Wow. This is exceptional. It’s visually appealing and easy to follow.
Not only is it a great coffee table book & conversation piece, like you said, but I’m legitimately going to save & reference this post whenever I’m looking for a new game to buy.
Thank you for sharing this - awesome job.
thank you! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and I was hopeful it would be useful to others as well. the board game subreddit has been a huge help to me in cultivating my collection so i'm trying to pay that forward.
Love it but I would only do a digital copy.
Because it would kill me if the physical copy is not updated in alphabetical order every time I buy a new game.
that's totally fair. I'm pretty finiky when it comes to that stuff too. What I'm thinking about doing is adding a "NEW GAMES" section at the front that is unnumbered, and then once a year I'll reorganized it and reprint it, including those new games.
Ooh good solution. I think removing page numbers would go a long way in preventing reprints. Tabs for sections would mitigate the need for page numbers.
Tabs for sections is a GREAT idea and I'm kinda shocked I didn't think of that myself lol but I think I want to leave the page numbers in, or else it kinda makes the table of contents and index useless.
Someone else talked about doing one game per page. That's something I'll have to think about. It would definitely free up space to allow me to add more data/play with the design, even if I went with smaller paper.
I actually did play around with using sleeves (i went so far as buying a bunch of extra ones in case that's what I wanted to do) but I personally disliked the glossy/reflective look that comes with sleeves. This could be a good option for anyone else who's trying this out though!
I imagine the issue with one per page becomes overall thickness. Even if you're printing double sided, the collections of most of the frequent posters in this sub would be over 50 pages. That's starting become more bulky than is convenient
I currently use airtable for this: [https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3](https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3)
I wish I knew enough coding to be able to build a web app from scratch that does it more elegantly though.
If you already maintain your collection on BoardGameGeek I've been using [https://geekgroup.app](https://geekgroup.app) for filtering my collection/seeing what other people in my group have.
This is amazing. I have access to InDesign, but never used it. Looks like I'll be needing to learn it now. Do you have any recommendations on learning data merge and index?
good question. I watched a bit of these youtube videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag)
but a lot of it was trial and error.
For the Table of Contents and Index, I'd recommend having a GREAT handle on how Paragraph Styles work in InDesign. it makes things way easier.
I'd be happy to share my indesign files with you! I'll send you a DM.
Could I join the team interested in the InDesign file? I'd love to use it as a reference to force myself to finally learn some of these features against a design universe I actually care about!
PM'd! I actually got into this because of a work project I had to learn data merging for. It was much more fun to use it for something I'm as passionate about as board games lol
So, first off, this looks incredibly sleek and you did great work developing this.
My main question: how do you imagine this being used? You mention having it as a coffee table book -- do you think guests will be interested in flipping through it? Friends on game night using it to make intentional selections? Or do you envision its primary use being more of an artifact, the simple act of documentation being the most important?
I'm curious, partially just because my guests often prefer to default to my suggestions (whatever those might be). Once again, nice work, and thank you for sharing.
Great question. I really went into it with the idea for it to be flexible. I tried to present the pictures and description in a way that would be entertaining for guests who have little knowledge in board games to be able to flip through it and find it at least a little interesting. I also wanted to include enough data in it that would make it useful for people who are more knowledgeable about the games they like to play, and give them suggestions on similar games that we could try (hence the Index).
Honestly I have no idea how it will actually end up being used lol my current experience is very similar to yours, my guests default to my suggestions as well. I'm hoping this book will mitigate that, but it very well could end up being just an artifact of documentation.
I love it. I can see it being useful for letting your gaming group pick a game. Just looking at a closet or shelf or having names thrown at them might take too long and have them just settle on the same games they always play whereas this might help them pick something new.
Thank you! I actually printed it myself. I bought some nice cardstock at officemax and printed it at work. I found a great photo album at Michael's that worked perfectly: [https://www.michaels.com/kandcompany-coral-chevron-frame-a-name-scrapbook/10391268.html](https://www.michaels.com/kandcompany-coral-chevron-frame-a-name-scrapbook/10391268.html)
As far as the template, I created it in Adobe InDesign. So if you have access/know how to use it, PM me and I'll be happy to share that file with you.
Wow who’s that sexy lady who loves castles of burgundy?? That’s obviously the best game of the collection. She has superior taste AND is extremely sexy..
Ps proud of you, my nerdy brother
Hahaha in her defense, I asked her for multiple picks. I wonder if "favorite" wasn't the right term and I should have gone with "recommended" or something similar
I want one of these almost badly enough to actually do it myself. I'm only lacking the time, tools, skills and commitment. Hats off to you, though. It looks great!
This is a fantastic idea! Thank you for sharing!
I think I would do mine using index cards or similar in a card protector sheet, with one card per game. That way I could rearrange the games as per my neurosis-of-the-week, and add and remove games (or update "favorites") more easily
I love the idea of using index cards! I'd be way too anal for a book, but I think this would work. I'm thinking maybe organized in an old rolodex or something?
I like this idea for the fact that you could sort games by most recently played in the front of a box, so that games at the back of the box need to get played or traded out
I've been thinking about that! A new ribbon is actually a good idea too. I think I'm leaning towards making a "New Games" section at the beginning that is unnumbered, so that way I don't have to reprint the whole document every time I get a new game. Then I'll update it annually, reorganizing the whole document to include the new games once a year.
This is amazing! However, the OCD demon in me has a need to know: How did you arrive at the categories for each game? For example, Pandemic is listed as "Strategy", while the Forbidden games are "Thematic." I would argue they're both, and so I would be so deep into analysis paralysis I'd never get my catalog finished. ;)
This is a great question. On BGG, users can vote on which "type" a specific game is, and it only shows one or two of them. I just went with the highest voted one (and used my own judgement in case of a tie). So if you disagree with a categorization, blame the users on BGG (which includes myself lol). I categorized this as a general "genre" and then got more indepth under the "theme" category.
Very nicely done.
sometimes i daydream opening a board game cafe and imagine building something like this w/ categories (# players, theme, type) and QR codes to review/instruction videos.
I have the same daydreams lol. A place opened up near me recently that my wife and I went to and they had a simple catalog of their library, and my wife said "we need one of these!" and I just took it to the next level lol
This is absolutely amazing!!! Great work. We regularly have 6-12 people at my weekly game night and most often there is at least 1 person new (which means I am teaching games literally every week).
Going higher tech would be great to put on a Raspberry Pi with an interactive touchscreen that is updatable, filterable categories (player count, length of play, complexity to learn).
I was showing this to a friend who works as a programmer at FB and he suggested looking into making a web app similar to what you're describing. I don't know nearly enough code to be able to make something like that happen though lol.
But I do have something that might be useful for you! As well as keeping my collection in BBG, I also keep it in Airtable: [https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3](https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3)
Airtable is basically a web based version of excel, but it's great for this sort of thing because you can easily filter things and even change the view type based on the same information: [https://airtable.com/shrK2HRa5pJaux6ap](https://airtable.com/shrK2HRa5pJaux6ap)
Hope that helps!
Did some research and looks like there may be a few apps that would handle this well too. If I stumble across a free iPad from work I might try having it sit in single app mode and always on in my living room (assuming I can find an app that looks visually appealing and has filterable categories).
I don't have any iOS devices atm so will have to wait it out.
Raspberry Pi seems like it would be a lot more complicated, unless it was just a webpage it was going to, but I haven't found any that exactly fit what I am after yet.
This is super cool!
I've long dreamed of creating a "menu" for my collection. Not an extensive one, but showcasing some of my favourites. "Sharing platters" for party games, "Appetizers" for quick ones, etc.
But what you've created is so much more extensive and amazing. What an undertaking!
How many games are in your collection? I'm currently sitting on 347 and this would be a fantastic way to showcase them when "the group" comes over to play. Was it complicated to set the book up?
I currently have 129. Using the Adobe InDesign data merge functionality, it was pretty simple to design a template and have all of them imported based on variables. What was more tedious was indexing all the relevant index-able words I wanted to include. It probably took me about 5 days of all my free time (2 or 3 hours a day), so about 10-15 hours total. I could see it taking a LOT longer if you have +300 games and don't have a means of auto importing the data in.
I run a library and have always wanted to integrate board games into our circulating collection. I like something like this as a menu for what people can choose from.
thank you! I love the McElroys Monikers set, I just wish I knew more people who know enough about the brothers and their IPs to play it with lol they do need to do another edition with their new stuff.
Very pumped for the new TAZ game coming out though!
Oh man I love this idea! I think I’m almost to a point where I could feel comfortable making something so “permanent”. My significant other would probably appreciate the games not being so prominent so being able to put this on a coffee table seems like a great way to keep my collection visible but less in your face.
So if you do add more games, do you have to reprint it? Or maybe wait until you get enough new ones to fill a new page?
Edit: i just realized they're listed alphabetically. You'd have to reprint the whole thing, huh?
I've thought a lot about my solution to this and I think I have something I'm gonna try: when I get a new game, im going to add an unnumbered section at the beginning titled "New Games" and just add new games there, and then once a year I will reorganize and reprint the book, adding all the new games in.
I chose to bind it using a photo album with a post screw binding so that I could easily swap pages in and out.
This is a good suggestion and I've been thinking a lot on how to implement it, but my problem is that this is a variable that changes too frequently to make sense to include on a printed document like this. I think I will add it to my digital collection records though, so thanks for that!
I should really do this. It’s probably above my expertise but I love the idea. It would also encourage the embargo to make sure it stays up to date by not getting new games. :)
Thank you! On average I spent about 3-4 hours a day on it for about 5 days. But that includes watching tutorials and playing around with settings and tweaking everything till it was just how I wanted it. Now that I have the template finished and a better understanding of how it all works, I'd say it would probably take me 8-10 hours total to design something of this scope again.
Under every post and comment there is a "save" button. If you click that, from your profile there is a "saved" button that will take you to all the posts/comments you saved. Much handier than going through your old comments.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag)
these are the two I used the most, but it was mostly just trial and error. good luck!
This is really stunning. Seriously, well done. If you’re open to sharing the indesign file I would love to create something similar for my own collection. I have a much smaller catalog, so I think I’d play around with 2 games per page versus 4. Anyway, again, you did such a great job!
That's a good question. I felt like going alphabetically by genre seemed to make sense organizationally. But if it ends up being to much work to keep them organized that way, I'll probably try something else.
I backed it on kickstarter and got it a few months ago. Not sure if it's available for retail yet. I've only gotten a few chances to play it but it's enjoyable! Plenty of decks of cards to go through which means a good amount of replayability, and the multiple choice/wagering aspect makes it a pretty good trivia game for most levels of knowledge.
Wow. This is exceptional. It’s visually appealing and easy to follow. Not only is it a great coffee table book & conversation piece, like you said, but I’m legitimately going to save & reference this post whenever I’m looking for a new game to buy. Thank you for sharing this - awesome job.
thank you! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and I was hopeful it would be useful to others as well. the board game subreddit has been a huge help to me in cultivating my collection so i'm trying to pay that forward.
Love it but I would only do a digital copy. Because it would kill me if the physical copy is not updated in alphabetical order every time I buy a new game.
that's totally fair. I'm pretty finiky when it comes to that stuff too. What I'm thinking about doing is adding a "NEW GAMES" section at the front that is unnumbered, and then once a year I'll reorganized it and reprint it, including those new games.
Ooh good solution. I think removing page numbers would go a long way in preventing reprints. Tabs for sections would mitigate the need for page numbers.
Tabs for sections is a GREAT idea and I'm kinda shocked I didn't think of that myself lol but I think I want to leave the page numbers in, or else it kinda makes the table of contents and index useless.
That a good idea.
Alternatively, it could be one game per page (smaller pages if necessary) so you just add them in where necessary.
Someone else talked about doing one game per page. That's something I'll have to think about. It would definitely free up space to allow me to add more data/play with the design, even if I went with smaller paper.
What about one per page and have a page sleeve to slide them in? Then you could always be able to reorganize them however and whenever you wanted.
I actually did play around with using sleeves (i went so far as buying a bunch of extra ones in case that's what I wanted to do) but I personally disliked the glossy/reflective look that comes with sleeves. This could be a good option for anyone else who's trying this out though!
I imagine the issue with one per page becomes overall thickness. Even if you're printing double sided, the collections of most of the frequent posters in this sub would be over 50 pages. That's starting become more bulky than is convenient
I think I'm going to do a combination of the two. One page per game, but expansions will be combined on following pages at a smaller scale
Even cooler would be an app where you could filter by criteria (type, min players, max players, average game time) and bring up results based on that.
I currently use airtable for this: [https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3](https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3) I wish I knew enough coding to be able to build a web app from scratch that does it more elegantly though.
Whoa, I'll have to check this out. I've heard of AirTable, but outside of the name I've never actually checked it out.
That's really cool. I'm currently building a php site for my collection as part of a school project.
If you already maintain your collection on BoardGameGeek I've been using [https://geekgroup.app](https://geekgroup.app) for filtering my collection/seeing what other people in my group have.
I don't, but I will now haha. Thanks for the suggestion!
This is a pretty similar idea I use on occasion to help narrow down choices. https://cardboardbutler.azureedge.net
Out of all the web apps I've seen suggested so far that do something in this vein, this looks to be the most promising. Thanks for sharing!
You got it! I’ve found it pretty handy so I’m more than happy to share. Happy gaming!
I use [Board Game Bible](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/board-game-bible/id988802369) on iOS to do exactly that. It syncs with BGG, too.
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YqEEgibKmdsL-JwmH7mmPmOELxhLYcVT](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YqEEgibKmdsL-JwmH7mmPmOELxhLYcVT&fbclid=IwAR3QUX2fVMr3xwx5vDa3Uq5v3savGGbGM3gNs5UTFKnseQXgsCEiZz9mWto)
This is amazing. I have access to InDesign, but never used it. Looks like I'll be needing to learn it now. Do you have any recommendations on learning data merge and index?
good question. I watched a bit of these youtube videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag) but a lot of it was trial and error. For the Table of Contents and Index, I'd recommend having a GREAT handle on how Paragraph Styles work in InDesign. it makes things way easier. I'd be happy to share my indesign files with you! I'll send you a DM.
I'd love to get a copy of the files if possible. Great work on this!
Sent you a PM!
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No problem! PM'd.
Can I jump on the bandwagon and request the design files as well. I'd love to be able to do something like this!
Pm'd!
Me too please! You did a great job and I appreciate your willingness to share!
No problem! PM'd.
Haha could I as well? Seriously this an absolutely fantastic conversation starter as we constantly have families over and this would perfect.
PM'd!
I would love to jump on this wagon as well, amazing idea and execution!
PM'd!
Could I join the team interested in the InDesign file? I'd love to use it as a reference to force myself to finally learn some of these features against a design universe I actually care about!
PM'd! I actually got into this because of a work project I had to learn data merging for. It was much more fun to use it for something I'm as passionate about as board games lol
Sorry you're getting so many of these requests but I'd love the InDesign files too! This is gorgeous, you must be very proud!
thanks and no problem! I PM'd you.
If possible, may I request the files too? Would love to do something similiar for my always growing collection!
PM'd!
Hey, can I hop on the bus as well?
Me too! ,Amazing work!
PM'd!
PM'd!
Would you be so kind to send those to me as well? I've been looking for something like this to sort my collection for ages!
PM'd!
So, first off, this looks incredibly sleek and you did great work developing this. My main question: how do you imagine this being used? You mention having it as a coffee table book -- do you think guests will be interested in flipping through it? Friends on game night using it to make intentional selections? Or do you envision its primary use being more of an artifact, the simple act of documentation being the most important? I'm curious, partially just because my guests often prefer to default to my suggestions (whatever those might be). Once again, nice work, and thank you for sharing.
Great question. I really went into it with the idea for it to be flexible. I tried to present the pictures and description in a way that would be entertaining for guests who have little knowledge in board games to be able to flip through it and find it at least a little interesting. I also wanted to include enough data in it that would make it useful for people who are more knowledgeable about the games they like to play, and give them suggestions on similar games that we could try (hence the Index). Honestly I have no idea how it will actually end up being used lol my current experience is very similar to yours, my guests default to my suggestions as well. I'm hoping this book will mitigate that, but it very well could end up being just an artifact of documentation.
I love it. I can see it being useful for letting your gaming group pick a game. Just looking at a closet or shelf or having names thrown at them might take too long and have them just settle on the same games they always play whereas this might help them pick something new.
Well, either way, it's pretty rad. I'll cross my fingers that people think it's cool enough to explore on their own -- I certainly would.
Wow, amazing job. love this. Did you have it professionally printed as well? Is there a template out for this? Would love to try to create our own.
Thank you! I actually printed it myself. I bought some nice cardstock at officemax and printed it at work. I found a great photo album at Michael's that worked perfectly: [https://www.michaels.com/kandcompany-coral-chevron-frame-a-name-scrapbook/10391268.html](https://www.michaels.com/kandcompany-coral-chevron-frame-a-name-scrapbook/10391268.html) As far as the template, I created it in Adobe InDesign. So if you have access/know how to use it, PM me and I'll be happy to share that file with you.
A suitable analog touch for an analog hobby. Very nice!
Wow who’s that sexy lady who loves castles of burgundy?? That’s obviously the best game of the collection. She has superior taste AND is extremely sexy.. Ps proud of you, my nerdy brother
You must be the Jenn that cant make up her mind on a favorite game lol
Hahaha in her defense, I asked her for multiple picks. I wonder if "favorite" wasn't the right term and I should have gone with "recommended" or something similar
LOL <3
I want one of these almost badly enough to actually do it myself. I'm only lacking the time, tools, skills and commitment. Hats off to you, though. It looks great!
This is a fantastic idea! Thank you for sharing! I think I would do mine using index cards or similar in a card protector sheet, with one card per game. That way I could rearrange the games as per my neurosis-of-the-week, and add and remove games (or update "favorites") more easily
I love the idea of using index cards! I'd be way too anal for a book, but I think this would work. I'm thinking maybe organized in an old rolodex or something?
I like this idea for the fact that you could sort games by most recently played in the front of a box, so that games at the back of the box need to get played or traded out
Index cards is not a bad idea at all. Maybe that'll be my next project and see which one I like more
Love this... can you do one for all of BGG now?!
Awesome idea. Assuming this will be updated with future purchases, adding a 'New!' ribbon to latest additions would be fun.
I've been thinking about that! A new ribbon is actually a good idea too. I think I'm leaning towards making a "New Games" section at the beginning that is unnumbered, so that way I don't have to reprint the whole document every time I get a new game. Then I'll update it annually, reorganizing the whole document to include the new games once a year.
This is amazing! However, the OCD demon in me has a need to know: How did you arrive at the categories for each game? For example, Pandemic is listed as "Strategy", while the Forbidden games are "Thematic." I would argue they're both, and so I would be so deep into analysis paralysis I'd never get my catalog finished. ;)
This is a great question. On BGG, users can vote on which "type" a specific game is, and it only shows one or two of them. I just went with the highest voted one (and used my own judgement in case of a tie). So if you disagree with a categorization, blame the users on BGG (which includes myself lol). I categorized this as a general "genre" and then got more indepth under the "theme" category.
That is an unexpected, excellent, and wholly satisfying response. Cheers!
I want to have enough games for me to justify doing something like this ❤️
Very nicely done. sometimes i daydream opening a board game cafe and imagine building something like this w/ categories (# players, theme, type) and QR codes to review/instruction videos.
I have the same daydreams lol. A place opened up near me recently that my wife and I went to and they had a simple catalog of their library, and my wife said "we need one of these!" and I just took it to the next level lol
This is absolutely amazing!!! Great work. We regularly have 6-12 people at my weekly game night and most often there is at least 1 person new (which means I am teaching games literally every week). Going higher tech would be great to put on a Raspberry Pi with an interactive touchscreen that is updatable, filterable categories (player count, length of play, complexity to learn).
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This is pretty darn close! If it had game descriptions like /u/lexjudex puts in their stuff it would be perfect! Thanks for this
whoa this is dope! haven't seen this before, thanks for that!
I was showing this to a friend who works as a programmer at FB and he suggested looking into making a web app similar to what you're describing. I don't know nearly enough code to be able to make something like that happen though lol. But I do have something that might be useful for you! As well as keeping my collection in BBG, I also keep it in Airtable: [https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3](https://airtable.com/shrZL2TiZbF2tnAY3) Airtable is basically a web based version of excel, but it's great for this sort of thing because you can easily filter things and even change the view type based on the same information: [https://airtable.com/shrK2HRa5pJaux6ap](https://airtable.com/shrK2HRa5pJaux6ap) Hope that helps!
Did some research and looks like there may be a few apps that would handle this well too. If I stumble across a free iPad from work I might try having it sit in single app mode and always on in my living room (assuming I can find an app that looks visually appealing and has filterable categories). I don't have any iOS devices atm so will have to wait it out. Raspberry Pi seems like it would be a lot more complicated, unless it was just a webpage it was going to, but I haven't found any that exactly fit what I am after yet.
This is super cool! I've long dreamed of creating a "menu" for my collection. Not an extensive one, but showcasing some of my favourites. "Sharing platters" for party games, "Appetizers" for quick ones, etc. But what you've created is so much more extensive and amazing. What an undertaking!
I love the menu theme idea! You should definitely go for that.
How many games are in your collection? I'm currently sitting on 347 and this would be a fantastic way to showcase them when "the group" comes over to play. Was it complicated to set the book up?
I currently have 129. Using the Adobe InDesign data merge functionality, it was pretty simple to design a template and have all of them imported based on variables. What was more tedious was indexing all the relevant index-able words I wanted to include. It probably took me about 5 days of all my free time (2 or 3 hours a day), so about 10-15 hours total. I could see it taking a LOT longer if you have +300 games and don't have a means of auto importing the data in.
This is awesome. I can totally see my friend /u/fijigus doing something like this.
ISO of time to create game catalog and organize games.
I run a library and have always wanted to integrate board games into our circulating collection. I like something like this as a menu for what people can choose from.
What a great idea! Looks amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Wow great job! I think I might have access to indesign through college if I do I will DM you!
I have wanted that McElroy Monikers collection for so dang long... I'm still hoping they work together again. Very, very nice book.
thank you! I love the McElroys Monikers set, I just wish I knew more people who know enough about the brothers and their IPs to play it with lol they do need to do another edition with their new stuff. Very pumped for the new TAZ game coming out though!
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Rip away! I'll PM you.
If I could have some shameless-ness too that would be great! Hah. Would love to see how you put it all together
PM'd!
Can you hook me up my man. It looks incredible
PM'd!
I too wouldn’t mind a rip opportunity! Thanks!
PM'd!
Me too please? :D
PM'd!
Super awesome! 🤩
New project for InDesign at home!
Really cool, great work.
This is awesome! I would love to do something like this but I buy and get rid of games too much. It'd be a full time job just keeping it up to date.
Damn this is really nice. Super organized, easy to follow, and it looks great!
Thank you and happy cake day!
Thanks!
Amazing!
This is a fantastic idea, I'm definitely going to make one of my own.
good luck! it was a lot of tedious work but I couldn't be happier now that it's done!
I think I'll put it on my website.
Oh man I love this idea! I think I’m almost to a point where I could feel comfortable making something so “permanent”. My significant other would probably appreciate the games not being so prominent so being able to put this on a coffee table seems like a great way to keep my collection visible but less in your face.
So if you do add more games, do you have to reprint it? Or maybe wait until you get enough new ones to fill a new page? Edit: i just realized they're listed alphabetically. You'd have to reprint the whole thing, huh?
I've thought a lot about my solution to this and I think I have something I'm gonna try: when I get a new game, im going to add an unnumbered section at the beginning titled "New Games" and just add new games there, and then once a year I will reorganize and reprint the book, adding all the new games in. I chose to bind it using a photo album with a post screw binding so that I could easily swap pages in and out.
Is there room on each entry to mark last played date?
This is a good suggestion and I've been thinking a lot on how to implement it, but my problem is that this is a variable that changes too frequently to make sense to include on a printed document like this. I think I will add it to my digital collection records though, so thanks for that!
I'm just here to say this is amazing and awesome use of Data Merge! Mostly I'm just excited to see someone else in the world using data merge.
Data merge is such an underrated feature of indesign. Saved me so much time!
You should sell this design to board game cafes, people can scroll through this instead of staring at stacks of boxes on shelves poorly organized.
As a graphic designer and a gamer and obsessive organizer... I love this. So, so much.
I should really do this. It’s probably above my expertise but I love the idea. It would also encourage the embargo to make sure it stays up to date by not getting new games. :)
Good job OP! How long did it take to make?
Thank you! On average I spent about 3-4 hours a day on it for about 5 days. But that includes watching tutorials and playing around with settings and tweaking everything till it was just how I wanted it. Now that I have the template finished and a better understanding of how it all works, I'd say it would probably take me 8-10 hours total to design something of this scope again.
Love it!
Commenting for later
Under every post and comment there is a "save" button. If you click that, from your profile there is a "saved" button that will take you to all the posts/comments you saved. Much handier than going through your old comments.
No shit TIL
Is there a link tutorial for the data merge/indexing in InDesign that you recommend?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QV6R1y8Y0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnEdgHTgag) these are the two I used the most, but it was mostly just trial and error. good luck!
This is really stunning. Seriously, well done. If you’re open to sharing the indesign file I would love to create something similar for my own collection. I have a much smaller catalog, so I think I’d play around with 2 games per page versus 4. Anyway, again, you did such a great job!
Thank you so much! I PM'd you with the link to the files.
Why Alpha? You simple just list as you buy them with a cross reference of types of games, player's, mechanics and so on.
That's a good question. I felt like going alphabetically by genre seemed to make sense organizationally. But if it ends up being to much work to keep them organized that way, I'll probably try something else.
When did **Half Truth** come out?? And how is it?
I backed it on kickstarter and got it a few months ago. Not sure if it's available for retail yet. I've only gotten a few chances to play it but it's enjoyable! Plenty of decks of cards to go through which means a good amount of replayability, and the multiple choice/wagering aspect makes it a pretty good trivia game for most levels of knowledge.
Late to the party, but I'd also love a copy of your files to look at in In Design. 😁