Colossal Arena: The Insert

Since I had played someone else's copy of Colossal Arena before buying it, I knew exactly what I was getting. But I didn't know until today that I would be setting out on a quest to solve the problems with the box/insert design.

There are two main issues with this game. One, the cards barely fit into the 3 compartments for them. In fact, you have to split the cards up in unnatural ways to do so. Two, there's a lot of space between the top of the insert and the top of the box. These two problems combined mean that if you ever carry the box on its side, all the cards are guaranteed to go everywhere. You can see both of these problems here:


The first step was to make a gizmo that fits over the cards. The pictured piece of cardboard is a rectangle about 3" x 13" with some cuts and folds:


You can see the gizmo in place here. The cardboard goes over both ends as well as between each section. This helps to keep it in place:


The flaps that stick up create a slight spring mechanism. A piece of foam core goes on top of it. If the box cover loosens a bit during travel, the spring of the cardboard will keep it snug over the cards. Voila:


I've got at least 2 more game insert problems to fix. More later.