Boston Festival of Indie Games : 3D printing boardgame Round Up

This weekend I attended the Boston Festival of Indie Games. Independent game designers exhibited a huge array of both tabletop and digital games. In the tabletop exhibition area I was lucky enough to meet designers who are using 3D printing with Shapeways to create gorgeous 3D printed game pieces.

Here are two of my favorites and what they had to say about their games and 3D Printing!

Jonathan Ritter-Roderick, Product Manager for Dragoon:

Where did the concept for Dragoon come from?

Dragoon was created and designed by developers and brothers Jake and Zach Given of Lay Waste Games. Seeking an alternate means to hash out their sibling rivalry, they found pummeling each other as dragons was even better than the real thing! Jonathan Ritter- Roderick, Director of Operations and Product Designer at Lay Waste Games, was brought on to find a unique way to make Dragoon a reality. His solution? Metal and fabric! While the game was being refined in early 2014, Nick Nazzaro was brought on board as the resident Art Director of Lay Waste Games. His imaginative illustrations and unique visual translation of the world of Dragoon has truly helped bring this game to life.

Dragoon by Lay Waste Games

How did you create your (beautiful) game pieces?

It was a five step process with Shapeways smack in the middle!

Conceptualize

3D Model

3D Print (Shapeways!)

Cast

Finish

For Step One, our illustrator Nick conceptualized designs in both clay and Photoshop sketches. After multiple refinements with the team, we brought in 3D modeler Pat Fahy for Step Two. Modeling! His extreme talent allowed the sketches to be directly translated into 3D form. Step Three was having Shapeways print various models to help us properly determine ideal shape and size. After testing the pieces, we brought them to our caster in Rhode Island for Step Four. He dropped the Shapeways models directly into a rubber mold and vulcanizer. After many hours, the shapeways models were pulled out of the mold and the master metal pieces were cast. Metal was poured into the molds, pieces were cast by the thousands, and then passed off to the finisher. Step Five, the pieces were tumbled to remove sharp edges, the precious stuff (18k gold, silver, copper, and black nickel) was poured over the pieces, and briefly electrocuted, which adhered the metals.

Dragoon by Lay Waste Games

How does 3D printing help indie game designers like Lay Waste Games move through iterations to a final product?

Indie game development can often be an extensive process. As such, anything that can make your job easier is a welcome addition. If you have metal pieces, like Dragoon, you end up increasing your timeline. With 3D printing, we are able to reduce our timeline, exploring various shapes and styles, and reduce expensive model making costs. With Dragoon, we had an idea, were able to print pieces through Shapeways, and have metal pieces in a matter of weeks!

Jonathan Ritter-Roderick, Product Manager for Dragoon

What would you like to see from Shapeways in the future?

If Shapeways was able to do low-cost, high-volume metal pieces in various styles, it would be a game changer for us. We are always talking about limited edition pieces and it would be amazing to do that through Shapeways. Or maybe we will just use current processes and make all of our pieces in solid gold!

You can find and order dragoon here: http://www.laywastegames.com

Jeff Johnston, creator of Moonquake at Pair of Jacks Games

Where did the concept for MoonQuake Escape come from?

I had completed a children’s game called Flashlights & Fireflies that had you playing flashlight freeze tag, but first you had to catch fireflies to power your special flashlight before your game of hiding and seeking (Gamewright publishes F&F).  Starting from that core, I “grew up” MQE for an older audience by setting it on this alien prison planet, adding a bluffing mechanism (an Energy Shield you could hide under…or not!) and I was curious how much fun it could be if the board was moving, bringing players together unexpectedly.  I began experimenting with these game concepts.

Jeff Johnston, creator of Moonquake at Pair of Jacks Games

How did you create your game pieces?

Using some local makers activities, DangerAwesome and Technocopia (and my local library), I tried several different approaches using 3D printing and laser cutting to making a board that was easy to assemble, manipulate, and manufacture and yet still had a “look and feel” of a planet with a moon.  The moon component was actually born of necessity–I simply couldn’t remember who’s turn it was. So, instead of adding a simple turn token to pass between players, I decided I could make a moon that would “orbit” the board–a bent wire and ping pong ball. From there, replacing a die with the moon itself as a spinner was a no brainer.  These modest components were fine for play testing, but after a few minutes of training on AutoCAD’s 123D, I was soon combining simple shapes and using a 3D printer to model different approaches on something that could be manufactured.  This was critical–no publisher was going to look twice at MQE no matter how much fun if it couldn’t be made for a profit.

Once I saw the game itself was on a fun track, I found Michael Parla who is MQE’s Art Director. He brought a really fun art style to the game, helped it really “pop” on the game table, and completed our vision–to create a planet we could play a game on, not make a game board pretending to be a planet.  AdMagic’s Breaking Games saw the potential of what we created, excepted the challenge, and has done a wonderful job producing the game.

How does 3D printing help indie game designers like Pair of Jacks Games move through iterations to a final product?

Over an 18 month period, I spent of lot of time figuring out how to *not* make this board through iterations.  I’ll admit that designing by the process of elimination is extremely inefficient, but it helps you decide which areas to abandon and which to think about more. In the end, there are two plastic pieces integral to MQE, the moon and the post it spins on, but I experimented with many, many more.  Having free and intuitive tools like AutoCAD’s 123D and access to inexpensive 3D printing services can help an inventor create quickly without being afraid of making expensive mistakes.  Once I’d finalized the physical design, that’s where Shapeways came in to help me quickly make high quality prototypes for playtesting, impressing game publishers and making new fans.

MoonQuake Escape will be available later this year on-line and at discerning hobby game stores near you (MSRP $60).  Find out more at https://breakinggames.com/products/moonquake-escape.  You can find Jeff on FB at https://www.facebook.com/MoonQuakeEscape/ or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MoonQuakeEscape.

Do you have a boardgame or tabletop game you’re designing with 3D printing? Let us know in the comments below and check out our prototyping meetups here.