Tower Rex – Spirit Island Board Game Organizer Assembly & Review February 6, 2023

Posted by Jason Bergunder in board game, Do-it-yourself, Etsy, Laser Cutter, Other, Review, Tutorial.
Tags: assembly, board game, diy, do it yourself, Etsy, game, insert, kit, laser cut, mdf, miniature, organizer, Review, spirit island, tutorial, wood
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Last year, I discovered the board game Spirit Island that was released in 2017. In Summer 2022, an expansion was then successfully funded on Kickstarter, after which I saw a review of the base game and was instantly intrigued. After playing several games on Tabletop Simulator, I eventually got a physical copy for a Christmas gift and happily played some games.

I found I wanted an insert organizer to arrange all the tokens and minis that come with the game and found one on Etsy, by Tower Rex. It comes as laser cut MDF board with pieces that could pop out. The assembly instructions link didn’t work, but I found it to be really easy to follow just by looking at the pictures on the store page, but there are some notes to consider if you want to try it yourself.

This is the finished components with all the pieces in them. They can largely be dry fit together and will hold. The keyed bits are cut in such a way that they act as springs when fitted together and can be pressure fit instead of glued. I still did end up using PVA glue to reinforce the build.

Assembly

I first separated the pieces to what I roughly thought would be needed for each component.

Card Organizer

The first box I assembled was the card organizer. The base of this box has a hole in it to easily push up and get at any fallen cards and sides with slits to fit the dividers.

Fully assembled, I glued the sides, but not the dividers, so I can customize my card layout.

Component Organizers

These boxes have different sizes to keep track of. This first 4-component tray has both wave and straight edge sides. Be aware, the wavy sides have a divider slot that is slightly further away from the end than the other side’s slot, it is not symmetrical. This is to give the City minis lot slightly more room than the other lots.

The side with the huts on this tray will need more room than the side of the tray to hold the coin energies to be able to properly hold both game components.

Be aware of these next component trays. They are very similar in size, but the narrow ends of the engraved tray are in fact, slightly smaller than the ends of the two blank trays. Therefore, the dividers from on the blank trays and this engraved tray are also different. I needed to do a double take on those.

Complete

All the finished pieces do insert nice and tight in the box the game came in. One of the blank trays sits empty underneath the player token tray that would hold more tokens from the expansion. Then, on top of the token and mini trays you can fit in the Player boards, island board, scenario cards, the instructions, and maps. The lid fits smoothly on with everything already organized for my next play session.

Review

This was an easy kit to put together. I just needed to pop up the pieces and carefully consider which piece of each tray should be put together. Unfortunately, at the time I was putting it together, the link for the assembly instructions did not work, but that did not deter me. The faces of the boards the pieces came on and the faces of the pieces themselves did not have burn marks from the laser cutting process, which I appreciate. My hands also do not have charcoal dust so it was cleaned before shipping (or at least was prepped before cutting to minimize the dust) and this is much appreciated.

I only have the base game, so there is still room to include the additional components if I also get the expansion. The plastic organizers that come with the box originally, don’t really fit everything properly and there weren’t enough spots to separate everything. They even didn’t even leave enough room to easily fit the lid on when done (because everything you have are in baggies and not loose taking up extra space)! This wood organizer insert changes that. The trays snuggly fit into the box in pretty much the above configuration. The city models do mostly need to be stood up to all fit properly though. Looking at it all fit together in the end gives me the warm fuzzies inside. You shouldn’t be flipping this around when transporting or you will get pieces everywhere, but if you can’t help it, you may want to consider keeping them in baggies for finding lids of some kind for the trays.

I would recommend this product.