We recently expanded our Mansions of Madness Second Edition collection to include all in-print expansions^[1]. Mansions of Madness is an app-driven cooperative board game set in the Cthulhu Mythos where the investigators (players) explore an expanding map, collect clues and battle minions of the Great Old Ones. The app takes on the “Keeper” (dungeon master) role from the first edition of the game and is responsible for revealing the map, triggering events, and tracking monsters.

With all the (available) expansions there is a huge amount of content in Mansions of Madness both electronically (in the form of scenarios) and physically.

Before getting the expansions our solution for organising the components was lots of zip-lock bags and cramming everything into the original box. With the extra components this became unwieldy making setup and packing up the game a chore. Luckily I had recently received an Elegoo Phecda 20w laser cutter that I’d backed on Kickstarter which could be used to create a proper storage solution.

The monsters in Mansions of Madness have both miniatures and a cardboard token that slots into the base of the relevant miniature. With a bit of experimentation I found that all the expansions will in the base game box if you leave out the miniatures. This means everything needed to play the game (apart from a table or phone) can be packed into a single box.

The first step was to create an inner box to reinforce the original game box. While not needed to organise the game I felt that this would prolong the life of the box as it was not designed for the extra weight of the expansions. After taking some measurements of the box it was easy to design the box in Fusion 360 and add finger joints using a plugin.

With the box designed it the next step was to create sketches of each piece and export them in DXF format. These DXFs could be then imported into LightBurn and cut out of 3mm MDF on the laser cutter. Finally, a quick sanding of the edges to clean them up, application of PVA wood glue and the box insert was complete.

The first organiser to be designed was a pair of holders for the eight decks of cards used in Mansions of Madness. Cards in many of these decks are referenced by name in the companion app so there is a need to keep them in alphabetical order and make it easy to search for cards. This led to a vertical design with finger slots to easily pull the whole deck out without spilling the other cards.

Before making the full deck holders I prototyped a single deck holder to ensure the design worked out, this led to a tweak to the final design to make the finger slots longer to make it easier to get the decks out. With the design finalised, two deck boxed could be cut, assembled and filled with decks.

The two deck holders fit snugly next to the game boards and leave a space for two small trays for tokens. These trays have lids to reduce the chances of tokens spilling if the box is up-ended. In the photo you can also see the blue painters tape used during dry assembly to hold the box together.

Packing the box with the game tiles, deck holders and small token boxes takes up about two-thirds of the available height leaving plenty of space for the remaining components.

In the next part we will look at building storage for the remaining game components (remaining tokens, investigator miniatures and monster tokens).