Public Domain games + DIY = win!?

[LadyShea]

For a project (a family fun basket for charity auction) I was looking for public domain games and found dice games and card games and had a grand time reading the history and thinking of variations. We played team Yacht for game night last week and had a blast!

I was inspired to then create some other game gifts, for our homemade themed XMas coming up but also any time. Most of my ideas heavily involved Hubby doing all the (wood)work...and I just can't/won't burden him at the mo'. Maybe in the future I'll make (my husband make) my own Yacht(zy) box with wooden cups and dice, or version of Shut The Box

I was looking for dice cups and wooden dice on Etsy, and came across a weird sort of Country patchwork fabric game board for "House of Fortune". I can put together some shit on fabric! Looked up the game and it's Glückshaus.

So, I plan to make a fabric board, and have been looking for cool images to use for the wedding, king, and pig houses (see attached for the frontrunners). I love the idea of making the board on a tote bag, and putting the tokens and dice in the bag

What do you think of this idea? Has anyone made their own games and how did it turn out?

[Crumb]

just ate my reply...

I will put something here later.

Watch this space!

[Kael]

is eating gaming-related replies from men! Omg misandry! #realgamergate

[BrotherMan]

It's really about ethics in journalism.

[JoeP]

eics

[Crumb]

I have made cards, custom dice, tiles and tokens for (what the BGG calls) print and play (PnP) games. It is a big deal there on BGG for some folks. (i.e. print-n-play-games-redesigns-professional-gorgeous)

I have never built a whole game from scratch though, without using someone else's designs. I think the pig looks awesome though. If you want to construct full on crests for the houses, like coats of arms. I do know of this nifty site for building them: coat_of_arms.

Printing on the bag is cool idea, but you might end up with a bag way too big for the other components. Could be cool though. If you need help with any of your components or just want to look for ideas there is a whole DIY forum on BGG: do-it-yourself. There are tutorials there for many things, and people are usually good at helping out the n00bs.

[Janet]

I made a custom Clue game for my family, but I just bought a used board and added my own stuff over it. It was a lot of fun, but I think we only played it once.

[lisarea]

This is probably relevant to this thrad:

Outfit a game-designer's toolkit for < $20 - Boing Boing