Friday Night Shots – Box Size Preference – Room for Expansions?

Yes, the bar is still open!

It’s just been under renovations for the last…month, I guess.

Hopefully they’ve fixed that jukebox so that it stops playing shitty music.

Anyway, welcome back! I’m happy to have you stop by, have a drink, and talk a little bit about board games.

I know I’ve missed you!

So hop on a stool, let me get you a cold libation of some sort (or hot, if you’d like), and let’s go!

Damn, sorry, let me turn down the jukebox. Why it started playing “Roseanne’s Greatest National Anthem Renditions,” I have no idea.

I’ll have to fire the contractors.

Anyway, tonight I’d like to talk about board game box size.

Some too big, some too small, and some just right…until the expansion comes out.

This was prompted by my receipt last week of the latest Garphill Games Kickstarter to be shipped, Ezra & Nehemiah.

Yes, yes…another Garphill mention, but this time there’s a purpose!

Here’s the box for it.

It’s the same size as the original North Sea game boxes, which had expansions too, eventually.

There was less stuff in there initially, but even with that, it was difficult (if not impossible, but since I now have the big box, I don’t remember) to get everything into the Raiders of the North Sea box with both expansions. I think I had to use one of the expansion boxes for the extra stuff.

This one?

There ain’t room for anything else.

Granted, Garphill hasn’t ever made expansions for their “Ancients” line of games, and I think they’ve said that they won’t be doing any expansions for this one either.

But even what’s there doesn’t fit without some decent lid lift (about a quarter of an inch).

Ok, it can if you play Tetris with it.

I watched a video of a guy showing how to get everything into the box without any lid lift, and watching him do it was almost painful with how meticulous he had to be, smoothing out all the bags, making sure that all of the cubes were flat and not piled on each other..

When I’m done with a meaty game that’s tested my brain, the last thing I want to think that hard about is how to put it away.

I’m sure the game will be great, and I can’t wait to get it to the table.

But I’m not a fan of having a box for a game that requires that much thought.

I know it’s to maintain consistency with the other Ancients games, but it’s just kind of annoying.

We’ll see how it goes back together when we actually play it!

Maybe some of my friends will have better ideas on how to make everything fit.

On the other extreme, we all have heard the stories of games where the box is huge but you could fit the contents of the game into a card deckbox (ok, an exaggeration, but you get my point).

The main culprit, from what I’ve heard (I don’t have the game) is Splendor, but I do have a couple of examples (both, oddly, from Alderac).

Santa Monica has a few player pieces for each of its four players, some tiles, a bunch of cards, and some sand dollars.

And it’s a huge box.

Really? That is a lot of space for that small amount of components.

Here’s a closer look at how much space is still available.

And that’s including my own pen!

Of course, the rulebook is large and square to fit the size of the box (don’t get me started on the size of rulebooks…wait, I think Rodney from Watch it Played did on Twitter once!)

I’ve heard that those cardboard inserts in most games are mainly there for shipping, to make sure everything stays in place during its long time on the boat and being moved around.

Most of the time, after unpacking a game, you get rid of that insert because the box won’t hold everything with it in the box.

For me, any box where removing the cardboard insert isn’t even a consideration is too damned big!

Another Alderac example is Mariposas, though this one isn’t as egregious.

Yes, there’s a lot of space down in there and removing the cardboard insert isn’t even a consideration.

But at least the box size is mainly dictated by the boards.

So I’ll give them a pass on that one.

This brings to mind that age-old boardgaming question.

No, not “Is Reiner Knizia really a sentient robot who doesn’t need sleep?”

It’s “should game boxes be designed to support future expansions?”

And if so, how much?

How much room should you leave in the box?

Going back to Garphill Games (no drinking this time, it’s the same post), the South Tigris series of games (or at least the first two, as the third hasn’t arrived yet) have plastic inserts already in the box for easy storage (they’re not that easy, and I really hope a new insert can be created once these games are complete, and am I using way too many parentheses?).

There are clearly empty spaces in the insert designed for an expansion, and Garphill has said that next year, once all three games are out, they will be doing one Kickstarter that will consist of an expansion for each of the games, and that’s it.

So clearly this box and insert was designed for an expansion.

When you see box sizes like Santa Monica’s, was that designed for an expansion? Then did it not sell well enough to warrant multiple expansions?

Yes, I’m aware that it does have an expansion, but one that consists of 14 double sized event cards, 12 drafting cards and a brand new scoring tile.

Not that big!

Anyway, I obviously am not a game publisher and don’t know the ins and outs of how to decide how big your box is.

I’ve heard some of the supposed reasons, like making sure you get shelf space in the local game shop that will make your game easier to find, and all of that stuff.

But speaking as a gamer with shelves that I have to try to make room for games on?

A reimagining of this whole box size debate would definitely be useful, I think.

(Or you could be like Abi and put a bunch of your games in plastic folders for easy transport and not worry about box size).

(There I go using parentheses again)

(Argh!!!!)

So what do you think of game box size?

Expansions? No expansions? Pack the box so full you could kill somebody when you throw it at them?

Let me know in the comments.

(now to go buy a new keyboard because my parentheses keys are worn out)