Prototype boxes?

I just googled for some this (I imagine 'googled' is a word by now):

Go Packaging
Custom Made Boxes

The only issue I can see with those might be cost. If I had to make my own, I would probably get the heaviest cardstock I could find and try from there.

Take a look around at origami box design too, the boxes you are talking about are not huge, so you can probably fold a prototype to size, unfold it, and experiment with printing on it. There are books cover howto make these kinds of boxes, check your library, as well as online for patterns.

I would agree that a tuckbox would be your best bet for professional looking results. I have made several and all have been very professional looking. The key for me was to put clear laminate over the image before cutting out the box. That protects the artwork and gives the box a professional look. I suggest using matte finish laminate. It's a little more expensive and a little harder to find, but the finished piece looks better than the usual glossy finish.

Another note, I haven't used the tuckbox maker linked above, but I have had luck laying out a tuckbox so that it fits entirely on a single letter sized piece of card stock (110#). It is also easier to find laminate that will fit a letter sized sheet.

For the double deck box, I had to buy a sheet of poster board (had to be sure that it was unvarnished on one side), cut it into legal sized sheets and ran that through the printer. To laminate, I used a roll of laminate cut to proper size. It worked out great using the poster board (which is very cheap to buy).

For the deck separator (after buying The Testimony of Jacob Hollow I vowed that all my double deck projects would have deck separators), I used a scrap piece of poster board. I made 3 folds that looked like this "_/\_" and folded it into a T shape like this "_|_". Works great!

Best of luck!!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Now I have two more questions:

1) What is the usual 'weight' of the cardboard in game boxes? [url]http://www.papermart.com Paper Mart[/url] has corrugated tuckboxes in over 100 sizes, but the 3/16'-thick "200# test" cardboard looks too heavy to me. They say:
Corrugated boxes are made of cardboard with an inner sheet, a corrugated middle, and an outer sheet.
32ECT boxes have paper thickness of about 33, 23, 42
200# TEST boxes have paper thickness of about 42,26,42
... but I don't know what that means.

2) If I make separate box tops and bottoms, what should be the difference in length and width?

There are two issues at work here, the material used and the type of box. I'll mention the material first:

The corrugated cardboard boxes aren't the same as the boxes that you get when you buy a game at the store. The corrugated cardboard will give it a less professional look and feel (the same kind of material that Cheapass uses to make their game boxes).

To get the look and feel of a professional game, you will want chipboard (sometimes called boxboard or pressboard) boxes. Chipboard is measured in thousandths of an inch (also called points or "pts"). The site you mention had some boxes made from chipboard. They use .024" thick, which is fairly thin (about the thickness of single ply chipboard you can buy at an art store), but usable.

Being the right material is not enough, however, which brings us to the second point, the type of box. You refer to the tuck box in your post, but that is a very specific type of box in which the end flaps tuck into the carton to close the box. You then mention the separate tops and bottoms. The term for that kind of box is full-telescoping or full-telescopic. That's the kind of box with the separate top and bottom where the top completely fits over the bottm portion. Everyone who owns a game is familiar with these.

Your graphics would then either be adhered as a sticker over a part of the box or would be "wrapped" to cover the entire top and sides and bottom and sides of each half. When adhesive is applied to the full surface of the artwork to adhere it to the entire surface of the box top or bottom it is called tight-wrapped.

A good question to ask at this point would be whether you are going into production and need the number of boxes that a manufacturer would require as a minimum, or just getting a bunch of blanks to use for prototypes or small run games. If you're going self production, you may find (and others can chime in with their experience) that a full service house will fit your needs. They will produce everything for you including the boxes.

If you're just looking to stockpile some blank boxes, then you may find the required minimum a little pricey for the size/specs of the box you want. You could co-op an order with anyone else who may be interested, but you would have to agree on a standard size to order (may be tough to get a bunch of designers on the same page regarding sizes). Another alternative may be to work with the administrators of this site to get them to carry blank (white?) boxes in the protoparts store (presumably a box that would nicely fit the protoparts quad-fold boards with room for more).

One last note, if this is just for prototypes and you're a little put off by a companies minimum order, you may find it easier to build the boxes yourself out of chipboard and some tape. If you're handy enough to create a game board and other components, you may have the skills to build a box. It will just take some experimentation to get the dimensions down.

Just a few things to think about, best of luck!!