Archive for Jason Carr
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Jason Carr
United States
Evanston
Illinois
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In my last post, I posted some images of my finished product, and people asked for more!
So I'm happy to oblige, and I want to give a mini-review of this fantastic game, and the components I chose to use.
Overview
Space Junkyard is a tile laying/economic-engine building game that is available as a free Print-and-Play game or as a commercially produced game from Mayday Games (NOT Mayfair Games). The game was designed by Gilad Yarnitzky and the art for the version I put together was done by Orlando Ramirez.
It took me about 4 hours of work to make my copy of Space Junkyard, from beginning to end. That said, it took about 4 months to get that work done - which is not a reflection on the game at all; rather it's a statement about my terrible drive to get things done.
The Files
The files are freely available on BGG, and I need to give HUGE props to Mr. Yarnitzky for pushing to have the files left up after the game was picked for publication. Also, props to Mayday games for agreeing to have the files left up.
There are some differences between the files on the 'Geek and the commercially produced game. Let's peek:
Image by maydaygames
On the left, the commercial art. On the right, the PnP art. There's not a huge difference, but the commercial tiles are a little less cluttered and easier to read.
Still, the freely available art looks great, especially on a laser printer with fully saturated colors. Check out my tiles:
The colors are bold and reminiscent of cartoons - which fits the theme of the game perfectly. As one commenter said, the tiles are very 'Buzz Lightyear'.
There are multiple versions of the files available - I would recommend the ones I used: Space Junkyard Vector Set (v2). While there are other filesets that are functional, I think that Orlando's files are the best looking. He also designed the artwork for the commercial game, if that means anything.
The file comes as a 15 page PDF weighing in at 7.5 MB. It will hammer your printer, but it's well worth it. I would highly recommend printing on a laser printer for depth of color, but I'm sure some inkjets would look great too. The instructions are full-page prints (more on that later) and take up the first 6 pages. Then there are 9 pages of components, including resource markers and ship movers that you can make yourself.
Components
As a PnP game, the components are going to be rather irregular from copy to copy. I want to compare the components I used (easily available) with the components from the commercial version, and finally some of the other PnP ideas.
First, the 'built in' components - the ships and the resource tokens included with the game are paper, stuck to cardboard or wooden disks:
Image by: Howitzer_120mm
They're totally usable and ready to go! But the commercial components are a huge upgrade - they come with plastic ships that look great, and wooden components for the resources. Also, the game comes with a board (not necessary for play, but very cool):
Image by: Howitzer_120mm
Image by: Howitzer_120mm
I decided to compromise. I'm not terribly handy, but I wanted sturdier and more tactile components, so I bought/thrifted some parts:
The ships are from Zathura: Adventure is Waiting, and I'm just using small wooden beads for the resources. Hopefully I can upgrade to Risk cubes from a vintage copy of Risk someday. But for now I'm happy with the portability of the small beads.
Finally though, I just have to share this option for resources:
Image by: dirkgent001
I am extremely tempted to make a set of these! I just need a circle punch and some silicone/clear glue.
The Product
Making the game was easy. I printed the files and stuck them to single-thick chipboard to get a nice sturdy tile. I wanted to share a few pictures of the finished product. These are all staged photos, since I haven't gotten to play it yet:
A Short Review
I'd recommend looking at the Dice Tower review for this game if you want details on the mechanics. In short, you move your spaceship through the junkyard and harvest broken-down ship parts or asteroids for resources, which you can store in your ship. Then, you can use those resources to repair pieces of broken-ships and add them to your ship, which gives you the ability to hold more resources. That lets you build even more ship parts... and the cycle continues.
Tom Vasel's main critique of the game is that it's not exciting - this is pretty much true. There's not a whole lot of tension in the game, and it's really about building up your economy. But there is definitely player interaction - after every move, you put a tile back on the 'board' (a 6 x 6 grid of tiles), from the side (sort of like The aMAZEing Labyrinth). This gives you the opportunity to knock your opponent off the edge of the board, or more importantly, knock a tile that they might want off the edge of the board.
If you do take a look at Tom's review, keep in mind that the PnP version does not have the 'Black Hole' tile. This is no great loss, in my opinion, although it would be easy enough to make one to add to the game.
Overall, I rate the game a 6.5 - it's beautiful, the game play works great, and it's not boring at all. If you like engine-building games, this is definitely your cup of tea.
Thu May 26, 2011 11:17 pm
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Jason Carr
United States
Evanston
Illinois
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It's been a few months since I posted, so I thought I'd share one of my finished projects.
I finally completed the copy of Space Junkyard that I was working on back in February. When I started to cut tiles, I had a few issues getting used to the process, and ruined one sheet of tiles right as I managed to break my rotary cutter.
So at any rate, it took me a while to get back into the swing of things, and last night I finished my copy.
I'm pretty happy with it. I decided to use small wooden beads as the resources, for now. They're a little smaller than I'd like, so I suspect they'll end up being used for something else and replaced with something bigger.
So, my first PnP project is done! My next project is a copy of Jasper and Zot, and I will make sure to share it when it's done.
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Jason Carr
United States
Evanston
Illinois
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Today I printed out my first set of PnP label sheets. Boy, do they look good. I printed them on an HP Color Laser Jet 4005, on Avery labels. I love how saturated the colors are - I think this game has a strong visual appeal.
I accidentally printed the tokens; I'm not sure if I'm going to stick them to disks after all, or if I will punch them from cardboard, or try the "resource gems" idea from dirkgent001:
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Jason Carr
United States
Evanston
Illinois
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This week I'd hoped to craft the tiles for Space Junkyard. I had identified three steps to the process, and the accompanying materials:
1. Print off the labels on my wonderful laser printer.
2. Affix to chipboard.
3. Cut out tiles.
There's an optional 4th step: lacquer the tiles so they don't wear. I had planned on doing this as well.
Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten the prints made, although I could have if I wanted to. Why? Chipboard.
In case you're not familiar with Chipboard, it's also called greyboard or artist's board. You are likely most familiar with it from the back of a legal pad - it's the grey cardboard backing.
If you apply the label paper to this material, the effect is something like the photo to the right - the tiles are a little thinner than what you would get from say, Carcassonne, but still totally sturdy and playable. This was the approach I'd settled on (plus lacquering the tiles with matte lacquer to protect the artwork), when I went out to get my supplies.
Fail.
I went to several art/hobby stores in the Evanston/Skokie/Niles, IL area
and had no luck finding chipboard. It finally lead to this exchange at a Blick's in Evanston:
Me: "Hi, I'm looking for chipboard? It might be called greyboard or artist's board too, do you have any?"
Worker: "Chipboard? What's that?"
Me: "It's like the backing of a legal pad."
Worker: "Oh, you mean cardboard. We have that."
Sure enough, what she called "cardboard" was chipboard. So, after 3 days and much frustration, I've found my source of chipboard that I can use to mount my labels on!
So hopefully I'll have some tiles to show off on Monday.
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Jason Carr
United States
Evanston
Illinois
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I've long had my eye on a copy of Merchant of Venus, but I'm not willing to pay the prices that a copy runs. Occasionally I get the urge to try to make darthkadan's print and play copy, but I feel like before I go that route, I should learn the skills that I'll need to make a game like Merchant of Venus.
Hence, this journey.
I started with my first game today, Space Junkyard. I picked this game because it was relatively small, looked like fun, and because I thrifted a copy of Zathura: Adventure is Waiting that had 3 of the 4 spaceships that I could use as player tokens.
So I printed the game on normal paper and gave it a spin with my wife tonight just to see if we'd even like it. I wasn't sure, especially with the reviews saying things like "it's strategic, but not exciting". And maybe it wasn't exciting, but it was fun to build a ship made out of junk.
So we did enjoy it. The strategy is deep enough to make you think, but has enough changeability between turns that you can't plan out your master strategy.
Secondly, it became obvious that this was a great game to start with. I'm going to print the tiles on label paper, stick them to some chipboard, and cut the tiles with a rotary cutter. Then I'll use painted wooden cubes for resources, like the ones in Pandemic.
Speaking of which, we used those cubes tonight, and they were the perfect size and shape to use.
And, for the record, I won: 21-20.
I hope to craft the finished game this weekend and document the process in my next post.
Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:10 am
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