors.

My initial plan was some amazing new game involving Dinosaurs, Steampunk and Caylus.

The problem with this was three fold.

1. The only thing 'Amazing' about it was me calling it 'Amazing'

2. Crafting the truncheon wielding raptors was a little out of my wheelhouse.

3. Key actions cards involving anabolic steroids failed to fit my overworked theme.

Back to the drawing board I went. Deciding that actually getting her a game she might enjoy, caused me to just buy her a game. Thanks to a friendly co-worker going to GenCon I was able to secure a copy of ......(Wait that would be spoiling, Katie you will just have to find that gift later). But alas, I was still left with an empty hole where my Grinch-like craft heart should be. I decided to turn to my good old friend Mr.BoardGameGeek. And thankfully he offered up a delicious selection of Print-and-Play games both fun and reasonably buildable.

First I turned to Clint Herron's RoboDerby: Express. As a bonus I had a left over copy of Jurassic Park III that wasn't completely devoured by raptors, and a few other indented dice. This game turned out to be fun to build with lots of fan made extras, a variety of art, and it serves as a nice fast homage to one of my favorite games that takes too long to be fun: Roborally.

Image Courtesy sunshiny via BGG

But again I felt hollow because this is much more of a game for me than for Katie. Then I found it. Artfully detailed in his own blog Matt S. (tasajara) posts about his own Ticket to Ride expansion creation. Northern Egypt. You can read about his creation process here.

This was perfect. It is a game best-wife-ever loves. Most of the parts are from something we already have and the cards were already uploaded to Artscow. Now all I have to do is make the board. I could have just had a poster printed and laminated, but that would have been WAY too easy. I decided my best bet would be to print the game on 8.5 x 11 label sheets and stick them to a thrifted game board. The Jurassic Park board was the right size but it was only 4 fold and wouldn't fit in the Ticket to Ride box, Trivial Pursuit boards were a good option but I would have had to seem two together. Luckily I had a copy of the Ann Arbor Trivia game, and for some crazy reason I wasn't attached to it.

Next step was resizing the image. While it was close to the board size(good for scaling) it would have cut off the edge(bad for keeping score). So I used PosteRazor to resize it into a convenient PDF.

So one night when best-wife-ever was out doing her civic duty disposing of stockpiles of dangerously flammable ethanol, I set up my project. At this point I would like to thank my aforementioned daughter Lily who did her best to help me work the paper cutter. To her I say I did the best I could. After cutting and applying the sticker sheets I came to realize that the toner did not hold up as well as I would have liked. So in an effort to save the project I used a few markers and a couple coats of sealant to patch it up.

All in all it is a fairly impressive creation and I have to take my hat off to the creator who put a tremendous amount of time and fan love into the art and playtesting. If I were to make another one of these I would print on some high quality glossy paper and glue that down rather than use labels. I was pleased with my choice to get the Artscow cards. They may not be perfect but they are far nicer than you would make anywhere, plus cheap is good. For any poor soul that made it this far in this post, I thank you and ask you to join me in wishing best-wife-ever a Happy Birthday.

Dominion Never Looked So Good and Sexy

Anyone who's played the Rio Grande game Dominion, no doubt understands that this card-intensive game is tricky to organize and store. Tons of stacks of cards, all of which need to be easily accessible, sorted, and secure in the box. To give credit to Rio Grande, they did a tolerably fair job of packing the original box, using a slatted cardboard insert and label sheet to help players find cards in a pinch (get it? 'cause you'd pinch the cards out of the box? Oh, never mind...). But not only is it far from ideal, the original packaging doesn't account for the oodles and oodles of expansions. That's where the Hope Diamond of all Dominion boxes comes into the story.

Now, I think most hardcore gamers who bum around Boardgamegeek.com (BGG) have seen many, many attempts to "pimp out" their Dominion decks. But the other day I stumbled across the prettiest, shiniest, smiliest game box I have ever seen. I want to pet it. I want to name it and take it home and put it in a little dress and serve it cookies. (And I'm only half in love with Dominion to begin with, owning just the original set.)

Furniture craftsman, and BGG member Wade Ashton, recently debuted his treasure chest-inspired wooden Dominion case as a prototype. The case features wooden row dividers, tabbed divider cards, metal hinges, a metal handle, and original Dominion artwork. And the whole thing is customizable since the row dividers can be removed and rearranged. Drooooool.  

The finished chest, which will accommodate even the cards in protector sleeves (Dominion nerd alert!), is being sold for between $160-170 (plus shipping). An unfinished version of the box is available for $90. And damn, is it worth the price. I'm very pleased to see that a number of pre-order requests are being placed (some for multiple boxes). You can find out more about ordering the box here. And if you'd like to gift one to me for the big 30th birthday in a couple weeks, leave a comment below and I'll promptly provide my shipping address. Anyone? Anyone?

Pimping Out Our Castle Panic Game - Part 1

Castle Panic was a game the husband and I first sat down with at Origins 2010, and even though it didn't entail us jumping up and running around the table, waving our arms and screaming every time someone said the word "castle", it still was a pretty fun game. Essentially you have a small castle keep surrounded by ominous monster-filled woods. You draw tiles to determine how fast these aggressive beasties advance on your keep, and play different cards, like archers, to fend them off. If the boogers reach your outer wall, then they knock it down and have the path cleared to start razing your towers. If they take down all six of your towers you--and all of the other players--lose. I won't launch into a full review here, but sufficed to say it's a pretty well-balanced and lively game in spite of the fact that I normally loathe cooperatives--I'd rather smash the husband to smithereens rather than celebrate a victory with him (it makes my pillow-spiking victory laps so much more delightful and meaningful).

The only flaw with the game? Somewhat low production value. The castle and tower pieces are cardboard cutouts that are placed in little plastic stands. And we can do better than that, CAN'T WE?

So here's what the husband and I came up with to "pimp out" our slightly used, recently acquired copy of Castle Panic. First, we decided that the walls and towers clearly needed to be 3D. A quick trip to Joann's proved fruitless in finding any little wooden or stone creations that fit the bill. And wouldn't it be too easy if I went to the local hobby store and bought pre-made little walls? I think so too. So instead, I picked up some Crayola Model Magic--this super soft, pliable modeling clay that feels like it's been whipped like Cool Whip. Crayola notes on the packaging that it's "7x easier to use than modeling clay!". I wonder how they quantify that....

Anyway, back at the game cave (read: our living room), construction began.

The walls were the easiest, since I was able to just use a little bit of brown Model Magic to make a few cubed rectangles and implemented a tooth pick as an advanced poking device to create the stone/brick facade. The towers on the other hand....were a bit harder. Six towers need to fit in a tiny space in the center of the board. So do I make a series of round towers? Nah, that looks goofy--who builds a keep like that? The husband suggested making one round castle and dividing it into 6 pie-wedge pieces as parts of the castle. But since that quickly proved to be a logistical nightmare and resulted in the husband being pelted by balls of Model Magic, we moved on to the next plan: semi-circular walls that all join together to roughly form a ring of walls. Here's an image of the battlements being created. They're made out of a thin layer of Model Magic which is tacked on to the top of the tower.

 Here's another image to see how it all started to come together once one of the pieces were molded. All that's left now is to add a top-notch paint job to both of these.The husband will break out his acrylic paint set and tiny brushes we use for D&D mini painting and give them a nice gray, weathered look. Maybe a little moss. Maybe a little blood.

Aside from painting, we still need to construct the two wall reinforcement pieces, for which we have purchased some dollhouse picket fence materials. More to come on this, and the finished paint job in Part 2. Overall, I'm very excited to see how these prototypes came together compared to the cardboard originals (shown below). I think it'll make the game a lot more exciting and even a bit more realistic.

The husband and I have even considered creating a few extra sets and putting them up for sale, but I think we'll have to see if there's any real interest in something like this. I know for us, this is just the perfect upgrade to any already awesome game. In fact, the only thing that might make in better is if we actually institute that rule about screaming and running around the table in a panic every time someone says "castle".