Great Board Game Inserts

With Christmas quickly approaching, many families are looking to get awesome family board games for their family to enjoy together.

Like them, we’re also anticipating a number of new games under our Christmas tree this year.

Yet with that happy thought, we also have another thought – where will we put them?

With limited shelf space, we’re regularly looking for ways to consolidate our board game collection. First, it means some games are going to have to go. And second, we look for ways to fit more in the same area.

One way to fit more games in the same space is by using custom board game inserts. This works particularly well for games that have expansions.

And one of the best places we recommend looking for awesome game inserts is Insert Here. They make foam core game box inserts for over 200 popular board, card, and dice games!

Today we’d like to share our thoughts on 5 custom game inserts from Insert Here – 4 of which already have game expansions that make inserts almost essential for consolidating your game collection.

King of Tokyo and King of New York

King of Tokyo and King of New York are both fantastic king-of-the-hill, dice-rolling games. And both have a number of expansions.

Insert Here actually offers a insert for each of these games. The only difference being that the King of New York insert also includes an extra tray which will hold the building/army tokens used in the game.

Both inserts include space for the character boards, character standees, stands, cards, Power Up cards, tokens, energy cubes, and dice to all fit in very nicely. The tray for the tokens and energy cubes is also removable, so players can set the little tray next to the play area without needed to pour everything out on the table.

Having a unique place for everything also makes it very nice for putting the game away after play. We’re never left with questions about what items go where.

Perhaps one of the things we like the most is that we’ve been able to fit both our King of Tokyo and King of New York games all in one box!

It’s a bit tight, and the lid doesn’t sit fully down (because of both game board stacked on top), but we love having everything in just one box.

You can also see our reviews of King of Tokyo and King of New York.

 

Pandemic: The Cure

Pandemic: The Cure is another fun dice game for families. Like the original Pandemic, Pandemic: The Cure is a cooperative game where players work together to save the world from diseases.

It’s also a game with an expansion – Experimental Meds.

While we don’t yet have the Experimental Meds expansion, the Insert Here game insert includes space for everything that comes with the base game plus the expansion. That’s why some of the tray spaces are empty in our photos.

We really love having the player dice in their own tray sections rather than in baggies like we’ve had them stored in the past.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see if our BGG Secret Santa gets us more to add to this fun game.

 

Clank! A Deckbuilding Adventure

We first played Clank! at SaltCon earlier this year and had a blast playing it. It’s fun twist on the deck-building game mechanic where players start with a deck of cards and buy cards to add to their deck along the way. But in this game player also use powers from the cards to navigate around a board looking for treasure.

It may seem funny to get a foam core insert for Clank! because it already comes with a nice plastic insert that keeps things in place.

However, even with the included system, we keep all the separate components (except the cards) in baggie.

The Insert Here storage system removes the need for baggies.

There are a number of cool things about the Insert Here organizer. The first is that all the trays individualize things in a cool way.

Each player can begin the game by just grabbing their own tray since it includes all their starting cards plus their wooden cubes and player pawn. There are even rails in these individual trays so the cards sit nicely on top of the other items. Simply push down on one side and the cards pop right up!

Next is having separate places for the different types of tokens in the game.

Lastly is that the Sunken Treasures expansion components can also fit in the game box while still having room for more expansions! The only caveat is that the thickness of the game boards means they need to be kept elsewhere (like in the expansion box).

(See our review of Clank! and Clank! In! Space!)

 

Inis

The only game we’re highlighting today that doesn’t yet have an expansion is Inis.

Inis is a game rooted in Celtic history and lore in which players win by being elected King of the Island (Inis). Players can try to achieve one of 3 different victory conditions. But it’s not as easy as it sounds because all players are also working to keep all the other players in check.

One of our first thoughts when we got Inis is that the box is much larger than it needs to be. The game includes a cardboard divider to separate the board tiles from the player pieces and cards. However, there’s so much room above each area we don’t know why they couldn’t just be stacked. The only reason we could imagine is that they’re planning for room for expansion components.

Needless to say, Inis is primed for having a different game insert…

The Insert Here game insert for Inis includes 5 trays – 4 of which are removable. The main tray holds the large land tiles that form the board. The other trays are divided to separate the different player/clan pieces, sanctuaries, cards, and tokens.

We love having a better organized system for Inis!

 

Timeline

The last game insert we want to share today is one I did myself.

You may know that we’re fans of the Timeline games. They’re fun card games where players need to place events in chronological order.

There are also many different versions of Timeline!

Each Timeline game comes in its own tin. That’s all well and good if you just want to play that one game.

However, we’ve found it much more fun to combine Timeline games – especially once we got Timeline Challenge.

We really enjoy playing Timeline Challenge because it includes a variety of different ways to use the cards. It’s almost like a game of mini-games using the Timeline cards.

So rather than keep every Timeline game in its own unique tin, we decided to just put everything in the Timeline Challenge game box. But with so many small cards in one box, a cool storage solution would be very welcome.

So last year (before we starting using Insert Here game inserts), I went ahead and made my own!

 

As you can see, Insert Here foam core game inserts are fantastic for game storage, game set up, game play, and game tear down.

We’re also interested to hear what you think of board game inserts.
Do you use them with your games?
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We’d like to thank Insert Here for review copies of these game inserts.