Vault Assault - Original, Mechanics Based, 3D Printable Board Game

Vault Assault is an exhilarating 3D printed board game where players embody daring vault crackers on a high-stakes mission to break into a vault and seize its golden riches. With up to four players, aged 8 and above, this game combines strategy, cunning, and a touch of sabotage as participants place gears strategically on the board to connect to the vault and release the coins inside. The thrill intensifies as players navigate challenges, aiming to outmaneuver opponents and avoid triggering the alarm that could end the heist abruptly.

Key Features:

1. Dynamic Gear Placement: Players use a variety of gears to create complex paths, connect to the vault, and collect coins.
2. Strategic Play: Includes opportunities for strategic stealing and redirecting gears to disrupt opponents' plans.
3. Interactive Mechanics: The game board, vault components, and dice rolls ensure no two games are alike.
4. Multiple Game Modes: From “Challenge Mode” to “Double Trouble,” players can enjoy variations that adjust difficulty and strategy.
5. Tense Heist Theme: The alarm adds an exciting unpredictability, keeping players on their toes until the very end.

Vault Assault challenges players to think ahead, adapt their strategies, and skillfully manage their gears to outsmart their rivals and become the wealthiest vault cracker.

Design

This game has been a BLAST to design, and I started with just a few key concepts:

1. 2 - 4 Player Game
2. Mechanical interactions, making the most use of the 3D printing element of board game design
3. Strategy over luck within the gameplay mechanics
4. High replayability (different games everytime, multiple game modes, expandable with future updates)

Building this project is a great oppurtinity to learn a bit about gear mechanisms and improve your understanding of how gears can work with each other to achieve more complex goals. So making this game is not only fun, but a learning experience! Now to get started with what you are going to need:

Aside from a few fasteners the entirity of Vault Assault is 3D printed and made up of the following parts:

1. Game Board
2. Peg Board
3. Outer Board
4. 4 x Inner Player Gear
5. 4 x Outer Racheted Player Gear
6. 4 x Pawl Arm
7. Vault
8. Vault Body
9. Vault Door
10. Vault Shaft (Lower)
11. Vault Shaft (Higher)
12. Vault Mask (Lower)
13. Vault Mask (Higher)
14. Vault Shaft Cover
15. 10 x Gear 1 (Red)
16. 10 x Gear 2 (Orange)
17. 8 x Gear 3 (Yellow)
18. 8 x Gear 4 (Green)
19. 6 x Gear 5 (Blue)
20. 6 x Gear 6 (Purple)
21. 4 x Theifple (Player Pieces - "Jesse", "Bonnie", "Ronald" and "Belle")
22. 35 x Golden Coins
23. 1 x Alarm Marker

The entirity of these parts, can be found exclusively on Maker World. I have pre-crafted two different print profiles there with the correct settings, orientation, colours and layout. One profile is the multi coloured version (as shown in the images in this Instructable) but that will require at 3D printer which can print with at least 2 filaments. The other profile is designed to be a quicker print and will work with any 3D printer with a build plate at least 20cm x 20cm. As well as the crafted print profile I have also included the raw STEP and STL files for all the parts should you need/want to make any alterations!

I designed the Game Board to be a simple build and require a minimal number of extra parts. Aside from the printed parts only a few screws and springs/elastic bands are required. You can choose to build the rachet and pawl mechanism for each of the player gears with EITHER springs or elastic bands depending which is easiet for you, however the springs will give a better result and last longer. You will require the following parts:

1. 12 x M3x10mm Countersunk Screws
2. 8 x M2x4mm Buttonhead Screws (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)
3. 4 x Extension Spring BA001 (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)
4. 4 x 12mm Elastic Bands (I used my partner's small hair bands) (Only required if using elastic bands for rachet and pawls)

For this project I used basic PLA and it is more than strong enough for the gears. Even putting them under quite high pressure has caused no issues. For the full colour version I used 9 different filament colours: Black, Gold, Silver, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple. If you want to cut down on the number of colours then you can print all the gears in just one or two colours, as they are labelled with engravings so you can still easily tell them apart.

I made sure the design minimised the need for support and limited purged filament, and although in total this print requires around 400g of filament, only 0.81g is used for support and 18.25g is used for flushing and tower (for the full colour version shown). For the single colour printer version, the flushing and tower waste is of course 0g.

If you are using Maker World and Bambu Lab Studio as your printing software, then simply select one of the two print profiles and work through printing each of the plates. The colours don't have to be exactly as I have laid them out, so feel free to switch them up based on your access to different coloured filaments and personal preference.

If you want to use a different software then you will need to take a slightly more manual approach to the printing and in general I would recommend the following settings:

1. 0.4mm Nozzle
2. 0.2mm Layer height
3. 15% Infill (except for the pawls which should have 100% infill)
4. Gyroid or Cubic Infill Pattern
5. Speeds which give your printer high accuracy to ensure good tolerances on part fit

Most parts are already oriented in the correct position in their STEP and STL files, but ensure the following orientations for some parts:

1. Outer Board - Should be printed with the top surface facing down (180 degrees rotated)
2. Vault Internals - The Vault Shaft (lower) and Vault Shaft Cover should be printed with the top surface facing down (180 degrees rotated). The Vault Shaft (higher) should be printed with support enabled, and orientated so it stands on the three feet (default orientation)
3. Pawls - The Pawls should all be orientated so that the peg faces up (180 degrees rotated), and support should be enabled
4. All Gears - All the gears should be printed with their top surface facing down and the peg facing up (180 degrees rotated)

Be aware that there are some tight tolerances when assembling the Game Board, so it is better to printer slower to get a more accurate finish than trying to rush the prints. Due to this, also be aware of elephants foot and if your slicer has settings to counteract this effect I would recommend you enable them.

Once you have all your parts printed, it is time to start building the Game Board!

Once all the parts have been printed seperate out the elements required for building the game board, this consists of the:

1. Outer Board
2. Peg Board
3. 4 x Outer Player Gear (with ratchet)
4. 4 x Inner Player Gear
5. 4 x Pawl.
6. 12 x M3x10mm Countersunk Screws
7. 8 x M2x4mm Buttonhead Screws (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)
8. 4 x Extension Spring BA001 (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)
9. 4 x 12mm Elastic Bands (I used my partner's small hair bands) (Only required if using elastic bands for rachet and pawls)

You can identify the player gears by looking for the gears which have a hole in the top side. As mentioned earlier either the spring or elastic band approach can be used for the rachet and pawl, but for the best longevity (and most satisfying clickyness) I would recommend the spring if possible.

(Elastic band approach)

Take one of your elastic bands and wrap it around the silver pillar with the chamfered head on the peg board. I found the three rotations around provides the best amount of pressure. Once you have managed to get three loops around the pillar, whilst keeping the elastic band under pressure, thread the pawl through and encourage the elastic band to sit in the slot cut out on the pawl. You can then lower the pawl's peg into the hole to the left of the pillar and it should be held in place. Now take the Player Gear (with ratchet) and insert it into the other hole (you will need to pull the pawl out of the way slightly). The gear should now be held in place and the pawl should engage with the rachet. Both the gear and pawl might not sit perfectly flush at this stage, but don't worry, once the Outer Board is added it will pull everything into the correct position.

(Spring approach)

Place one loop of the spring over the screw hole attached to the main body of the peg board (ensuring the spring coil is facing up) and use one of the M2x4mm screws to secure it in place. Place the pawl into the hole to the left of the silver pillar and align the other loop of the spring with the cutout and hole in the top of the pawl (you may need to apply a little stretch to the spring to achieve this). Use a second M2x4mm screw to secure this end of the spring to the pawl. Now take the Player Gear (with ratchet) and insert it into the other hole (you will need to pull the pawl out of the way slightly). The gear should now be held in place and the pawl should engage with the rachet. Both the gear and pawl might not sit perfectly flush at this stage, but don't worry, once the Outer Board is added it will pull everything into the correct position.

Repeat the previous step for all four player gears until your board looks like the image above.

Place the Outer Board over the top of the peg board and it should slide neatly into place. Ensure that the little allignment pegs on the Outer Board go into the corresponding slots on top of each of the player gears. If the Outer Board sits flush to the Peg Board all the way round, then it is installed correctly. You can test the ratchet and pawl now by applying a little pressure to the top of the Outer Board and turning each of the outer player gears in a clockwise direction. (Isn't that sound SO satisfying?!)

Applying some pressure to the Outer Board, turn the whole gameboard upside down and lie it on a flat surface. Using all 12 M3x10mm countersunk screws secure the two parts of the gameboard together, using the chamfered holes in the bottom of the peg board as a guide.

That's the game board fully assembled, so now its time to learn the game and get playing!

1. Take the Lower Shaft (the part with the circular face attached to it containing three holes), and insert the Higher Shaft (the shorter shaft with three legs on one side and a cross on the top) so that they are tightly connected. The three feet of the Higher Shaft should be flush or just beyond flush once pushed in.
2. Insert this assembled shaft with the Lower Shaft at the bottom into the Vault Body taking care that it goes through the hole at the bottom of the Vault Body and is visible below the gear.
3. Take the Lower Mask (the circular part with 3 holes in it) and push this down into the Vault Body ensuring that the little tabs align with the slots in the Vault Body. Push this all the way down until it won't go any further. Make sure you are moving it down evenly, I found applying pressure with both thumbs was a good way to start. I did find during my prototyping that different filaments will have very slightly different tolerances, so you might find this a quite tight fit. Once this is inserted you should be able to hold just the tip of the Lower Shaft which is poking out below the gear of the Vault Body, and turn the Vault Body. If everything is going correctly, the assembled shaft should remain stationary and the Vault Body and Lower Mask should rotate around it.
4. Take the Vault Shaft Cover (A circular piece with a round cutout through the side, and a cross indent in the centre of one side) and press this onto the cross on the top of the Higher Shaft. Ensure that the direct the round cutout is facing is different to the round cutout of the Lower Shaft one. This should be quite a snug fit, but won't require too much pressure.
5. Take the Higher Mask and insert it into the top of the vault in the same way as the Lower Mask. This one doesn't have a built in stopper to get in the perfect place, so just slowly press it down until it sits a little way off the Vault Shaft Cover (1mm or 2mm is fine, closer is better). Just ensure that it DOESN'T touch the Vault Shaft Cover or things will start to jam up, or all turn together.

That's it! The Vault Door is just to keep the coins in place and hide what is going on and it is keyed so it will lock on when placed correctly.

Some filaments I tested had tiny variations that made the vault work better some times and worse others. The most important aspect is that when the vault shaft is placed into a hole on the board, it should be a pretty tight fit, as the central shaft must remain stationary for the vault to work correctly. When I was building the final version I found that adding just 0.05mm to the shaft diameter made it go from agressively tight to just perfect, so these small differences really do make a difference!

The game itself is for 2 to 4 players, and I recommend ages 8+, but use this as a guideline rather than a hard rule (age rating is based on small pieces and some gameplay complexity).

The core gameplay loop reloves around moving your vault cracker around the board and strategically choosing where to place gears on the board, either to advanced your connection to the vault or block other players. With the ability to steal and divert other players your powers to sabotage are as strong as your powers to create!

The full rules for the game, along with plenty of additional information and strategy are include in the Vault Assault Manual attached to this step. So make sure to read through that to get started!

Expansions!

I have already been planning a number of expansions for this game, and designed it in such a way that it was versitle to change, modification and future additions. Depending on the popularity of this project I will hopefully complete some of these soon and share them with you, but here are some of my ideas:

Gears Galore - There are MANY more potential viable gears that would work on the same grid and open up different placements. I am also experimenting with the idea of “broken gears” which are missing some teeth, and after a certain amount of turning cease to work and MUST be stolen back from the board to progress (a great way to limit/hamper your opponents!)

Vaults Aplenty - The vault has been designed as a modular unit on purpose so it is easy to change out the “masks” and “covers” inside to alter how coins interact and behave within the vault. This expansion would make use of that by providing a variety of different masks and covers to change vault behaviour and vary game length.