Gaming Accessories

As you all know, I'm a bit too active on Kickstarter. And that's just what I've backed - my wife has backed a fair number of projects, too.  Enough that we ended up putting together a spreadsheet to track what we've received and what we're still waiting for.

A few weeks back, I wrote about a couple of projects which were being Kickstarted - and both have now reached their goals (huzzah!).  One of them - Unexploded Cow from Cheapass Games - was used both to get the specific game back in print (now in a deluxe edition), but also to jump-start the company again.

Cheapass games - as I said a few weeks back - made some of my favorite games back in the day. Kill Doctor Lucky and Hong Kong Spree were exceptional (and approachable).

The only flaw in their system was that you had to provide your own components. For some games, it was easy. But some of their games required sets of matching tokens. You could go to the aquarium supply store and get a huge variety of glass beads, but they were sometimes oddly dissatisfying.

A few months ago, we went to a friend's birthday party.  She throws one every year, and every year it's a lot of fun.  We go, we play some games, and we go home with large smiles.  Every year.  This year, we started playing Divinare.  Since we had one rule wrong, we ran out of scoring tokens. "That's okay," he said, "I have my PennyGems."

He walked over to his backpack and pulled out what appeared to be a dice bag, which he then spilled onto the table.  "PennyGems," he said. "They're generic tokens usable in any game."

I thought they were pretty cool (if expensive), and added them to my list of Things To Buy After GenCon.

And then he had a Kickstarter for "A Pale Imitation" - PennyGems in pastel colors. So, instead of ordering from his Etsy store, we Kickstarted at the level we wanted. And I'm very happy with them.

I realized as I was sticking the vinyl to pennies that these would be ideal for Cheapass games.  You can use them a player pieces, money, and dozens of additional token types.

I know there are dozens and dozens of game accessories out there - dice bags, dice towers, tokens, markers, dice - but I'm one of those folks who believes you can never upgrade your game enough.

And I'm a big fan of small business doing what they can to get the ball rolling.

So here are the links I've posted above for accessories - and these are products for which I have seen with my own eyes and touched with my own hands. If you have another good accessory link, feel free to throw it in the comments.

Dice Bags: http://greyedout.etsy.com
Dice Towers: http://www.uniquedicetowers.com
Tokens/Markers: http://www.impobj.com