If you’re the kind of gamer who wants their board game collection to be as beautiful and functional as possible – or you just want to replace a lost meeple or get a tray organizer in place – I’ve found a very handy tool for you to check out. LayerUp Games is a search engine and web community dedicated to making it easy to find 3D printable files for board game accessories, without the frustration of trawling through multiple 3D printing sites.
Built around a core of data from Board Game Geek, LayerUp dredges eight major 3D printing websites to find paid and free files for things like component organisers, replacement tokens, and upgrades. It’s no surprise that there are a lot of tech nerds in the board game community, and there’s a very good chance that someone has already made some handy extensions for all the best board games in your collection.
I visit a fair number of 3D printing sites – mostly hunting for wargames miniatures – and the interface in LayerUp Games is better than most of them, thanks to the site’s very narrow focus on board games. Registered users can add their own reviews and pictures of prints on LayerUp itself, though as the site is fairly new this is really waiting for users to fill it out.
The site was created by solo developer Kamio, who states “I’m a board gamer and 3D printing enthusiast who was tired of hunting across site after site to find the right insert. So I built the tool I wished existed”. Her blog, Tabletop Glow Up, is all about making board games look and work as beautifully as possible, and is full of inspiration for what you can achieve.
If you can’t find the thing that you’re looking for on LayerUp, there’s also a useful ‘Print Resources’ page that connects to tools for generating your own files. These range from web tools that let you specify simple parameters and then output items like token boxes or tray dividers, to extensions for open-source CAD software with useful parts for board game inserts. And if that doesn’t work, you can list what you want on the community bounty board in the hopes that a maker will hear your cry and create what you’re looking for.
If you bling out the board games in your collection, the members of the Wargamer Discord community would love to see them!
Source: Wargamer
