Guards of Atlantis II Big Box Insert - Part Two

Summary: Further work has been done on developing level and attribute trackers. 

Life got busy.  Work contracts ended and finding new ones or full time jobs became a priority.  In between job hunting, I did some further work on my GoAII Big Box insert.  I was not happy with how my level tracker was going so I revisited it with fresh eyes.

The Start...

I am going to start at the beginning so the reasons for what I did are apparent. 

My initial desire was to have a stat tracker that identified what level the hero was at as well as identify any upgraded attributes (Attack, Defense, Initiative, Range, Movement, and Radius).  The game covers this using a sliding card for tracking the hero level on the left side of the player mat, and 6 positions at the top of the player mat that non-updated cards are placed to identify which attributes were increased.  While this system works, it is not a great solution as it is difficult to see oppositions improvements from across the table.  

My original designs took inspiration from a post on Board Game Geek that a user had created a tracker placed across the top of the mat with dice to identify each attributes value.  I took this idea to the next step where the dice would be stored within the tracker as I really dislike adding parts that do not have a proper storage.  Storing the dice inside of the tracker just made sense to me.  This resulted in this first iteration:

Keys things I was concerned with:

• Each Tracker had to hold all relevant components (dice and level tracker)
• Identify what level the hero is at
• Hold six dice to represent each attribute

My designs accomplished this in the following manner.  The tracker extends across the whole top of the player mat.  I added a swinging "door" that folds down and becomes the hero level marker.  This door keeps the dice stored inside of the tracker when in storage mode.  I had plans of making custom dice due to needing them to fit within the tracker in storage mode.

After 3D Printing this version, I realized I had a few issues that needed to be resolved.

Tracker #1 Issues:

The size of this tracker was going to be an issue with fitting 12 of them (6 Orange & 6 Blue) in the main box.  While this is being designed for the 1st edition big box, I did not want all that extra space to be filled by these trackers.  So the tracker must be shrunk in length.

The dice are large and force the tracker to be thicker for storage.  This works against the games requirement for all players to see each players player mat and identify what cards were played.  Making the tracker as thin as possible is very important.  This means the dice would not be used which after a bit of thinking about it, having 6 possible choices for each attribute is a waste.

Keeping the tracker aligned with the player mat was a a bit difficult.  Adding rubber feet to it fixes this mostly but still did not take care of the level tracker which was hinged and would swing a bit, losing alignment with the level numbers.  This would be handled with the first issue of the tracker being too long (and multiplied by 12).

 

Tracker #2 Improvements from Tracker #1:

So The above issues forced me to revisit the tracker and make some changes.  First of all, the dice needed to go as having 6 dice with 6 sides (36 total numbers) was a waste.  A hero could be leveled up 7 times (level 1 to level 8).  Only 6 updates are required (level 1 to level 7) with the 7th leveling up being the ultimate upgrade which does not give an attribute update.  Therefore we are limited by 6 upgrades which helps reduce the total number of possibilities.  With 6 attributes (Attack, Defense, Initiative, Range, Movement, and Radius) that can be upgraded, this results in the following states:

1. If every attribute was upgraded, each of the 6 attributes would be "1" at the end of the game  We would then have a final state of: 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1
2. If one attribute was upgraded twice, and only 4 of the remaining 5 attributes were upgraded, we would have: 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1
3. If one attribute was upgraded three times, and only 3 of the remaining 5 were upgraded, we would have: 3 - 1 - 1 -1
4.  etc...

So all possible combinations become (each column is an attribute):

1	1	1	1	1	1
2	1	1	1	1
2	2	1	1
2	2	2
3	1	1	1
3	2	1
3	3
4	1	1
4	2
5	1
6

Breaking the above number states down to double sided tokens, they can all be created using the following 7 double sided tokens:

1 and 2

1 and 2

1 and 2

1 and 3

1 and 3

1 and 4

5 and 6

With these 7 tokens, all possible combinations of a hero's leveled up attributes can be covered.  The following image shows the orange front and the blue back of the tokens.  The tokens are the same regardless of colour.  Each player will get these 7 tokens to use during play.   

Next I tackled how to fit 12 of the trackers into the limited space in the main box.  First I had to shorten the tracker, followed by making it thinner.  Since I had replaced the dice with flat tokens, making them thinner was easy.  To ensure a clear view of each players mat, I moved the tracker from the top of the mat to the left side beside the hero level numbers.  I also moved the attributes to be stacked and condensed on the top.

I used the same idea in Tracker #1 with its folding door to hold the tokens in storage in this revised version.

This update fixed most of the issues I had with the first version but it was still too thick to be able to store 12 of them in the box.  Further changes were needed plus a few new issues became apparent.

Tracker #2 Issues:

A new issue with the revised version was with how difficult a person's upgrades could be seen by their opponents from across the table.  With the change of moving the attributes to the shorter tracker, they became too small and were hard to read.  The thin number tokens were great but I needed the attributes to be easier to see.  I also was not happy with the level tracker worked since if the tracker was moved/bumped away from the player board, its sliding arrow would not be aligned any more, leading to confusion.

Tracker #3 Improvements from Tracker #2:

It always surprised me how Arty thought having the attribute names and symbol in a low contrast font/icon at the top of each player mat was good.  I guess over time a player would memorize that the far left (right to them since it would be most likely upside down) was Attack, followed by Defense, etc...

I figured I could fix this by adding larger, high contrast tokens that would be placed on the player mat in the same areas the existing icons were.  The double sided tokens would still be used and placed besides the relevant attribute token.

The level tracker was kept but integrated directly into the tracker and not operate as a door any more.  Since the tracker has its own level numbers built in, if the tracker is bumped during the game, it is still easy to identify what level the players hero is at as it does not need to align with the player mat any more.

Inside of the tracker all 6 attribute tokens and 7 number tokens can be stored.  The thickness of the tracker was also further reduced due to not requiring the space on the top of the tracker for holding the number tokens in place.

12 of these updated trackers can fit in the small gap between the hero boxes and the box side nicely.

On the back of the tracker is a swing door that opens to hold the six attribute tokens.

Once the attribute tokens are in place, the seven number tokens can be slide beside them.

The door closes keeping all tokens secured.  The slider is flush with all sides so that the trackers can be stacked in a 2 x 3 stack of blue and the same beside it in orange.

With the trackers taken care of, I will next revisit the blue/orange team boxes and clean them up for easier use (larger finger holes).  After that I will likely add rocky terrain for the game board that interlocks together to minimize storage space so it easily fits in the box.

Be kind to one another, celebrate our differences, and remember to share our love of board gaming. Let's keep that front and center.

Till Next Time!