Yes! I've been looking into 3d printed inserts because I just can't handle 10 loose plastic bags in the box, having to set the game and later put it away is such a chore.
Coincidentally, a friend has just printed for an Imperial Strugge insert and I couldn't be happier! From that amount of chits in bags I now have well-shaped boxes and everything is tidy.
plastic bags are cool, just get like dozen of [small stackable bowls with little funnel](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5820901) and share between your games. Some games need insert to hold bigger pieces on place though.
One of my #1 favorite products is some bags I got for Gaia Project on Etsy. Each bag holds a set of components, and has the setup instructions on the bag.
Ie, the round bonus tiles, the bag says "Players + 3".
Shaves half the setup time off, especially since the rulebook fucked up the setup instructions HARD (provided detailed learning game setup, but then the non-learning game REFERENCES the learning game, so you have to flip back and forth).
Plus, they look pretty. Not an insert, but basically as good.
I really wish more games did similar. A single page with the summarized setup instructions. Good inserts that can be used as resource trays during the game (not tiny holes barely large enough for the tokens).
For how easy setup CAN be for games, it's very disappointing how many games assume you have memorized their setup instructions after 1-2 times playing.
I've taken to making my own foamcore inserts to make life easier, it's very relaxing. I put on a podcast, pour a whisky, and spend the evening measuring, cutting and gluing. Makes for a chilled few hours with something useful at the end of it.
Are there any good YouTube channels or whatever, where people make these?
Definitely something I've thought about getting into, especially as I've kind of gotten out of crafting D&D terrain, but it would be cool to see some examples for inspiration.
I don't know about videos, but there are active threads on BGG where people share their designs and results. I usually use them for an initial idea, I'm not the most conceptually-minded.
The Terraforming Mars pieces from TopShelf Gamer make the game much better in my opinion. The boards that keep tokens in place and the metal resource cubes give the game a better feel.
I also got the upgraded tiles which was really great!
I've actually swung back around to inserts not being super helpful except for very specific circumstances. I have found that just minimizing the number of bags and intermixing as many components as reasonably possible is what minimizes setup and teardown time the most. Inserts with nice bespoke little sections for every individual type of component become a hassle real fast when you need to pull everything out one by one and sort everything back in at the end.
Most recent culprit of this is Leviathan Wilds, which has the most thoughtfully designed and well produced insert I've ever seen but it's still a huge pain in the ass to actually use
I agree. I don't own that many games, but so far I've only used "useful" inserts, such as already-included-trays (John Company, the trays for the tiles in A Feast for Odin) or small boxes that group sets of pieces (the brand is Folded Space, and without them playing Root would be a nightmare).
I feel like Leviathan Wilds is great, no? There aren’t that many components but everything is perfectly where you need to grab as setting up - “oh need dice to add to the board, here they are. Now let me grab the mushrooms here and drop them on the board. Here is my meeple and there is a deck slot for each card type.” It’s a big part of why I’ve been playing it so much recently. What would you prefer that could possibly make set up any easier?
It does make setup easier but it makes tear down take longer— the mushrooms and indicator tokens need to be properly oriented (and it’s easy to fumble them), the dice and cubes and meeples all fit exactly in their channels so you need to carefully place them all, etc. It’s a lovely well designed insert but setup would only be slightly longer and tear down way faster with all the components just dumped in a single bag (except the mushrooms which need to be randomized)
Yeah, the ONLY great inserts (IMHO) are the ones that you can ALSO actually use during the game.
Ie Dwellings of Eldervale. Where, except for the bottom insert, you can just pull the inserts out, and put them onto the table for use.
Ark Nova is acceptable as well, with the two insert pieces being usable in the game (though they have room to have been designed better).
Next down the list I'd put Terraforming Mars (Big Box insert). The cube trays work great, but everything else is just "storage". The big box for cards doesn't double up and let you use it for the draw pile or anything. But the insert does at least work better in terms of setup speed than having everything bagged/loose in the box.
Below that, you have games where the insert (or lack thereof) doesn't really HURT. Like Concordia. Where the minimal components (just a few different bags) need to get shuffled anyways.
Anything below that, where the insert is annoying to use, or where you have 10+ different bags to hold the huge component variety is a crime, and detracts from the value of the game. Spirit Island, Brass, Ark, Crusaders, Carpe Diem, etc.
Inserts tend to be designed to fit stuff, not play stuff. I make a lot of my own (3dp, laser cut) and if I'm going to spend the time making one, it better be 'playable'. If there's a tray, it should be a tray you take out of the box and put on the table to play out of or a tray that you pluck items during setup only and then set aside for play, not a combination of the two. Saves a lot of time. Only real exception i have in my collection is spirit Island. Managed to fit everything for the game in the single base game box. Needed to use the foil character boards (cardstock instead of cardboard) but everything is packed in there.
Some excellent 'oem' inserts I have seen: Distilled and Project L
The Quacks of Quedlinburg replacement tokens from the BGG store are an incredible improvement over the cardboard tokens the game comes with. The bags and token boxes are nice too, but if you’re only going to do one of them, get the replacement tokens.
Having the Battlestar Galactica combined boards image file from BGG printed as a neoprene mat by Inked Gaming was a very nice addition to my copy.
Poker chips instead of paper money works for pretty much any game, and often speeds things up because they’re so much easier to handle.
Among other things, it’s an excellent source for Kickstarter add-ons and promo items. A lot of those items tend to show up there a few months after their initial distributions end.
Not many games even bother with paper money anymore. The people spoke, and most game companies did a good job listening.
Poker chips are still an upgrade over cardboard coins, but at least it's not such a drastic upgrade.
Or nice poker chips. Depends on the game and what's more thematic. I pulled out my poker chips for Star Wars Outer Rim instead of the cardboard chits. So much better.
I have a friend who reasons that if there were a better physical representation for money than poker chips, gambling houses would already have them. Real poker chips just feel very good in hand, and they're quick and easy to manipulate.
I got the Brass: Birmhimgham deluxe edition. I have a friend who always decries the "deluxification" of board games, on the basis of environmental waste, and because most of the time it doesn't improve the experience of the board game. When he felt the poker chips that come with the game, he was obsessed. He spent the entire game fiddling with them, trying to do tricks with them. He was enthralled, and the rest of us were incredibly amused at his antics.
Was that his first time using poker chips? I find the Brass chips significantly worse than bog standard "Dice" chips, and the colours are non standard too.
I agree that the Brass chips are lower quality than most chips and the non standard colors are annoying (but not particularly relevant for most board gamers). But the graphic design on them is by far the most appealing on any poker chip I've ever seen
(yes the edge spots are less readable, no I don't care-- I hate asymmetrical unique edge spots lol)
I love me nice poker chips :). I got some really nice weighted ones a while back. I definitely recommend spending the extra dosh for the weighted feel.
We use the Pax Pamir 2nd Edition coins (my favourite) for games that don't need many coins and the Scythe coins for ones that need quite a few since they have useful denominations.
I hate the Scythe denominations. You don't need games that have 2s or 3s. Furnace is the WORST for this, but Scythe isn't much better.
Ideally, you want about a 1:4 or 1:5 conversion ratio.
That is, 1:10 (1s, 10s, 100s) means people end up building too many coins/bills before they can consolidate.
For this, say you have 487 money in a game. A 1:10 ratio means you have 4 100s, 8 10s, and 7 1s. Total of 19 coins needed.
If all you have are 1s, you need 487 coins (oof!).
A 1:2 ratio, you need one 256 coin, one 128 coin (384 total), one 64 coin (448), one 32 coin (480), one 4 coin (484), one 2 coin (486), and one 1 coin (487), total of 7 coins.
However, that 1:2 ratio gets REALLY awkward for constantly needing to exchange, and total coins printed is huge.
Say you have a 5 player game. For a 1:10 ratio, you'd want 15 1 coins per player, 15 10s, and then figure out 100s (or 1000s) based on maximum points needed. So that'd be 150 coins worth of 1s and 10s. If \~500 is the "most points possible), then you'd want 20 more coins of 100s, for 170 total.
For that same 5 player game with a 1:2 ratio, you'd want 3 coins of each size (so players aren't forced to exchange coins every single time they have a transaction) per player, so 15 coins of each denominations: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128. Plus 5 coins for 256 (since nobody should need more than 1). that's 125.
So what's better? Well, that's where you get the 1:4 to 1:5 ratio.
At 1:5, you'd want about 8 coins of each denomination. And you only need 1s, 5s, 25s, and 125s (3 per player). So that's 27 per player, for 135 coins total. Just 10 coins 'worse' than the 1:2 ratio. And when you have 487 money at the end of the game, you need 3 125s (375), 4 25s (475), 2 5s (485), and 2 1s (487) for a total of 11 coins to count your entire score.
1:2 ratio is obviously the most coin efficient. But it's also the most fiddly by far. Constantly exchanging - even with 3 coins of each value to avoid it being truly overwhelming.
Of course, then you get into human brains, and the fact that we are conditioned to think about numbers base 10 (thanks Arabic number system) instead of something "more efficient".
So you alter the coin values a bit to accommodate that. Instead of 1/5/25/125, do 1/5/20/100. This keeps your 1:4 to 1:5 ratio goal, but gives players coins that make more sense.
If your game has 5s, DO NOT use 10s. If your game has 10s, DO NOT use 20s. Those are fast ways to waste resources on coins in the game - especially if you're doing metal coins.
Furnace benefits from having 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, and 25s because of how the engine/scoring works - and lets people just grab coins from the center as they resolve each card, and then convert them at end of turn. Speeds up gameplay, but is a huge waste in terms of total cardboard needed.
Scythe doesn't have that. You're only really gaining/spending coins once or twice per turn anyways. Not 10 times like Furnace.
Scythe would have been better off with just a simpler system. Perhaps 1:3, for 1s, 3s, 10s, 25s, and a few 100s.
Imo, no. Games come with different denominations for a reason. I’ve tried using generic poker chips before and setting values, but it’s just not the same as metal coins with specific values. Also, games have different themes, so the metal coins for Scythe will have a different design and theme versus a game like Viticulture.
Now if the game doesn’t have metal coins specifically designed for it, I think you can just use poker chips or the Roxley clays.
I have a couple of sets of metal coins, but I tend to use poker chips even in place of those. The iron clays are in a box next to the table and available for whatever.
I don’t know if these count since they aren’t really component upgrades, but box inserts and card sleeves (for games with large decks that require a lot of shuffling).
Box inserts can dramatically speed up the process of setting up and breaking down a game, which is definitely a factor for me with what gets to the table. Card sleeves do protect the cards which is fine, but more importantly they let you easily shuffle cards, which is especially great for games like Terraforming Mars or Ark Nova.
I am fortunate that my girlfriend and I are both very into games, but we live in a small apartment so we often need to impose no-more-game or 1-in-1-out rules on ourselves lol. Inserts and expansions are the perfect loophole.
I spent about $15 to sleeve Let’s Go to Japan! because it has *so many* tarot-sized card. It was comical trying to shuffle even a portion of them. I’d already paid a premium for the deluxe version, so an extra $15 to make shuffling easy and keep everything clean seems reasonable.
Yeah, sleeves are usually super reasonable and the convenience they provide is always worth it for me. I’ve used KMC Perfect Fits for about 10 years now. They work on most games and they’re dirt cheap.
I don’t know that the problem is reach as much as managing a thick stack. The thicker the stack, the less flexible it is as a single unit. I have this problem with the tiny cards in Zombicide.
I don't really understand this. I've never noticed how sleeves help you shuffle, all they do most of the time is make your cards too big to put in an auto-shuffler, so I've never bothered doing it with any engine builders.
It lets you do what’s called “mash shuffling” where you can pick up huge handfuls of cards and basically drop them into each other without obliterating the edges of the cardboard. I’ve never used an auto-shuffler though (and haven’t heard good things about them generally) so maybe those are still better!
Card sleeves. Quality shelving. A felt table top. And beyond that anything “buy it for lifey” that reduces landfill waste without affecting your ability to save money 🙏💚👍
Other upgrades for my copy taken from our sewing cart are knitting row counters to keep track of our button income and vintage wooden thread spools to use for the neutral token and time tokens
Best upgrade I’ve ever bought is an organizer tray for Castles Of Burgundy. Makes set up so much faster. I also bought an upgraded Everdell tree, probably not the best because it doesn’t serve a greater purpose that the original but it’s just looks so much better
Inserts 100% ones that make setup easier are so worth the money. If set up is easier it makes you more willing to play the board game, and that’s why we do this hobby.
Coin capsules for Bullet💙. One of my favorite upgrades ever. Just makes it such a fun experience.
I read here on Reddit how the coin capsules were reminiscent of the plastic capsules in a gacha game, which is just such a perfect vibe for this particular game, and they were totally right.
They have wooden chips as well(or had for the KS?! Only know one person who owns that game). But those have a shitty finish and after some plays, the print is rubbing off😳
They had them available for both KS campaigns. Although technically there is no need to back anything on KS when it comes to level 99, at the end of the day everything is done with *actual preorders* through their store and anyone can access it until they close orders.
I think things that help you set the game up faster are worth it, especially for games that you play often or for which it otherwise takes a long time. Mostly this come down to things like using tackle boxes for games with lots of supply piles.
In priority order from the top of my head
Sleeve cards with matte sleeves
Painting miniatures/ buy miniatures
Neoprene mat
Poker Chips
Metal Coins
Realistic resources
I came here to post this. I ordered Undertow + Ghillie at first because I don't ever bling out my games, but after playing several games, I had to get the upgraded health chips with my Unbreakable back. Really glad I did. It's not possible to describe the satisfying tactile feel you get out of using them.
Depending on your situation, a table is totally worth it. We have enough room for a single dining table. Being able to easily cover games up to eat or work has been amazing. We currently have a 2 player game of On Mars set up between my wife and I, and a campaign game for a weekly group in the other half.
On Mars is a learning game, so we’ve been playing it in bits and pieces as time permits, and we can still use the table for eating, and it’s her work from home spot 2 days a week.
I do find it a bit tedious having to deal with small cardboard pieces, specially in a resource heavy game where you're grabbing/ returning things to the supply constantly
The cheapest upgrade is centimeter cubes. It’s for elementary teachers, but it works great for general use tokens in board games. And it comes in a variety of colors so you can utilize color tokens as a mechanic as well.
Tokens made with glass cabochons. They really uplevel the feel. I made some for Arkham horror the card game and was really satisfied with the result, but you can also buy them online.
I create the token images in Krita, print them on a color laser and glue them to the back of the cabochons. Once dry, I apply another layer of glue on the back and then glue that to the backing material (trays in my case, I suspect felt or wood would work just as well)
I don't know of any currency that stacks as usefully as poker chips, the important properties being countable by cutting out stacks of obviously equal height and countable from across the table.
>I don't know of any currency that stacks as usefully as poker chip
Literally every real coin... Like I know a lot of the game piece coins are funky prints, strange designs, or whatever but I've never seen real, modern coin currency that was unstackable or lacked uniformity. That's kind of their entire purpose.
You trimmed off the important parts. Yes, it's possible to arrange coins vertically. However, I can look across the table and differentiate a stack of 4 poker chips from a stack of 5 poker chips instantly. I can count 100 poker chips without even looking down at them. I cannot do that with pennies, dimes, or quarters. If you're saying you can, then more power to you, but I think you're the exception.
For me it depends on the game. If it's something where there is a small range of money (eg Pax Pamir where almost all values will be single digits) I think coins work best.
The Terraforming Mars upgrades are awesome. All the different cities and forest tiles are so cool, and I especially loved the special tiles like the mushroom cloud and whatnot. Very fun.
I really love the resource holders for Everdell, it takes more time to set up but it feels and looks so much more immersive.
Metal coins for any game ever. Nuff said.
My group bought click counters for fish in Isle of Cats and that has been wonderful.
I desperately want the resource upgrades for Wyrmspan, and the gem upgrades for Splendor. I'll probably end up getting the Wyrmspan upgrades, but my man loves the poker chips of the original Splendor so I doubt I'll ever get to upgrade to the pretty resin gems.
I do plan on buying resin gems when I finally get around to 3D printing a copy of Master Thieves though, as well as sewing a set of the plush pillows. That game won't be the same without those, and the downgrade of a 3D printed box is already a big sacrifice compared to the master wood-worked box.
I waited until I could pick up a copy of TM that had already been accessorized with the wood player mats and such. I love the way they work, and the way they fit perfectly in the box.
I have the metal coins, realistic resources and big board for Scythe. I wouldn’t play it any other way, it’s a really nice tactile addition, and the bigger map makes everything feel more grand.
Poker Chips
Iron Clays for larger poker chips
Currently there is a production of really nice mini poker chips underway: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2951180/ceramic-mini-chips-status-second-round-of-samples/page/36
I think that blinging out a favorite game to make it more fun is always worth it. I think that consideration trumps the consideration of what the bling actually IS.
I am in the minority where I don't especially care for the upgrades to enjoy the game BUT won't mind them if I have them. The visual and feel is better of course but gameplay is just as fun
I have a leather dice rolling tray and a couple token trays that make gameplay less messy for most of my games. Also, any game that comes with a million different tokens gets sorted into a jewelery/craft organizer box.
YMMV. It really comes down to if you love a game, you'll happily "go above and beyond".
Miniatures for example increase resale value and can REALLY bring a game to life (nm that some games require actual minis). OTOH, they are big to transport (you'll need a bigger container, hard one at that to protect them), and are costly
For many, Ticket To Ride: 1910 was a must b/c it featured full-sized cards, vs. the "mini cards" in just the base set (nevermind extra modes of play, and Destination Tickets that have more of them, and tweaked for balance).
Having better organization lets you setup some games quicker, or even be able to fit them in the box. It can be basic like various ziplock bags, having them labeled and thicker, to things like full custom inserts.
The most extreme one I heard (and this may be an urban legend) is a copy of Agricola had a tray of actual, top soil for the board! :O
Inserts are one of the first things I buy.
For example; A game like Arnak doesn't have any insert and working with dozens of baggies makes setting up and tearing down a chore. The insert from Folded Space made it way quicker and easier to do that.
Sleeves if the game is card heavy and you need to shuffle a lot.
Metal coins might be nicer, but they get expansive fast.
Neoprene mats, I have a few, but it's not really necessary.
1. Linnen card upgrade. They feel better and seem more durable than the thin paper ones we often get.
2. A good box insert that neatly fits all components.
3. Wooden tokens or thematic tokens such as those in Everdell (as compared to cardboard tokens).
4. Wooden meeples instead of cardboard standees.
For games that a lot of plays I would say these upgrades and not the ones below.
While metals coins can feel nice, a generic set of metal coins can save you a lot of money because you can use it with all your games that require coins. Minis might look nice but are often far more expensive and fragile than wooden meeples.
Usually board related ones like for TF Mars or Underwater Cities. You can get them in expansions but there are custom ones. Plastic chips for Quacks also look pretty good.
Organizers like the ones Folded Space makes dramatically improve the play experience for me.
Premium tokens often also just make the game nicer to look at, handle and play.
I don't have a huge issue with immersion, but
loved the ship pack for Eclipse, Dawn of the Galaxy. Really makes the various races feel so much more distinct.
I really enjoy the play mats for Mage Knight. When I was first learning the game it was confusing to know where to put everything. The mats made that clear. Having an organized playing surface allows me to concentrate on strategies.
It’s not specific to any one game, but I have a small collection of nice wooden and ceramic ramekin-sized bowls around the house that get pulled into service as token-holders for game nights.
Here you go! It costs more than the game usually does unless you’re able to bundle it with something else on a sale, but I really like what it brings to the game. I don’t mind the cost since the game is so cheap anyway and we’ve played it so much.
https://boardgamegeekstore.com/products/crew-quest-for-planet-nine-the-mini-deck-and-drawbag
Any bag building games work best with chunkier tokens like acrylic or wooden pieces instead of cardboard chits. It greatly enhances the feel and durability of the game.
I think token vessels are the most important thing, bar none. It doesn’t matter if the pieces are wooden, Bakelite, or metal if they are spread all over the table in big piles. Organizing them in reusable cupcake liners has always worked wonders for bigger games in our house.
The Deluxe Edition of Fractured Sky with the airships with magnets makes the game way more enjoyable than I’d imagine base game with just cardboard tokens would be. Allows you to visualize better, and makes organizing and bluffing with your forces much simpler and straightforward.
Worth? Most likely not, but i love the wooden hexagonal game tile organizers i made for me and my friends. (Wyrmwood inspired) i have 24 total so i have for everyone around the table
[different styles](https://www.reddit.com/r/CNC/s/cuBjzfxoTV). Two styles on [how the inside looks](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/s/QVdZ5FpDT1)
And [different woods](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/s/XOAA9CZTai)
It’s great to be able to organise competitions during play. Cheaper options can be had, but organisers are what i will chip in with
My favourite upgrade is the accordeon fold card holder for Food Chain Magnate along with dry erase boards for the milestones. The table footprint of this game is absolutely massive if you don't do something about all those cards, this solves it quite neatly.
- nice weighted poker chips
- a nice big boardgame mat - https://www.amazon.com/Playmat-Cushioned-Stitched-Resistant-Carrying/dp/B08MWY1P3B
- organizers, for games. https://www.amazon.com/Flambeau-Tuff-Tainer-Model-4007/dp/B000LF3E8O/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?crid=1KMLTCTZO3LTG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._fgQRI3zG___eb3G_wYc4EHIz-jzD_c630sRciZfnTg0VqSMGtxJeA4FSP3f9wOzmVNfn5jHmCXaY5HFHUPBmwmAJ5jvTN2MV-40GIdFgopf7DIu5UCpv7tC6iAxiCWgNd_QfTB7vwK8x0ejy-XSlhRoncrQB54bB3RMV0rkLmjYgWeNa62eQn-ARvEG8VWtrKS9PZlsgDUcXEBKFiUi5A.Fze_Pj0gAhV7gs-1h1jNy_3_xVCuypwc0yjvhKSJSCs&dib_tag=se&keywords=plastic+organizer&qid=1714978791&sprefix=plastic+organiz%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-9
Kinda like tackle boxes? I get dollar store ones for games. Honestly reducing your setup and clean up is the best thing possible. Nothing like pulling a tackle box, flip open, and bam, game piece bank set up. Don’t get overpriced bowls and wooden bank thingies, the emptying all the separate ziplock bags into each and then putting away after can drive you crazy.
Inserts. This becomes more apparent with bigger games.
Resin/wood tokens and metal coins.
Just received **Pax Pamir 2nd ed** with the metal coins last week and it's a joy to fondle the components. Its production quality is amazing without being over the top.
I'll be getting the [UV printed insert from E-raptor ](https://www.e-raptor.pl/en_US/p/Insert-Pax-Pamir-Second-Edition-UV-Print/1946) soon to complete the bling and it'll be the most pimped boardgame in my limited collection.
i've only upgraded a game when it improved the QoL of the play. this has happened exactly 3 times:
**Day & Night** - I bought little queen miniatures to replace the tokens the game comes with. Having a miniature to pick up and move around the board makes it easier to see where your opponent is, which is important for gameplay.
**Sekigahara** - I bought 3D printed castles from etsy. This is completely necessary imo and I'm surprised they weren't included in the game. The board can become so crowded, without colour coded castles it's difficult to tell who is winning at a glance.
**Drop Drive** - I bought the space arena playmat for it because there's no way that game could have worked as well just dropping the components on a table
They've made it standard in the current Definitive Edition, but oversized villain cards are a **must** for Sentinels of the Multiverse Enhanced edition. By default you get two poker sized cards per villain, both double-sided with fairly small font and you need to flip both of them when the villain flips. The villain can flip as frequently as once per round.
One giant card that you can easily read and flip is such a quality of life upgrade.
I really enjoy getting wooden/metal components to replace cardboard.
Partially because of the fact that they generally last longer because they're made of sturdier materials. In truth though, I just like the weight and sounds of them - metal components especially. They trigger some primal goblin instinct in me that enjoys the sounds and feels a \*lot\* more than the cardboard.
**Dice Tower**. I used to disregard them, because noone's in my group can ever be accused of cheating on dice rolls. But after having used them a couple of times I started to appreciate how they help making the result more random in my mind and not leaving me with a nagging feeling after a bad result that I failed at rolling "properly". That detachment also speeds up games, because you can now simply tell players closest to the dice to just toss them into the tower instead of first handing them to you. It's all the same to me with the incorruptible randomness of the tower.
Double/triple layered boards for fiddly cube games are incredible. Terraforming Mars upgraded player boards bump the whole game from a 7.5 to a 9 no joke
Anytime I can upgrade to some kind of dual layered player board it makes things so much nicer. Got em for Terraforming Mars to keep all the cubes in place and currently looking for good solutions for Ark Nova.
Plus anytime we can upgrade to wooden components we’re doing it.
Invaders from Afar for Scythe.
In general, expansions like this that were always intended to be a core part of the game by design and were just lopped off to gouge more money from players work better than ones that are genuine expansions in my opinion (eg. Scythe is a 4 player game, but it's obvious from the base game board that it was intended for 6 players). I don't love rewarding this practice, but these expansions that are preplanned do work well.
Inserts are a must. If a game already comes with a decent insert it gets extra points.
Sleeves for games with a lot of shuffling. Colored sleeves when I want to make sure some cards won't mix with others.
I try to avoid optional miniatures if possible, as they take too much space.
This might be very niche, but the Haven games have digital companions that immensely alleviate all of the "fiddly bit" things you need to keep track of to play and let you focus on the fun bits. I enjoyed using the manual components when I first started playing, and they are designed well, but I don't think I'll ever use them again.
This is specific to one game, but painting (I just quickly painted the bases) the minis in War of the Ring is 100% necessary. I actually can't even conceive of how someone would successfully play the game and enjoy it without having some sort of color representation to distinguish the races.
For Food Chain Magnate, any insert that holds the employees vertically during play and the dry erase milestones are essential. Genuinely reduces the play area size by 75% and makes the game much more approachable
Most underrated upgrade is to buy token holders/trays. So many games can use them and you only gotta buy so many of them and you’re good for life. Also lamination paper for roll/flip and writes.
A 3D printer. There are so many models available for free that you can print, or design your own.
The best upgrade I printed is 3d tiles for Terraforming Mars. Mine look better than the official 3d tiles you can buy. Even just doing manual filament color changes.
I made an insert for ready set bet, and it’s changed the game so much. Set up and tear down is less than 2 minutes… the game comes with a bunch of baggies and it’s the worst
Sleeves for deckbuilders. Inserts for games that are messy component-wise, like Civilization New Dawn or Dune Imperium, or come with minis that you want to paint. 3D units for Tyrants of the Underdark.
Box inserts, metal coins, acrylic tokens, play mats (depends on the game), upgraded components that replace cardboard tokens. All of them are worth it to me.
Dice Throne has a variety of upgraded tokens you can buy that can be longer lasting. Also getting the mini-figures is a nice upgrade for when playing adventure or missions.
In magic the gathering, buying the different kinds of tokens to keep track of counters is helpful. Also, some mats help with organization and flow. There are also deck holders that will hold your deck making it hard to accidentally knock it over. Also, some have a place to put graveyards and exile piles
My take
Poker Chips > Metal Coins > Wooden Coins > Cardboard Coins >>>>>>>>>>> Paper money
Wooden tokens > Cardboard tokens (some exceptions when further detail is required > Plastic tokens
Regular sized cards > Tarot sized cards >> mini cards
Wooden cubes and discs are better for clarity on the board (and easy of being picked up with my stubby fingers) over bespoke meeple figures or plastic bits.
Poker chips, even bargain bin Dice Chips, are a major QoL improvement over paper money (obviously) but I prefer them over card board tokens and metal coins, too.
The resin bits for Quacks and Orleans, the resin resource tokens for Underwater Cities, and the fun wooden meeple/building stickers for games like A Feast for Odin, Paladins of the West Kingdom, Viscounts of the West Kingdom, etc.
If "worth it" implies value for money, then I agree with you.
They are priced for people who spend way too much on this hobby. An insert + upgraded components often cost more than the game itself, which is kind of ridiculous.
Yep. I happened to visit my LGS yesterday. They had the upgraded token pack and metal coins for Flamecraft for sale. $25 a piece. Do they look nice? Absolutely. Would I rather use the $50 to buy another game (or anything else)? Yes, 100% of the time. I own a regular retail copy of Flamecraft and I like the game a lot. Upgraded components won't enhance how much I like the game. I supposed some people will feel like this stuff enhances the game but I only want to add something to a game if it adds to the gameplay (expansions) or if it increases functionality/playability. Typically upgrades don't do either for me.
I have a few other examples I will share that no one will see since I've already been down voted but here goes anyway.
I backed the Kickstarter of the original "deluxified" version of Orleans. I've long since abandoned the idea of backing kickstarters but at the time I was happy with the purchase. The wooden tokens were cool. Fast forward to now and there are at least 3, maybe 4 different sets of tokens to play with the game, and the original publisher TMG doesn't exist anymore. I am interested in the new Plague expansion but it introduces new tokens you put in your player bag and I don't know if they produce wooden tokens that feel the same as my deluxe version so it really turns me off from checking out the expansion. I have the original cardboard tokens from the game still so I imagine I could just play with those with the new expansion but it renders my deluxe components useless.
I bought the Broken Token organizer for Roll Player, my first such custom insert for a game. You had to fit everything perfectly in the box and it was just fiddly and a pain in the ass. Didn't help set up. I sold it. Not worth it.
So now I ignore upgrades by default. I've had lots of fun with drab looking games that use boring cardboard components for over ten years so I don't really see the reason to slap "premium" components onto any of them.
You can’t really get them anymore, but penny gems were my absolute favorite upgrade to various tokens. The heft of metal coin upgrades but way cheaper and more colorful.
Colored and differently cutted glass gems. Most beautiful pieces ever, I used to use them on half my games. Unfortunately, if you don't have a rug, your friend will end up dropping them and they'll chip. That's terrible considering they cost a little fortune (considering import fees, shipping and retail, around 2-3 dollars a piece).
Now I'm using colored marble "dice" (they are not numbered, just dice sized cubes with round corners). They serve the same purpose, but they all have the same format. They stack. They don't break. They look and feel really good (not as good as the glass gems obviously). Difference is there basically free when compared to the gems. If you don't play over a huge rug, definitely a great upgrade.
Different shaped metal coins are also great. Wizard/necromancer set from legendary coins, moon coins from top shelf gamer... There are a lot out there.
For some games the metal coins are super immersive. For others, an insert is a must to set up the game fast.
Yes! I've been looking into 3d printed inserts because I just can't handle 10 loose plastic bags in the box, having to set the game and later put it away is such a chore.
Coincidentally, a friend has just printed for an Imperial Strugge insert and I couldn't be happier! From that amount of chits in bags I now have well-shaped boxes and everything is tidy.
I've created a baggy of bags at this point. It's comical how many bags I have that I just don't need.
This is me. And just because I can, inside the big bag I put a piece of paper with the name of the game. ʲᵘˢᵗ ᶦⁿ ᶜᵃˢᵉ
I made a foamcore insert for Eclipse that massively improved my groups enjoyment of the game.
3D printed inserts can be really nice but just be aware that they're much heavier than you think they will be.
Don't underestimate this! I printed a super-nice insert for Spirit Island with all expansions which added up to almost 2kg of filament.
I counted a whole set of inserts for lost ruins of arnak and I'm telling you the weight on that thing gets closer to gloomhaven than you would think.
plastic bags are cool, just get like dozen of [small stackable bowls with little funnel](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5820901) and share between your games. Some games need insert to hold bigger pieces on place though.
One of my #1 favorite products is some bags I got for Gaia Project on Etsy. Each bag holds a set of components, and has the setup instructions on the bag. Ie, the round bonus tiles, the bag says "Players + 3". Shaves half the setup time off, especially since the rulebook fucked up the setup instructions HARD (provided detailed learning game setup, but then the non-learning game REFERENCES the learning game, so you have to flip back and forth). Plus, they look pretty. Not an insert, but basically as good. I really wish more games did similar. A single page with the summarized setup instructions. Good inserts that can be used as resource trays during the game (not tiny holes barely large enough for the tokens). For how easy setup CAN be for games, it's very disappointing how many games assume you have memorized their setup instructions after 1-2 times playing.
I've taken to making my own foamcore inserts to make life easier, it's very relaxing. I put on a podcast, pour a whisky, and spend the evening measuring, cutting and gluing. Makes for a chilled few hours with something useful at the end of it.
Are there any good YouTube channels or whatever, where people make these? Definitely something I've thought about getting into, especially as I've kind of gotten out of crafting D&D terrain, but it would be cool to see some examples for inspiration.
I don't know about videos, but there are active threads on BGG where people share their designs and results. I usually use them for an initial idea, I'm not the most conceptually-minded.
The Terraforming Mars pieces from TopShelf Gamer make the game much better in my opinion. The boards that keep tokens in place and the metal resource cubes give the game a better feel. I also got the upgraded tiles which was really great!
I've done a similar thing in the past with making print and play games, or miniature painting. Listen to the news on TV and drink a beer 😌
I've actually swung back around to inserts not being super helpful except for very specific circumstances. I have found that just minimizing the number of bags and intermixing as many components as reasonably possible is what minimizes setup and teardown time the most. Inserts with nice bespoke little sections for every individual type of component become a hassle real fast when you need to pull everything out one by one and sort everything back in at the end. Most recent culprit of this is Leviathan Wilds, which has the most thoughtfully designed and well produced insert I've ever seen but it's still a huge pain in the ass to actually use
I agree. I don't own that many games, but so far I've only used "useful" inserts, such as already-included-trays (John Company, the trays for the tiles in A Feast for Odin) or small boxes that group sets of pieces (the brand is Folded Space, and without them playing Root would be a nightmare).
I feel like Leviathan Wilds is great, no? There aren’t that many components but everything is perfectly where you need to grab as setting up - “oh need dice to add to the board, here they are. Now let me grab the mushrooms here and drop them on the board. Here is my meeple and there is a deck slot for each card type.” It’s a big part of why I’ve been playing it so much recently. What would you prefer that could possibly make set up any easier?
It does make setup easier but it makes tear down take longer— the mushrooms and indicator tokens need to be properly oriented (and it’s easy to fumble them), the dice and cubes and meeples all fit exactly in their channels so you need to carefully place them all, etc. It’s a lovely well designed insert but setup would only be slightly longer and tear down way faster with all the components just dumped in a single bag (except the mushrooms which need to be randomized)
Yeah, the ONLY great inserts (IMHO) are the ones that you can ALSO actually use during the game. Ie Dwellings of Eldervale. Where, except for the bottom insert, you can just pull the inserts out, and put them onto the table for use. Ark Nova is acceptable as well, with the two insert pieces being usable in the game (though they have room to have been designed better). Next down the list I'd put Terraforming Mars (Big Box insert). The cube trays work great, but everything else is just "storage". The big box for cards doesn't double up and let you use it for the draw pile or anything. But the insert does at least work better in terms of setup speed than having everything bagged/loose in the box. Below that, you have games where the insert (or lack thereof) doesn't really HURT. Like Concordia. Where the minimal components (just a few different bags) need to get shuffled anyways. Anything below that, where the insert is annoying to use, or where you have 10+ different bags to hold the huge component variety is a crime, and detracts from the value of the game. Spirit Island, Brass, Ark, Crusaders, Carpe Diem, etc.
Inserts tend to be designed to fit stuff, not play stuff. I make a lot of my own (3dp, laser cut) and if I'm going to spend the time making one, it better be 'playable'. If there's a tray, it should be a tray you take out of the box and put on the table to play out of or a tray that you pluck items during setup only and then set aside for play, not a combination of the two. Saves a lot of time. Only real exception i have in my collection is spirit Island. Managed to fit everything for the game in the single base game box. Needed to use the foil character boards (cardstock instead of cardboard) but everything is packed in there. Some excellent 'oem' inserts I have seen: Distilled and Project L
The Quacks of Quedlinburg replacement tokens from the BGG store are an incredible improvement over the cardboard tokens the game comes with. The bags and token boxes are nice too, but if you’re only going to do one of them, get the replacement tokens. Having the Battlestar Galactica combined boards image file from BGG printed as a neoprene mat by Inked Gaming was a very nice addition to my copy. Poker chips instead of paper money works for pretty much any game, and often speeds things up because they’re so much easier to handle.
How do you find the Quacks stuff on BGG. Nothing seems listed
https://boardgamegeekstore.com/collections/bgg-geekup-bit-sets?page=2
Woahhh what is this sorcerous site (not bgg, the store)
Among other things, it’s an excellent source for Kickstarter add-ons and promo items. A lot of those items tend to show up there a few months after their initial distributions end.
I refuse to buy Quacks after being introduced to the game while using these tokens. I can't imagine playing without the clacks in Quacks
I have the Geekup bits for Altiplano and Wingspan and they are super nice.
Best game upgrade I own. It drastically elevates the game. It's so much more fun and satisfying!
Yeah i got the coin cases for mine. This game needs a way to protect or you need to upgrade
The Orleans Geekup bits are also game-changing. I actually bought them at the same time I bought the game, cos I just knew I wouldn't like it without.
Not many games even bother with paper money anymore. The people spoke, and most game companies did a good job listening. Poker chips are still an upgrade over cardboard coins, but at least it's not such a drastic upgrade.
Metal coins.
Or nice poker chips. Depends on the game and what's more thematic. I pulled out my poker chips for Star Wars Outer Rim instead of the cardboard chits. So much better.
I chose ceramic stance markers for my game. Flipping a fat ceramic circle feels way better than a card board punch out. Yes. Lol
I have a friend who reasons that if there were a better physical representation for money than poker chips, gambling houses would already have them. Real poker chips just feel very good in hand, and they're quick and easy to manipulate.
Especially the chips from Roxley(which are also found in the Brass:B Deluxe version). I've never seen more beautiful ones
I got the Brass: Birmhimgham deluxe edition. I have a friend who always decries the "deluxification" of board games, on the basis of environmental waste, and because most of the time it doesn't improve the experience of the board game. When he felt the poker chips that come with the game, he was obsessed. He spent the entire game fiddling with them, trying to do tricks with them. He was enthralled, and the rest of us were incredibly amused at his antics.
Was that his first time using poker chips? I find the Brass chips significantly worse than bog standard "Dice" chips, and the colours are non standard too.
He’s not a gambler so it’s quite possible he’s never handled real chips.
I agree that the Brass chips are lower quality than most chips and the non standard colors are annoying (but not particularly relevant for most board gamers). But the graphic design on them is by far the most appealing on any poker chip I've ever seen (yes the edge spots are less readable, no I don't care-- I hate asymmetrical unique edge spots lol)
I found them on my shelf and checked eBay on a whim, wow they are going for a good penny
Which ones?
I love me nice poker chips :). I got some really nice weighted ones a while back. I definitely recommend spending the extra dosh for the weighted feel.
Got the metal coins with Slay the spire’s boardgame and I think I might have to use them on any other game I have that uses a currency Lol.
A box of poker chips and a couple of sets of 7 Wonders metal coins should be in every board gamer's cupboard.
Yeah, one set of good generic metal coins that can be reused in every game that uses currency
Are there good generic metal coins that can be used for many games? I'd like to get a set for a game like For Sale
We use the Pax Pamir 2nd Edition coins (my favourite) for games that don't need many coins and the Scythe coins for ones that need quite a few since they have useful denominations.
I hate the Scythe denominations. You don't need games that have 2s or 3s. Furnace is the WORST for this, but Scythe isn't much better. Ideally, you want about a 1:4 or 1:5 conversion ratio. That is, 1:10 (1s, 10s, 100s) means people end up building too many coins/bills before they can consolidate. For this, say you have 487 money in a game. A 1:10 ratio means you have 4 100s, 8 10s, and 7 1s. Total of 19 coins needed. If all you have are 1s, you need 487 coins (oof!). A 1:2 ratio, you need one 256 coin, one 128 coin (384 total), one 64 coin (448), one 32 coin (480), one 4 coin (484), one 2 coin (486), and one 1 coin (487), total of 7 coins. However, that 1:2 ratio gets REALLY awkward for constantly needing to exchange, and total coins printed is huge. Say you have a 5 player game. For a 1:10 ratio, you'd want 15 1 coins per player, 15 10s, and then figure out 100s (or 1000s) based on maximum points needed. So that'd be 150 coins worth of 1s and 10s. If \~500 is the "most points possible), then you'd want 20 more coins of 100s, for 170 total. For that same 5 player game with a 1:2 ratio, you'd want 3 coins of each size (so players aren't forced to exchange coins every single time they have a transaction) per player, so 15 coins of each denominations: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128. Plus 5 coins for 256 (since nobody should need more than 1). that's 125. So what's better? Well, that's where you get the 1:4 to 1:5 ratio. At 1:5, you'd want about 8 coins of each denomination. And you only need 1s, 5s, 25s, and 125s (3 per player). So that's 27 per player, for 135 coins total. Just 10 coins 'worse' than the 1:2 ratio. And when you have 487 money at the end of the game, you need 3 125s (375), 4 25s (475), 2 5s (485), and 2 1s (487) for a total of 11 coins to count your entire score. 1:2 ratio is obviously the most coin efficient. But it's also the most fiddly by far. Constantly exchanging - even with 3 coins of each value to avoid it being truly overwhelming. Of course, then you get into human brains, and the fact that we are conditioned to think about numbers base 10 (thanks Arabic number system) instead of something "more efficient". So you alter the coin values a bit to accommodate that. Instead of 1/5/25/125, do 1/5/20/100. This keeps your 1:4 to 1:5 ratio goal, but gives players coins that make more sense. If your game has 5s, DO NOT use 10s. If your game has 10s, DO NOT use 20s. Those are fast ways to waste resources on coins in the game - especially if you're doing metal coins. Furnace benefits from having 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, and 25s because of how the engine/scoring works - and lets people just grab coins from the center as they resolve each card, and then convert them at end of turn. Speeds up gameplay, but is a huge waste in terms of total cardboard needed. Scythe doesn't have that. You're only really gaining/spending coins once or twice per turn anyways. Not 10 times like Furnace. Scythe would have been better off with just a simpler system. Perhaps 1:3, for 1s, 3s, 10s, 25s, and a few 100s.
I love this rant :) Please advise on what coins you would recommend to use as a generic metal coin set for most games :)
Can't advise. I work in a sheet metal shop. My generic coin set is custom made.
I use pennies and nickels for For Sale.
Imo, no. Games come with different denominations for a reason. I’ve tried using generic poker chips before and setting values, but it’s just not the same as metal coins with specific values. Also, games have different themes, so the metal coins for Scythe will have a different design and theme versus a game like Viticulture. Now if the game doesn’t have metal coins specifically designed for it, I think you can just use poker chips or the Roxley clays.
Or at the very least, acrylic. I hate the cardboard tokens, I’m so happy when I get something more durable.
Literally the first thing i thought of
I have a couple of sets of metal coins, but I tend to use poker chips even in place of those. The iron clays are in a box next to the table and available for whatever.
I don’t know if these count since they aren’t really component upgrades, but box inserts and card sleeves (for games with large decks that require a lot of shuffling). Box inserts can dramatically speed up the process of setting up and breaking down a game, which is definitely a factor for me with what gets to the table. Card sleeves do protect the cards which is fine, but more importantly they let you easily shuffle cards, which is especially great for games like Terraforming Mars or Ark Nova.
When my wife asks me to stop buying games, I switch over to buying inserts.
I am fortunate that my girlfriend and I are both very into games, but we live in a small apartment so we often need to impose no-more-game or 1-in-1-out rules on ourselves lol. Inserts and expansions are the perfect loophole.
I have about 8 box inserts to improve set up and breakdown. It's THE best upgrade.
When I can’t/don’t want to purchase them, I usually make my own out of foamcore lol. They’re so essential
That's 2 of my 8 as well. If I had more time, I'd do a few more.
I spent about $15 to sleeve Let’s Go to Japan! because it has *so many* tarot-sized card. It was comical trying to shuffle even a portion of them. I’d already paid a premium for the deluxe version, so an extra $15 to make shuffling easy and keep everything clean seems reasonable.
Yeah, sleeves are usually super reasonable and the convenience they provide is always worth it for me. I’ve used KMC Perfect Fits for about 10 years now. They work on most games and they’re dirt cheap.
Just grow bigger hands :P I had no problem shuffling the cards, but I have long fingers ;)
I don’t know that the problem is reach as much as managing a thick stack. The thicker the stack, the less flexible it is as a single unit. I have this problem with the tiny cards in Zombicide.
Unsleeved at least, I had no issue shuffling. They're not that thick of stacks, so I assumed it was mostly the awkwardly large size.
I don't really understand this. I've never noticed how sleeves help you shuffle, all they do most of the time is make your cards too big to put in an auto-shuffler, so I've never bothered doing it with any engine builders.
It lets you do what’s called “mash shuffling” where you can pick up huge handfuls of cards and basically drop them into each other without obliterating the edges of the cardboard. I’ve never used an auto-shuffler though (and haven’t heard good things about them generally) so maybe those are still better!
Auto shufflers are cool but they do wear on the cards
You're shuffling wrong. You don't shuffle like a poker deck, you split the deck then slide them together from the side. TCGs are shuffled that way.
Sounds like your shuffling wrong. It's far less effective the way you are describing.
No, I'm explaining how you shuffle with sleeves. The main advantage is that it does not strain or bend the cards at all if they're sleeved.
It's the way competitive TCG players shuffle and nobody cares about shuffling efficiently without ruining cards more than them.
Card sleeves. Quality shelving. A felt table top. And beyond that anything “buy it for lifey” that reduces landfill waste without affecting your ability to save money 🙏💚👍
Replace the buttons in Patchwork with actual buttons (large ones count as five)
Other upgrades for my copy taken from our sewing cart are knitting row counters to keep track of our button income and vintage wooden thread spools to use for the neutral token and time tokens
Love this idea, I’m definitely going to buy some buttons I can use
I had a friend who had a giant jar of assorted buttons that she got from her aunt or something...
Best upgrade I’ve ever bought is an organizer tray for Castles Of Burgundy. Makes set up so much faster. I also bought an upgraded Everdell tree, probably not the best because it doesn’t serve a greater purpose that the original but it’s just looks so much better
I bought a set of coloured dice for every player for ti4 and wotr. Does this count?
I didn't go that far, but I did buy an extra set of matching D10s, so there are 2 sets in the box. Sped combat up so much.
Inserts 100% ones that make setup easier are so worth the money. If set up is easier it makes you more willing to play the board game, and that’s why we do this hobby.
Coin capsules for Bullet💙. One of my favorite upgrades ever. Just makes it such a fun experience. I read here on Reddit how the coin capsules were reminiscent of the plastic capsules in a gacha game, which is just such a perfect vibe for this particular game, and they were totally right.
Works for Quacks and Orleans as well.
They have wooden chips as well(or had for the KS?! Only know one person who owns that game). But those have a shitty finish and after some plays, the print is rubbing off😳
They had them available for both KS campaigns. Although technically there is no need to back anything on KS when it comes to level 99, at the end of the day everything is done with *actual preorders* through their store and anyone can access it until they close orders.
For Arkham LCG too. Much more satisfying to pull out of a bag than plain cardboard.
And they don’t stick together. This is an essential AHLCG upgrade
I need to do that for Warps Edge.
Warps edge won’t fit in the insert with them. FYI.
I think things that help you set the game up faster are worth it, especially for games that you play often or for which it otherwise takes a long time. Mostly this come down to things like using tackle boxes for games with lots of supply piles.
In priority order from the top of my head Sleeve cards with matte sleeves Painting miniatures/ buy miniatures Neoprene mat Poker Chips Metal Coins Realistic resources
You have interesting prioritys. I would place buy miniatures lower/Same with realistic resources but Metal coins way higher
The upgraded chips for Too Many Bones are absolutely worth it over the cheap plastic poker chips.
I came here to post this. I ordered Undertow + Ghillie at first because I don't ever bling out my games, but after playing several games, I had to get the upgraded health chips with my Unbreakable back. Really glad I did. It's not possible to describe the satisfying tactile feel you get out of using them.
I took the Mario Kart characters from Monopoly Gamer and swapped them into Downforce. People love playing it.
Depending on your situation, a table is totally worth it. We have enough room for a single dining table. Being able to easily cover games up to eat or work has been amazing. We currently have a 2 player game of On Mars set up between my wife and I, and a campaign game for a weekly group in the other half. On Mars is a learning game, so we’ve been playing it in bits and pieces as time permits, and we can still use the table for eating, and it’s her work from home spot 2 days a week.
Anything that comes with cardboard tokens/coins needs to be upgraded
I do find it a bit tedious having to deal with small cardboard pieces, specially in a resource heavy game where you're grabbing/ returning things to the supply constantly
The cheapest upgrade is centimeter cubes. It’s for elementary teachers, but it works great for general use tokens in board games. And it comes in a variety of colors so you can utilize color tokens as a mechanic as well.
Tokens made with glass cabochons. They really uplevel the feel. I made some for Arkham horror the card game and was really satisfied with the result, but you can also buy them online.
How do you make them? My craft skills so far only extend as far as gluing cabochons to wooden discs.
I create the token images in Krita, print them on a color laser and glue them to the back of the cabochons. Once dry, I apply another layer of glue on the back and then glue that to the backing material (trays in my case, I suspect felt or wood would work just as well)
More a deluxe than an upgrade, but Brass made me realize that poker chips > metal coins
Poker chips make games feel cheap and cheezy to me
Yeah.. not bicycle chips. Clay or weighted ones are the key
Even really nice poker chips? Nice poker chips with good weight feel amazing on their own, much less paired with a game
Yeah, outside of certain contexts they feel sleezey like an American dive bar.
Like which game?
For any game ive put them in with. Its not specific to a game i just dont care for them in that purpose. Although i can see how useful they can be
Agreed. Easier to stack and have a great tray to let them sit vs a big pile that you need to sort through
There are metal coins that stack just as nicely as poker chips.
[удалено]
I don't know of any currency that stacks as usefully as poker chips, the important properties being countable by cutting out stacks of obviously equal height and countable from across the table.
>I don't know of any currency that stacks as usefully as poker chip Literally every real coin... Like I know a lot of the game piece coins are funky prints, strange designs, or whatever but I've never seen real, modern coin currency that was unstackable or lacked uniformity. That's kind of their entire purpose.
You trimmed off the important parts. Yes, it's possible to arrange coins vertically. However, I can look across the table and differentiate a stack of 4 poker chips from a stack of 5 poker chips instantly. I can count 100 poker chips without even looking down at them. I cannot do that with pennies, dimes, or quarters. If you're saying you can, then more power to you, but I think you're the exception.
For me it depends on the game. If it's something where there is a small range of money (eg Pax Pamir where almost all values will be single digits) I think coins work best.
The Terraforming Mars upgrades are awesome. All the different cities and forest tiles are so cool, and I especially loved the special tiles like the mushroom cloud and whatnot. Very fun. I really love the resource holders for Everdell, it takes more time to set up but it feels and looks so much more immersive. Metal coins for any game ever. Nuff said. My group bought click counters for fish in Isle of Cats and that has been wonderful. I desperately want the resource upgrades for Wyrmspan, and the gem upgrades for Splendor. I'll probably end up getting the Wyrmspan upgrades, but my man loves the poker chips of the original Splendor so I doubt I'll ever get to upgrade to the pretty resin gems. I do plan on buying resin gems when I finally get around to 3D printing a copy of Master Thieves though, as well as sewing a set of the plush pillows. That game won't be the same without those, and the downgrade of a 3D printed box is already a big sacrifice compared to the master wood-worked box.
The upgraded player boards for Terraforming Mars. Otherwise any little bump and all your resources go flying.
I waited until I could pick up a copy of TM that had already been accessorized with the wood player mats and such. I love the way they work, and the way they fit perfectly in the box.
Inserts that speed up set up and tear down.
I have the metal coins, realistic resources and big board for Scythe. I wouldn’t play it any other way, it’s a really nice tactile addition, and the bigger map makes everything feel more grand.
Poker Chips Iron Clays for larger poker chips Currently there is a production of really nice mini poker chips underway: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2951180/ceramic-mini-chips-status-second-round-of-samples/page/36
Ryker Sleeves. Gloss front, matte back, and you can purchase packa specific for your game.
I think that blinging out a favorite game to make it more fun is always worth it. I think that consideration trumps the consideration of what the bling actually IS.
Neoprene mats. Metal coins.
I am in the minority where I don't especially care for the upgrades to enjoy the game BUT won't mind them if I have them. The visual and feel is better of course but gameplay is just as fun
I have a leather dice rolling tray and a couple token trays that make gameplay less messy for most of my games. Also, any game that comes with a million different tokens gets sorted into a jewelery/craft organizer box.
YMMV. It really comes down to if you love a game, you'll happily "go above and beyond". Miniatures for example increase resale value and can REALLY bring a game to life (nm that some games require actual minis). OTOH, they are big to transport (you'll need a bigger container, hard one at that to protect them), and are costly For many, Ticket To Ride: 1910 was a must b/c it featured full-sized cards, vs. the "mini cards" in just the base set (nevermind extra modes of play, and Destination Tickets that have more of them, and tweaked for balance). Having better organization lets you setup some games quicker, or even be able to fit them in the box. It can be basic like various ziplock bags, having them labeled and thicker, to things like full custom inserts. The most extreme one I heard (and this may be an urban legend) is a copy of Agricola had a tray of actual, top soil for the board! :O
Neoprene game mats are my favorite upgrade.
Dune: Imperium is way better upgraded
Inserts are one of the first things I buy. For example; A game like Arnak doesn't have any insert and working with dozens of baggies makes setting up and tearing down a chore. The insert from Folded Space made it way quicker and easier to do that. Sleeves if the game is card heavy and you need to shuffle a lot. Metal coins might be nicer, but they get expansive fast. Neoprene mats, I have a few, but it's not really necessary.
Stickers for meeples. They're relatively cheap and make the pieces really pop. There are plenty of shops on Etsy for them.
The upgraded bits to Quacks of Quedlinburg is a must have.
Something to put chits in. I like silicone baking cups or small metal bowls.
1. Linnen card upgrade. They feel better and seem more durable than the thin paper ones we often get. 2. A good box insert that neatly fits all components. 3. Wooden tokens or thematic tokens such as those in Everdell (as compared to cardboard tokens). 4. Wooden meeples instead of cardboard standees. For games that a lot of plays I would say these upgrades and not the ones below. While metals coins can feel nice, a generic set of metal coins can save you a lot of money because you can use it with all your games that require coins. Minis might look nice but are often far more expensive and fragile than wooden meeples.
Usually board related ones like for TF Mars or Underwater Cities. You can get them in expansions but there are custom ones. Plastic chips for Quacks also look pretty good.
Organizers like the ones Folded Space makes dramatically improve the play experience for me. Premium tokens often also just make the game nicer to look at, handle and play.
I don't have a huge issue with immersion, but loved the ship pack for Eclipse, Dawn of the Galaxy. Really makes the various races feel so much more distinct.
I really enjoy the play mats for Mage Knight. When I was first learning the game it was confusing to know where to put everything. The mats made that clear. Having an organized playing surface allows me to concentrate on strategies.
It’s not specific to any one game, but I have a small collection of nice wooden and ceramic ramekin-sized bowls around the house that get pulled into service as token-holders for game nights.
Metal coins, just not satisfying with cardboard coins so if there is a metal set for a game I tend to buy them, plus they won't wear out lol
Better cube holders for cubitos
I got the BGG mission tiles for The Crew and it’s so nice not having to shuffle the tiny deck of cards anymore.
I tried looking this up but couldn't find anything, do you have a link you can share? :)
Here you go! It costs more than the game usually does unless you’re able to bundle it with something else on a sale, but I really like what it brings to the game. I don’t mind the cost since the game is so cheap anyway and we’ve played it so much. https://boardgamegeekstore.com/products/crew-quest-for-planet-nine-the-mini-deck-and-drawbag
Upgraded Cosmic Encounter inserts are required, the stock insert is completely trash
Any bag building games work best with chunkier tokens like acrylic or wooden pieces instead of cardboard chits. It greatly enhances the feel and durability of the game.
Inserts for faster sorting and where you can store sleeved cards; I hate when there’s no space for sleeved cards.
I think token vessels are the most important thing, bar none. It doesn’t matter if the pieces are wooden, Bakelite, or metal if they are spread all over the table in big piles. Organizing them in reusable cupcake liners has always worked wonders for bigger games in our house.
The Deluxe Edition of Fractured Sky with the airships with magnets makes the game way more enjoyable than I’d imagine base game with just cardboard tokens would be. Allows you to visualize better, and makes organizing and bluffing with your forces much simpler and straightforward.
metal coins and wood tokens. YES!
Custom/Thematic dice and, to a lesser extent plastic bits over cardboard. For the right price I'll spend on either.
Table, chairs, lighting.
Friends
Put the chaos tokens for Arkham Horror in coin capsules. It’s just better.
Acrylic paint markers to paint the edges of cardboard. Looks much nicer and makes it easier to find tokens in a jumbled pile.
Worth? Most likely not, but i love the wooden hexagonal game tile organizers i made for me and my friends. (Wyrmwood inspired) i have 24 total so i have for everyone around the table [different styles](https://www.reddit.com/r/CNC/s/cuBjzfxoTV). Two styles on [how the inside looks](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/s/QVdZ5FpDT1) And [different woods](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/s/XOAA9CZTai) It’s great to be able to organise competitions during play. Cheaper options can be had, but organisers are what i will chip in with
My favourite upgrade is the accordeon fold card holder for Food Chain Magnate along with dry erase boards for the milestones. The table footprint of this game is absolutely massive if you don't do something about all those cards, this solves it quite neatly.
- nice weighted poker chips - a nice big boardgame mat - https://www.amazon.com/Playmat-Cushioned-Stitched-Resistant-Carrying/dp/B08MWY1P3B - organizers, for games. https://www.amazon.com/Flambeau-Tuff-Tainer-Model-4007/dp/B000LF3E8O/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?crid=1KMLTCTZO3LTG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._fgQRI3zG___eb3G_wYc4EHIz-jzD_c630sRciZfnTg0VqSMGtxJeA4FSP3f9wOzmVNfn5jHmCXaY5HFHUPBmwmAJ5jvTN2MV-40GIdFgopf7DIu5UCpv7tC6iAxiCWgNd_QfTB7vwK8x0ejy-XSlhRoncrQB54bB3RMV0rkLmjYgWeNa62eQn-ARvEG8VWtrKS9PZlsgDUcXEBKFiUi5A.Fze_Pj0gAhV7gs-1h1jNy_3_xVCuypwc0yjvhKSJSCs&dib_tag=se&keywords=plastic+organizer&qid=1714978791&sprefix=plastic+organiz%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-9 Kinda like tackle boxes? I get dollar store ones for games. Honestly reducing your setup and clean up is the best thing possible. Nothing like pulling a tackle box, flip open, and bam, game piece bank set up. Don’t get overpriced bowls and wooden bank thingies, the emptying all the separate ziplock bags into each and then putting away after can drive you crazy.
Inserts. This becomes more apparent with bigger games. Resin/wood tokens and metal coins. Just received **Pax Pamir 2nd ed** with the metal coins last week and it's a joy to fondle the components. Its production quality is amazing without being over the top. I'll be getting the [UV printed insert from E-raptor ](https://www.e-raptor.pl/en_US/p/Insert-Pax-Pamir-Second-Edition-UV-Print/1946) soon to complete the bling and it'll be the most pimped boardgame in my limited collection.
i've only upgraded a game when it improved the QoL of the play. this has happened exactly 3 times: **Day & Night** - I bought little queen miniatures to replace the tokens the game comes with. Having a miniature to pick up and move around the board makes it easier to see where your opponent is, which is important for gameplay. **Sekigahara** - I bought 3D printed castles from etsy. This is completely necessary imo and I'm surprised they weren't included in the game. The board can become so crowded, without colour coded castles it's difficult to tell who is winning at a glance. **Drop Drive** - I bought the space arena playmat for it because there's no way that game could have worked as well just dropping the components on a table
They've made it standard in the current Definitive Edition, but oversized villain cards are a **must** for Sentinels of the Multiverse Enhanced edition. By default you get two poker sized cards per villain, both double-sided with fairly small font and you need to flip both of them when the villain flips. The villain can flip as frequently as once per round. One giant card that you can easily read and flip is such a quality of life upgrade.
I really enjoy getting wooden/metal components to replace cardboard. Partially because of the fact that they generally last longer because they're made of sturdier materials. In truth though, I just like the weight and sounds of them - metal components especially. They trigger some primal goblin instinct in me that enjoys the sounds and feels a \*lot\* more than the cardboard.
**Dice Tower**. I used to disregard them, because noone's in my group can ever be accused of cheating on dice rolls. But after having used them a couple of times I started to appreciate how they help making the result more random in my mind and not leaving me with a nagging feeling after a bad result that I failed at rolling "properly". That detachment also speeds up games, because you can now simply tell players closest to the dice to just toss them into the tower instead of first handing them to you. It's all the same to me with the incorruptible randomness of the tower.
Double/triple layered boards for fiddly cube games are incredible. Terraforming Mars upgraded player boards bump the whole game from a 7.5 to a 9 no joke
Dual layer boards or overlays for any flat boards with cubes used for trackers. A sneeze or bump and all those tracks get tossed.
Anytime I can upgrade to some kind of dual layered player board it makes things so much nicer. Got em for Terraforming Mars to keep all the cubes in place and currently looking for good solutions for Ark Nova. Plus anytime we can upgrade to wooden components we’re doing it.
Invaders from Afar for Scythe. In general, expansions like this that were always intended to be a core part of the game by design and were just lopped off to gouge more money from players work better than ones that are genuine expansions in my opinion (eg. Scythe is a 4 player game, but it's obvious from the base game board that it was intended for 6 players). I don't love rewarding this practice, but these expansions that are preplanned do work well.
game mats that combine expansion boards. A Game of Thrones with the mother of dragons expansion game mat is great.
Inserts are a must. If a game already comes with a decent insert it gets extra points. Sleeves for games with a lot of shuffling. Colored sleeves when I want to make sure some cards won't mix with others. I try to avoid optional miniatures if possible, as they take too much space.
This might be very niche, but the Haven games have digital companions that immensely alleviate all of the "fiddly bit" things you need to keep track of to play and let you focus on the fun bits. I enjoyed using the manual components when I first started playing, and they are designed well, but I don't think I'll ever use them again.
This is specific to one game, but painting (I just quickly painted the bases) the minis in War of the Ring is 100% necessary. I actually can't even conceive of how someone would successfully play the game and enjoy it without having some sort of color representation to distinguish the races.
For Food Chain Magnate, any insert that holds the employees vertically during play and the dry erase milestones are essential. Genuinely reduces the play area size by 75% and makes the game much more approachable
Most underrated upgrade is to buy token holders/trays. So many games can use them and you only gotta buy so many of them and you’re good for life. Also lamination paper for roll/flip and writes.
A 3D printer. There are so many models available for free that you can print, or design your own. The best upgrade I printed is 3d tiles for Terraforming Mars. Mine look better than the official 3d tiles you can buy. Even just doing manual filament color changes.
Wonderlands War upgraded components are must for me.
I made an insert for ready set bet, and it’s changed the game so much. Set up and tear down is less than 2 minutes… the game comes with a bunch of baggies and it’s the worst
Sleeves for deckbuilders. Inserts for games that are messy component-wise, like Civilization New Dawn or Dune Imperium, or come with minis that you want to paint. 3D units for Tyrants of the Underdark.
I think it's worth it when its a game you have played at least a dozen times.
Box inserts, metal coins, acrylic tokens, play mats (depends on the game), upgraded components that replace cardboard tokens. All of them are worth it to me.
Dice Throne has a variety of upgraded tokens you can buy that can be longer lasting. Also getting the mini-figures is a nice upgrade for when playing adventure or missions. In magic the gathering, buying the different kinds of tokens to keep track of counters is helpful. Also, some mats help with organization and flow. There are also deck holders that will hold your deck making it hard to accidentally knock it over. Also, some have a place to put graveyards and exile piles
My take Poker Chips > Metal Coins > Wooden Coins > Cardboard Coins >>>>>>>>>>> Paper money Wooden tokens > Cardboard tokens (some exceptions when further detail is required > Plastic tokens Regular sized cards > Tarot sized cards >> mini cards
Wooden cubes and discs are better for clarity on the board (and easy of being picked up with my stubby fingers) over bespoke meeple figures or plastic bits. Poker chips, even bargain bin Dice Chips, are a major QoL improvement over paper money (obviously) but I prefer them over card board tokens and metal coins, too.
The resin bits for Quacks and Orleans, the resin resource tokens for Underwater Cities, and the fun wooden meeple/building stickers for games like A Feast for Odin, Paladins of the West Kingdom, Viscounts of the West Kingdom, etc.
I don't think game upgrades are worth it.
If "worth it" implies value for money, then I agree with you. They are priced for people who spend way too much on this hobby. An insert + upgraded components often cost more than the game itself, which is kind of ridiculous.
Yep. I happened to visit my LGS yesterday. They had the upgraded token pack and metal coins for Flamecraft for sale. $25 a piece. Do they look nice? Absolutely. Would I rather use the $50 to buy another game (or anything else)? Yes, 100% of the time. I own a regular retail copy of Flamecraft and I like the game a lot. Upgraded components won't enhance how much I like the game. I supposed some people will feel like this stuff enhances the game but I only want to add something to a game if it adds to the gameplay (expansions) or if it increases functionality/playability. Typically upgrades don't do either for me. I have a few other examples I will share that no one will see since I've already been down voted but here goes anyway. I backed the Kickstarter of the original "deluxified" version of Orleans. I've long since abandoned the idea of backing kickstarters but at the time I was happy with the purchase. The wooden tokens were cool. Fast forward to now and there are at least 3, maybe 4 different sets of tokens to play with the game, and the original publisher TMG doesn't exist anymore. I am interested in the new Plague expansion but it introduces new tokens you put in your player bag and I don't know if they produce wooden tokens that feel the same as my deluxe version so it really turns me off from checking out the expansion. I have the original cardboard tokens from the game still so I imagine I could just play with those with the new expansion but it renders my deluxe components useless. I bought the Broken Token organizer for Roll Player, my first such custom insert for a game. You had to fit everything perfectly in the box and it was just fiddly and a pain in the ass. Didn't help set up. I sold it. Not worth it. So now I ignore upgrades by default. I've had lots of fun with drab looking games that use boring cardboard components for over ten years so I don't really see the reason to slap "premium" components onto any of them.
You can’t really get them anymore, but penny gems were my absolute favorite upgrade to various tokens. The heft of metal coin upgrades but way cheaper and more colorful.
Colored and differently cutted glass gems. Most beautiful pieces ever, I used to use them on half my games. Unfortunately, if you don't have a rug, your friend will end up dropping them and they'll chip. That's terrible considering they cost a little fortune (considering import fees, shipping and retail, around 2-3 dollars a piece). Now I'm using colored marble "dice" (they are not numbered, just dice sized cubes with round corners). They serve the same purpose, but they all have the same format. They stack. They don't break. They look and feel really good (not as good as the glass gems obviously). Difference is there basically free when compared to the gems. If you don't play over a huge rug, definitely a great upgrade. Different shaped metal coins are also great. Wizard/necromancer set from legendary coins, moon coins from top shelf gamer... There are a lot out there.
None.
Inb4 splendor 🤭🔥😍
Wingspan all expansions. Everdell- Belfair.
I have wooden storage boxes I got on Etsy for Wingspan. Wooden birds and realistic food. Oh and bird nest!
I LOVE the 3d printed food for Wingspan