Construction

I really enjoy upping the quality of my game prototypes.  It is silly, almost, in that they aren't finished products so maybe I shouldn't be pouring time into them like this, but I get a real satisfaction from improving the way they look.  As as example, the game Dot that I built a few years ago was played on a random printed out sheet of paper for quite a while.  Months ago I built a better model where I glued the paper sheet to a hunk of foam board, but the result was still very inelegant.  The paper was lumpy from the glue, the foam board was not smoothly cut, and it certainly didn't look like much.

 The new version is laminated, feels strong and solid, and actually looks decent.  I so often forget that a little bit of colour and some effort at proper layout makes a huge different in how a game presents to people.  The new version has a scoring track that is actually big enough and the two pieces can fit in a pretty tiny space.  I also built a similar version by attaching the same pictures to standard game board chunks that I stole from an old Risk board I had sitting around.  That particular Risk world now has some big holes in it, but I have another cool board option for Dot.

The tiles that you place on the board have been improved too.  They have gone from paper bits glued on to cardboard to paper glued with cruddy glue to shoddy foam to laminated paper glued with good glue to nicely cut foam board.  The difference in the hand feel and appearance is pretty substantial.

Plus the new version is actually water resistant so people don't have to worry so much about ruining it... and I don't have to cringe every time someone waves a drink around near the game, threatening hours of work.

Arts and crafts basic lessons, being slowly learned somewhat later in life than usual.