Warning: this is going to be an opinionated article! Tastes differ, and I’ll mainly be talking about mine.
I’m a massive Ark Nova fan, though I’ll admit not particularly good at it. I’ve been playing the game so much recently that some of the tokens, particularly those used for money, are starting to show wear, so I started to investigate possibilities for getting hold of something more hardwearing.
I had a look on Etsy for suitable components, and yeah, there’s some stuff on the site, but it’s difficult to gauge the quality, and those prices! (Especially with many being shipped from the USA.)
And then I fell into a rabbit hole. A deep, deep rabbit hole.
Specifically, a hole containing the 3DITION project created and managed by Ark Nova’s designer, Mathias Wigge, and currently running behind schedule on Gamefound.
Just… wow!
Before I get into the over-the-top bling, let me say this project does include flat acrylic tiles for most of the game components (including those in the Marine Worlds expansion), which I think would do me nicely. Oddly, the bonus tiles are double-sided, making it harder to choose them randomly (though that could be addressed by drawing them from a suitably sized opaque bag).
Player tokens aren’t included at all, but Ark Nova already includes adequate wooden ones, and Marine Worlds bumps those up a notch with nice animal-shaped tokens.
As for money and X-tokens, the ones that are most worn in my set, the campaign includes natty looking metal ones. I’m not totally convinced about the colours, and hope the paint won’t chip off, but they’d do.
I’ll return to all that later, but first…
Entering the Third Dimension
For sure, it’s the 3d stuff that really catches the eye. I’m not much of a fan of game bling and excessive plastic (something I comment on in just about every crowdfunded project article I’ve written on the blog), but I have to admit the design work here is very impressive.
I can’t imagine ever playing with all that—well, maybe once, just to experience it. Despite the player board overlays available within the campaign, it looks all too easy to jog the buildings and enclosures. I think it’s going to be difficult to see what’s going on within your opponents’ maps with all that stuff on top, too—or even within your own map!
Then there’s the way enclosures work: you place the base part when you add the enclosure to your map, and then you put the fence surround on top when you add an animal—it seems to me tricky to quickly tell if an enclosure surrounded on several sides is full or empty (though this is all supposition, since I’ve not seen the real McCoy). It also feels like you ought to be placing the fence first, then putting something inside it, perhaps—just saying—a token representing the animal, but no matter. The precision with which these components will be manufactured is critical, in order to facilitate ease of placement—something we don’t yet know much about.
Also, I hate to think how much time would be required to carefully pack everything away at the end of a session, and the amount of shelf space I’d have to reserve for the vast boxes. I have doubts about the robustness of some of the final models, such as the fine ‘wires’ on the Cable Car, shown below.
A note about ‘sundropping.’ Unpainted plastic models can be a bit uninspiring, but full miniature painting is only for the truly committed. Sundrop painting, which I’d not heard of before perusing 3DITION’s campaign content, is a quicker (but still beyond my abilities) intermediate process, adding an element of exaggerated shading to the models (it’s sometimes referred to as pre-shading). The sundrop painting process involves priming the model in a light tone, then applying a dark wash, which collects in crevices. Dry-brushing (painting with the barest minimum of colour on the brush) with lighter, contrasting shades is sometimes done afterwards, to emphasise edges further. Finally, varnish is applied to protect the surface. Airbrushing (or spray painting) can be used to speed the process, but producing a different but equally appealing effect. I don’t know how 3DITION’s components will be sundropped, though I doubt if it makes much difference.
Good examples of unpainted vs sundropped models can be found on the crowdfunding pages for another game, ISS Vanguard, as shown above.
The 3DITION models can be bought unpainted or sundropped, but the models aren’t single colour, instead comprising pieces of several colours, as explained in one of the campaign updates: ‘Normally, Sundrop is only seen on single-colored miniatures, so for many it feels unusual that we’re offering Sundrop on multicolored buildings. We did consider offering only single-color minis with Sundrop, but Ark Nova shouldn’t look “antique” the way single-colored Sundrop minis often do. The buildings in Ark Nova shouldn’t feel like statues—they should feel alive and vibrant. That’s why we decided to go with multicolored buildings.’ The update goes on to say, ‘Unfortunately, we can’t show you very much yet—because for the Sundrop process, a building has to be finalized, then produced and only afterward can it be given the Sundrop effect.’
Pay close attention to that statement (made roughly a year ago). First off, the 3DITION images published thus far are either computer renderings or prototypes, and not the real thing—we still haven’t seen the final product. Some of Mathias’ campaign updates include a table showing the production progress of different parts of the project, and in September’s, the most recent containing this information at time of writing, the 3d models (and the acrylic tiles, for that matter) are still in the ‘tool creation’ phase, the step before manufacturing starts, and sundropping will happen after that, though a project update is expected to come soon.
I find it pretty amazing that over 16,000 people have backed this expensive project without seeing final models! What’s more, quite a few seem to be upset at changes to the coin design and, of all things, the colour and shape of a full-sized coffee cup add-on—totally forgetting that there are no guarantees in crowdfunding.
The project is running quite late compared to the initial estimates (the main campaign page still says shipping in October), but is estimated for the end of the year in that update I mentioned. Even that seems rather optimistic.
Other Games
This all got me wondering about other games in my collection. I’ve seen references to 3d terrain for, say Terraforming Mars, and it looks like there used to be an official FryxGames product. However, all the seems to remain of that is this pack for the Amazonis & Vastitas expansion.
Things do look a little brighter for Legacy of Mars in that the crowdfunding campaign includes lots of pretty plastic (for an equally pretty penny). It’s a bit less over the top than 3DITION, but still too much for my tastes.
Castles of Burgundy is another game with an official 3d-ification, as can be seen in pictures on the associated Gamefound campaign. Catan is yet another where the publisher has pitched in, in the unimaginatively named 3d Edition. I’m sure there are many, many more such packs.
Third Parties and DIY
I mentioned at the beginning that I’d started looking for tile and token replacements on Etsy. You can also find heaps of 3d models there too, for all sorts of games. As I said, though, it’s difficult to be confident about the quality of the product, and the prices are enough to make you wince (even more than the official upgrades).
Another possibility is to do it yourself… Take a look on Thingiverse for model files you can feed into a 3d printer (the image above shows one particular pavilion and kiosk project), or have a rummage through the BoardGameGeek files and forums pages. Alternatively, just insert ‘<game name> 3d print’ into your favourite search engine. If you want to bling up a lot of games and are reasonably practical (unlike me, alas), a 3d printer might be a worthwhile investment.
Finally, there’s one 3d option for some games that I just can’t get away without mentioning… Lego!
The Lego Ideas site is full of interpretations of board games, some of which I talked about earlier. A few of them are genuinely playable, such as this version of Catan, and there’s a truly astounding Talisman build a bit further from the Ideas site.
Money, Money, Money
No, I don’t mean how much this all costs, though that’s significant.
Coins seem to be a common and popular deluxification upgrade. As I said, I’m ambivalent about the 3DITION ones, and the Etsy coins I’ve seen are in the main a bit iffy. I stumbled across Brazilian company Moedas & Co. who produce gorgeous coins, such as the Ark Nova ones shown above. If you’re into custom game money, you could end up spending an awful lot of real money here!
Incidentally, I did spot an amusing comment on 3DITION’s campaign pages: someone complaining that the painted coins make the game look like a kid’s toy—as if the shedload of plastic wasn’t already doing that. (And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that if your tastes run in that direction.)
Conclusion
After spending quite some time in the whole freakish 3d world down that massive rabbit hole, I eventually resurfaced, blinking in the daylight, still wondering what to do about my worn Ark Nova.
The 3DITION over-the-top bling is cute but thoroughly impractical for actually playing the game. Not my cup of tea (though, this being Ark Nova, perhaps I should say cup of coffee). The acrylic tiles are a definite possibility, but I’m still waiting to see what the final product looks like before considering opening my chequebook. (Do people still use cheques? Do I even have a chequebook?) Even with that, I’m still left thinking about coins (and X-tokens)—the Moedas & Co. coins do look nicer than the 3DITION ones, though I’d then need to find X-tokens elsewhere, which is a nuisance.
Incidentally, more akin to my requirement for more robust components is a Catan deluxification crowdfunded project from last year. I’m glad to see that not everyone wants 3d.
Then again, perhaps I should just step back, stop drooling, and take a deep breath. For the price of the plastic and metal replacements, I could simply buy another copy of the whole game, nearly twice over, once my current one becomes unplayable. But where’s the fun in that.
For the moment, I’ll struggle on with my fading tokens (it’s a hard life), keeping an eye on 3DITION at least until photos of the final manufactured product are available, and see how I feel about things then.
About the author
Current favourite boardgames are Ark Nova and Spooktacular, with a side of Dune: Imperium - Uprising and Paleo. When not playing games or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside over 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). In any time left over after all that, L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
