Ink Board Game Components Overview and Impressions
When I first saw Ink through a local board game store email flyer, I was pretty intrigued. My wife absolutely loves a tile laying game, and also enjoys puzzle games as well – this seemed to be a combination of the two. What drew me in was the game’s components, specifically the little plastic ink bottles in each player colour. It takes more than shinny things to make me happy, though, but they sure don’t hurt!
I cannot stand when board game publishers use cheap cardboard components and I’m so glad to say that is not the case here. Ink has nice and thick cardboard tiles which I think is actually really important. Tiles will be placed into a large central bag and throughout the game players will be reaching into the bag to refill the central area. If you aren’t using plastic or acrylic pieces (which you wouldn’t use here) the cardboard quality must be top notch as to not bend or scuff when smashing up with other tiles in the bag. That definitely is not the case here.
The included bags are quite nice as well. I always enjoy a storage bag that has some artwork or iconography on the outside, and both of the included bags have that. I also love when the inside stitch is nice and clean with no fraying ends. These bags look like they will hold up for a very long time.
The highlight of this production is going to be the coloured ink bottles. Each has a player coloured bottom and a little grey lid. And although it doesn’t matter, they stack nicely too which makes them great fidget toys between turns! Everything about Ink is really nice, but it is the ink bottles that makes the game pop on the table and gets people to stop and stare.
The only thing I’m unimpressed with here is the box insert. I’ve said it before and I will say it again – I’d rather have no insert than one that is just a canal running down the center of the box with raised sides to hold player boards. Like with other games, there just doesn’t seem like enough space to comfortably put all the pieces back into the box with this insert, so before we even got it tabled for the first time, that insert went straight into the recycling bin.
Overall, we are really impressed with this production. While the design team could have easily used cardboard tokens for the various coloured ink bottles, I’m glad they went with these 3D plastic pieces – they are outstanding!
Article By Adam
