Pretty much anything can work as a game piece. Little toy cars, plastic dinosaurs, or wooden blocks have all made it onto our game boards. But sometimes, you just have to make your own pieces. So for Logystyka, we purchased a laser cutter.
When my son and I first started making custom game pieces for Logystyka, we used beads from Dollar Tree. The tiny cubes on the bottom would represent the player, and the round "heads" would indicate which unit was in play. They were cute and they were tiny and they were held together with half-inch pieces of bamboo we cut from our kitchen skewers. And we should've used a little bit of school glue to hold these beads together, but we didn't — and so our game pieces kept falling apart in the middle of the game.
Advance a few years. We bought a laser cutter. We've found ways to make small pieces that stand on a little base. And this is great — with a laser cutter, there's so much more variety. You can customize each piece to look exactly the way you want . . . as long as what you want is composed of two-dimensional panels.
Here's one I spent a long time putting together: a witch on a broomstick with her cat. This is probably the third version I've made — it's taken time to figure out the best combination of cuts to give those impressions of the hat, the broom, and the little cat perched up front:
One of the struggles with these pieces is conveying attitude — the "vibe" of the game, if you will. I feel that each individual piece should convey a little attitude. For example, in this next batch, I tried to convey the raw intensity of a queen with magical powers, and then compare her with a commander with the calm presense of a leader. Not sure I succeeded in either one, but here's the result:
From this work, my son and I have branched out into developing roleplaying pieces you could use with DnD or Daggerheart. Unlike mass-produced game pieces that require dozens of copies for a single game, the roleplaying pieces can be more detailed. For this one, we used the image of a wizard and another of a ninja, and then etched those profiles onto two pieces of wood. Once glued together back-to-back with a small base, you get a two-sided miniature. These two each have a one-inch base, and we've placed them on the interlocking game tiles we're developing:
Now, why do I saw we're "developing" these tiles? Doesn't the world already have interlocking game tiles? Yes. But our attempt isn't working yet. Sure, they hold together well, but the puzzle pieces are already starting to chip. So we're adjusting our design to make them more durable, Plus we'll add some designs to provide texture for all your dungeon crawling needs.
So that's a preview of our current pieces. If you have questions or would like some more info, be sure to
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