I have found myself very taken with the game
Cornish Smuggler on Kickstarter and have had some contact with the game designer, Henry Jasper and some of his play testing clan. As I discussed in my previous post I have been lucky enough to be given a print and play copy of the game, which I have provided a full review of over on
BoardGameGeek.com.
However, having a print and play version just wasn't quite good enough for me, so in this post I will discuss what I have done to the game in preparation for further sessions and play testing. As a reminder, I started with this...
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| Original Print and Play |
I then went to the local craft store and bought some of these...
That is, cardboard, scissors, craft knife, pencil, glue, cloth tape and transparent covering. To be honest, I already had some of this stuff, but needed a couple of bits 'n' bobs. (The blue background is a large piece of thick card.)
Stage 1: Creating the Board
1a) The first thing I did (top left) was to take each board quarter of the board, leaving a 1/2" (approx) white board at the sides of the board.
1b) I then mount each trimmed board quarter on to the white side of the blue card (I want the blue finish to be the back of the board). I also aligned the inner sections of the paper version of board where I could to the edges of the blue card, this would ensure they should align better and should I make a slight botch of the cutting, this would eventually be hidden.
1c) Once mounted, I then used the craft knife to cut along the marked out 1/2" boarder. You can't see this and perhaps more picture would have helped. The result was the top right picture.
1d) I then cut out a section of the transparent cover which I would laminate the board with. Bottom left shows another 1/2" boarder all the way round. This was the tricky part, placing the laminate on the board without causing bubbles, creases, or having the plastic fold in on itself, which happened a few times. In the end, the simplest method was to remove the paper covering off the plastic, lay the plastic down (stick side up) and then simply place one edge of the board on to the sticky side and push down. Hard to explain and I don't think any amount of pictures would help here! The best bit of advice is be careful!
1e) The bottom right picture shows, though hard to see, where I then trimmed the corners of the laminate before folding over. This meant that the laminate would be entirely fixed to the board and not leave overlaps.
Stage 2: Borders
Here I will try and explain the borders... this is tougher than the process to make the game.
2a) Top left you can see a partially bordered game.
2b) I simply took an appropriate length of cloth tape and carefully aligned it to the edge of the board (covering the 1/2" white boarder). I then took a small section at either end and folder the tape over the read of the board. I tended to fold the main section of the tape first, followed by the little tab. It gave an okay finish and I am sure there are far more aesthetically pleasing ways to do this and get a nice angled finish, but I neither had the time or the tools.
This is the end result...
The picture quality is not brilliant, but you can see the final article. I was quite pleased, but in hindsight know I could have done better.
My plan was to make it a proper folding board, but the four component pieces are not equal size (which is odd and didn't realise until I was quite a way in to this process).
Stage 3: Ship Counters
Now the print and play version obviously doesn't come with any counters and I was feeling that board deserved something more than the wooden diamonds I used in my initial play test. So here goes...
3a) Top right. I found some simple clip art which I was happy with, to an extent. Not what I originally wanted, but actually, when completed (bottom pic) I loved them. The basic clip art was copied and reversed as you see in the first picture and then recoloured. The intention was to simply fold it over back on itself. However, as soon as I got home I realised that I had left enough space to put card between the ship and paper would be too flimsy.
3b) So I cut each ship out (there were 5 colours, each with 2 sides). I had more pictures of this process but have lost them. 1 side of each ship was mounted on to the left over card from the game board. A laminate square was then stuck over it and I carefully used the craft knife to cut out the ship.
3c) This left a single sided ship; not good enough. The other half of the ship, the paper piece, was then covered in laminate and carefully cut out.
4c) This plastic covered paper piece was then stuck to the reverse of the cardboard ship counter.
4e) I then made some rudimentary stands by sticking two pieces of card together and cutting a small groove into each. Oh... yes, when cutting out the cardboard ship counters (step 3b) I left a small 3/4" long and about 2/8" high piece on the bottom. This was then slotted into the groove I made in the bases. (see bottom pic).
I actually did experiment with different ways of laminating, but the method described I found to be the best. I am very, very happy with the final ships. Simple, but effective.
Step 4: Goods counters
The new look board and ships... require something more than cardboard cut out goods counters.
... I just discoverer black borders look kinda neat. This is a journey of discovery for me... back to the matter at hand, goods tokens.
4a) Top left - These are the original cardboard cut out tokens we used in the original play test. I think we can all agree that the board and ships counters deserve something better... more painful, but better.
4b) Top middle - I bought a length of wood, 10.5mm x 10.5mm (sorry for changing from imperial here). I cut this into little sections matching the goods shapes that are required. Sorry, forgot to take a picture. Where odd shapes are requires, I cut the necessary pieces and then superglued them together, sometimes to my hand, sometimes to the counter and sometimes to each other. I got there in the end though.
4c) Top right - a jumble of the final counters, primed and ready.
4d) Bottom - The final pieces. They are not perfect, but again, I don't mind. In fact I like the slightly rough and ready look of them, it suits the game.
I chose to paint them in Bronze, Silver and Gold (way to go 20 year old citadel miniature paints!) There are three merchant ships in the game that each set starts on. This way they are easy to group together.
I do intend to add the goods value to each piece to make it easier to see at a glance what they are worth. It is quite obvious, but anything that makes playing games easier is worth doing.
Stage 5: The End
I then raided the rest of my games for other game components that are required, as follows:
10 Customs markers (thank you Escape from Colditz)
Gold Coins (thank you Colosseum)
45 Reputation Counters (thank you Fist fo Dragon Stones)
60 Influence Counters (thank you again Fist of Dragon Stones)
40 Network Counters (10 x 4 player colours and thank you Railways of the World)
10 x Bribe counters (thank you again Railways of the World)
1 x First Player marker (thank you again Coloseum)
So enough of other games, here are a few pictures of the final article and a game in session.
So there you have it, blood sweat and tears. My pimp 'n' play.
If you like what you see, please visit the KickStarter page and take a look at the game.
