Intergalactic Inventors - How to Build a Board Game From Scratch

Hello, and welcome to my Instructables. I am currently a 9th grader at Jenks Highschool. At my school, there was a challenge to create a board game. This is how I made my board game Intergalactic Inventors.

Overview of the game

Intergalactic Inventors is a 4-player game where the players begin stranded on the moon. The winner is the first player that fixes their rocket and returns to Earth. The players start with five cards and draw one card per turn. The player can play two cards per turn. There are three types of cards in total.  

• Invention cards are used to fix the rocket, and players need five active inventions to win the game. Invention cards also have special effects and abilities when activated.  
• Energy cards fuel inventions so players can activate and use their invention's abilities.  
• Action cards are used to slow down the other players. 

So, gather family and friends and compete in this moon race.  

If you want the full game instructions, look at the attached file.

Supplies

• (1) Game Board
• (1) Game Box
• (120) Business cards
• Glue

Tools/Programs

• 3d printer and PLA filament
• Normal Color Printer
• Fusion 360
• Adobe Express (free)
• Avery Templates (free)
• Sketchpad (free)

If you have played any board game, one common item you will find is a deck of cards. This is because cards add a unique dimension to the board game that is separate from the actual board. To create cards, I used business cards from Avery. This is more beneficial to using printing paper for a multitude of reasons:

1. All cards will be a uniform size
2. It saves time that you would spend cutting out cards
3. The paper is thicker than most other paper

How to Make Game Cards

I used sketch.io and a free online drawing tool to make the artwork for the cards. You can use any drawing software; it does not really matter. This is the longest step; the more time you spend, the cooler the cards will turn out.

After making the art, I uploaded it to Adobe Express, a free graphic design software I used to make my card. This is where I added the card's borders, text, and background color.

I added the cards to the templates on Avery.com so I could print them.

When printed, all I had to do was pop the cards out of the template.

Intergalactic Inventors requires tokens, and I used Fusion 360 to create a 3d print.

1. First, sketch two circles, one inside the other, and extrude the outside circle more than the inside circle
2. Upload a drawing of your token design and trace the outline.
3. Extrude the design sketch until it is the same height as the token

The tokens are used to show what inventions are active and which inventions are not.

The box needs to be one of the most eye-catching parts of your board game. Since intergalactic inventors is a space-themed design, I decided to make the cover image a planet in space.

First, I made a draft of the design on a canvas. Some improvements I could make are making the planet more round, changing the colors, and improving the highlights around the planet.

After the draft, I painted onto the box, which turned out amazing. Here are the steps.

1. Paint the whole box with black paint, then let it dry.
2. When adding the stars, I put a tiny bit of white paint on my finger and flicked my finger onto the black background. This sprayed white paint all over the box, creating the stars. Ensure to flick from on top of the painting, not the sides. If you flick from the sides, the paint will resemble streaks instead of white specks.
3. Then tape up the black area and paint the earth in layers. First, paint the light blue ocean. Then the land and dark blue ocean. Finely add highlights around the land.
4. After you let the planet dry the final step is to draw a highlight on the planet. Take light blue paint and outline the planet.

I was thrilled at how the final box turned out.

I designed the board on Sketchpad. The game is made for four players, so the design was four rockets facing the center with a starry background to keep with the space theme. I printed the image as four sheets of paper that I cut and glued to the game board. While what I did was fine, and the board still looks terrific, I recommend you use a large sheet of paper that you can attach to the game board all at once. This would eliminate the white space between the four sides and give the board a more professional look.

Gather your friends and family and enjoy the game that you worked so hard on. If you aren't much of a board game fan here are some fact that will hopefully get you exited or at least interested in board games.

• There are nearly one trillion possible games of connect 4
• Board games are an easy way to encourage healthy brain development in older kids and teens
• The first evidence of board games are found 5000 years ago