Skip to Content
 

Prototyping a large game board

3 replies [Last post]
Wed, 05/29/2013 - 18:48
Joymaker
Offline
Joined: 05/28/2013

I've been living with one copy of my game for years, playing with friends and family. It's time to go bigger. I want to make a run of 5 to 10 copies (knowing full well that I can't sell them for what they will cost ) and place them with my most faithful devotees, local game stores, etc.

Most of this can be done just fine with The Game Crafter, but they don't print big boards. I need 22 inch, *possibly* squeezable to 20 inch. Kinko's charges me $50 to print one of these on thick, laminated paper. This rolls up in a tube, which is fine. But I don't think I could make do with a fabric board, it would be too unstable and game pieces would get jerked around too much.

Any good ideas how I can beat that horrendous $50 price tag?

Thanks,
Ken

Top
Wed, 05/29/2013 - 19:46
#1
Itsdan
Offline
Joined: 05/19/2013
Full sheet labels have always

Full sheet labels have always been my go-to product for crafting like this. They come as 8.5x11 sheets you can print on any printer (or Kinko's would likely print on this without much extra cost over normal paper). The whole back is sticky once peeled like a giant sticker. From there it's just a matter of finding a substrate product, chipboard or cardboard or thin wood, whatever you can find cheap locally. You can then tile the image onto as many sheets as it takes and carefully lay them down.

Or check out local print shops or online printers other than Kinkos. Vistaprint.com will do a 24x36 poster for $20/ea it looks like, with volume pricing. 5 for $91.99, 10 for $179.99.

Top
Fri, 05/31/2013 - 04:23
#2
kpres
kpres's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/20/2013
engineers

Make friends with an engineer and see if you can borrow the office printer for an hour on a Saturday.

I worked for an engineering firm and we wasted tons of paper. I'd print out a huge drawing near the deadline for a final review and the engineer would change something, so I'd have to print out another one. Then, sometimes, the printer would just make things crooked or it would leave an unprinted strip, or it would overheat and stop, wasting that drawing.

OR find an engineering student. Sometimes, students get to use those big printers at theirs schools for free for doing academic stuff.

Top
Fri, 05/31/2013 - 07:26
#3
Stormyknight1976
Offline
Joined: 04/08/2012
Glue spray adhesive

Back in 2006, I drew an overhead view of buildings onto microsoft excel graphpaper, printed these pages out and took a large card board box and opened it and laid it out. Then I took some glue spray and laid a thin layer of the spray glue onto the board and laid my graphpaper onto it. The board itself was 4 feet by 4 feet. Made a wargame out of the design. The glue spray can be found at any hardware store for a few bucks.

Top
Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut