Are you a little crafty? Do you enjoy spending an hour cutting paper into little squares? Build your own set with the resources on this page!
Bits You Can Print
If you don't have a printer or want to print on larger/thicker paper, I recommend printing at Staples. We printed all our prototypes there and they came out very nice and weren't too expensive. The recommendations below regarding paper weight and size are assuming you are printing at Staples.
If you don't have a printer or want to print on larger/thicker paper, I recommend printing at Staples. We printed all our prototypes there and they came out very nice and weren't too expensive. The recommendations below regarding paper weight and size are assuming you are printing at Staples.
- Board [PNG]. An easier/cheaper alternative might be to just draw a 12x12 grid of 1.5"x1.5" squares. If you do print, use the 24x36 on their blueprint paper. You'll find this option under Engineering Prints, not the normal Copies and Documents. It's a black and white print on light-weight paper, so it's cheap. I don't recommend folding the board for storage, since it will bow unevenly and make it difficult for the tiles and tokens to stay put. Instead, roll the board up like a poster and secure it with a rubber band. When you play, weigh down the edges with coffee mugs or anything with a little bit of weight. You can make the board larger or smaller, but if you do you'll have to adjust the size of the tiles as well.
- Ocean Tiles 1 [PNG], Ocean Tiles 2 [PNG]. Print these on 11x17 inch 67 lb white stock. You can use plain old copier paper, but heavier stock will hold up better and be less likely to shift when a small air current is created by someone getting up from the table or reaching across the board. A scrapbooking trimmer like this will make cutting out the tiles go much faster, but might not be worth the money if you don't already have one, unless you're making more than one set. You can make the tiles larger or smaller, but if you do you'll have to adjust the size of the board as well.
- Sea Cards 1 [PNG], Sea Cards 2 [PNG], Sea Cards 3 [PNG]. Print these on 8.5x11 inch 67 lb card stock. You can also just write on a bunch of index cards. Check the provided PDF to see how many of each kind you need.
- Compass [PNG]. Print this on anything you like. It's just for reference, so you could even just keep the image on your phone or redraw it on scrap paper.
- Seasonal Calendar [PNG]. Anything you like. This is for keeping track of which season you're in during the game. You could also just keep track on a piece of scrap paper.
- Player Stat Sheets [PDF]. Anything at all.
Bits You Can't Print
Many of these could actually be replaced with paper tokens that you could print, but we feel the game experience is better with physical tokens. If you don't want to cannibalize other board games for parts, or aren't the kind of person who just has generic board game pieces lying around the house, I've included links to Amazon product pages.
Many of these could actually be replaced with paper tokens that you could print, but we feel the game experience is better with physical tokens. If you don't want to cannibalize other board games for parts, or aren't the kind of person who just has generic board game pieces lying around the house, I've included links to Amazon product pages.
- 5 Ship Tokens. These should be in five different colors or shapes; one for each player, and one for the Ghost Ship. Try these or these.
- 6-sided Dice. Recommend between 6 and 12. You can play with fewer, but some actions will take longer if you have to roll one die 3 times instead of just rolling 3 dice at once. Here's 18 in three colors, or just 100 white dice.
- 17 Rune Stone Tokens. These are totally optional, since there's a space to keep track of them on the Player Stat Sheet, but it's so much more satisfying to reach across the table and grab a physical object from your opponent when you win a battle, or to proudly display your four Rune Stones in front of you to let everyone know you're about to win the game. Check these out.
- Resource Tokens. Recommend around 80 total in two different colors (60 for resources, 20 for cargo). You can buy these colored wooden cubes on Amazon that work great, but they sell in packs of 100, so if you buy two colors you'll end up with way more than you need. It would probably be better to just buy one pack of white cubes and color them different colors with permanent marker. You could also just buy a large bag of assorted color beads.
- Season Marker. Anything to put on the Seasonal Calendar to keep track of which season you are in. A penny, a bottle cap, whatever.
- Tile Pouch. Just something to keep the tiles in so players can draw one at random without seeing them. Paper lunch bags work great.
- Pencils. Because you'll want to write down your ship's stats as they change.
Already made your own set? We want to see it!
It doesn't matter if you made it out of torn up bits of paper or hand carved your own pieces out of cherry wood, if you're having fun with it we want to see a picture! Upload your photo to somewhere like imgur.com, go to the Contact page, and send us a link. Or better yet, post the picture to Twitter with the hashtag #thedangeroussea!
It doesn't matter if you made it out of torn up bits of paper or hand carved your own pieces out of cherry wood, if you're having fun with it we want to see a picture! Upload your photo to somewhere like imgur.com, go to the Contact page, and send us a link. Or better yet, post the picture to Twitter with the hashtag #thedangeroussea!