Any love for foamcore?... Or... how do I store this thing?

Back on the SUSD forums I created a post about storage solutions, but it turned into a lot more!

(Spooky voice) This one… Dropbox - Any love for Foamcore_ - Board Games & Card Games - Shut Up & Sit Down Discussion Forum.pdf - Simplify your life

Foamcore is what I use, it’s a sandwich of card and plastic foam, it’s easily cut and joined.

Making these speeds up set up of the game and, for me at least, means they are much more likely to hit the table.

E. G. Flash point fire rescue

I only have one expansion so, the boards go in one box and the rest in the other…



5 Likes

How do you design your inserts? I actually really enjoy putting them together (probably the same part of my brain that liked Airfix models) but I wouldn’t know where to start with making my own.

3 Likes

I do love a good insert. Jamaica isn’t a great game, but the insert is superb

:open_mouth:

One of the few games where I’ve had an actual heated rules argument with my husband :laughing:

Were you correct?

I always find there’s a runaway leader problem.

Anyway, these foamcore inserts are excellent.

If you don’t want to design your own, Folded Space do a great range of pre-cut foam inserts.

1 Like

The Brass Birmingham one would save so much time

That’s where I normally get them :slight_smile: I have ones for Gloomhaven, Caverna, Sidereal Confluence, Dinosaur Island, and Scythe.

1 Like

Sort of an answer but not quite: when I’m setting up a design for 3d-printing, I lay it out in two dimensions in Inkscape (other vector drawing programs are available). So for example a red rectangle would be one of the card stacks, at the minimum size it can be - and I then move everything around, rotate it, etc., to see what fits well.

So if I were doing foamcore I’d start with that - probably with coloured pieces for the components, and black for the foamcore itself.

3 Likes

Well… to be honest I make them up as I go along!

Not quite actually;
I lay out a foambase exactly the same size as the bottom of the box, then pile the components on top of it, but always think about second/third layers. Then, once I have an idea of what I want to do I get cutting!

The escoteric order of gamers have an excellent how to… Using Foamcore: Part 1 – The Esoteric Order of Gamers and many plans, but i just like making it up myself!

4 Likes

That’s what I do. Sometimes I look up examples of inserts others made for a game for example on boardgamegeek and then I start arranging the parts of the game in the box to see how it might maybe go in there and then I just start cutting. Sometimes I make mistakes… I started out by copying designs others had made but I quickly switched over to “make it up” it’s like a puzzle then. I’ll be posting the stuff I made somewhere because I don’t want to flood this thread with all the projects I already posted over at SUSD :slight_smile:

4 Likes

Grrrrrrr!!
Damn you Laukat!!!

7 Likes

Only just seen this!

When I do mine, I tend to a) look at what other people have done (evaluating what went well and what could be improved) and b) make it up as I go along using actual components arranged on a piece of foam-core the size of the bottom of the box.

BGG has a good geeklist which is my first port of call when looking for precedents.

I didn’t see this thread before. I made an insert for Maracaibo, as the setup and teardown takes a while.

I made a plan in Tinkercad…

But like the clever chap I am, I designed it all with 5mm board in mind, then accidentally ordered 3mm!

Still, I adapted it and it came out nicely.

My favourite part was this cube tray. Setting the influence cubes is a pain in the neck, laying out 6 rows of cubes. So now I set them up in this put the lid on in the box, and when it’s time to play, just slide them out onto the board.

7 Likes

Where did you get your 3mm foamcore from? I’ve been coveting that for ages!

Amazon actually. There was more of it than 5mm.

1 Like

grand, thanks. I’ve only ever found it in white.

I didn’t want to spam everyone with the two dozen photos of inserts I made since I started last September so I made an album instead

and because there was some talk about setup for Bärenpark here’s my solution:

8 Likes

That’s a very attractive insert. You done gave me a need.

2 Likes

I posted these back on the old forum…

image

image

I made this after a schematic found on BGG. Sadly at the time the schematic wasn’t quite complete so I improvised some but it has been updated to a new version so… maybe this is even better now?

I recently did the same build again with the son of friends who also bought the game and it was much quicker. Alone it took me two afternoons, with a “helper” the second build was completed in one afternoon.

Ps if you use the helper app there are quite a few materials no longer actually needed like monster envelopes and combat decks so one might consider adapting the insert to leave out the superfluous items and make space for forgotten circles instead

Pps this was one of my first builds, third or so… it just takes patience and an hour or two to learn how to cut straight and glue stuff…

2 Likes