"Iron Clays" Kickstarter (2 Viewers)

[pkrchp]

I have been contacted by the owner of an 18xx board game company to make a set for board gamers.

He (Josh Starr, Grand Trunk Games) has hinted at this on Boardgamegeek as well. Discussion ensued.

Truly progressive edge spots would be nice.
Keep dirty stacks (of 1, 5, 20 and 100) in mind. They are very common in 18xx and other board games. (A tad slimmer edge spots?)
I don't dig the white ring, but I get its usefulness.
That said: I’d take 400 or 500 of these anyway

Please open a dedicated thread somewhere to discuss anything related to this project. It deserves its own place. A thread in your neck of the woods would draw a crowd and surely would help getting to 50k

18xx gamer here...they look very nice! Do they have labels or is the whole design printed on?

Apache's china clay chips so far were labeled. I don't see why these would be different.

 

[allforcharity]

I have been contacted by the owner of an 18xx board game company to make a set for board gamers. Here is early concept art that will be for 39mm chips. The company that contacted me needs to get 50,000 chips sold to make this happen.
View attachment 298235

Nice! Best of luck with this endeavor!

 

[joker80]

Man what's with all the 18XX influx all of a sudden? Haven't these board games been around for a long time?? Looks like a fun game, but looks like it would take a while to learn

 

[Amish Rabbi]

Man what's with all the 18XX influx all of a sudden? Haven't these board games been around for a long time?? Looks like a fun game, but looks like it would take a while to learn

The internet, and it is only in the last few years that more than 1-2 (out of a couple hundred) 18xx games were available without a couple years wait.

Now it is approaching 6 games available with “mass market” components and easily 50 available with hand made components with only a week or two wait

 

[Darson]

I read through that gaming chip link and it seems they have their own cantankerous OMC type! It appears that board gamers don't like the reference to poker or casino on many of the current chip offerings and there seems to be a hankering for a grey chip...

 

[joshyboy20k]

Wow so I officially borked my first PCF post trying to reply to this thread and created another thread that looks like a scam. Setting a new precedent for computer illiteracy. (I really have no idea how that happened...) https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...pache-majestic-poker-chips.43056/#post-802232

That said, it's still early and if people have feedback for the chip, now is the time. https://forms.gle/j3Fbu7aCb6LU6G8e6

 

[Amish Rabbi]

I read through that gaming chip link and it seems they have their own cantankerous OMC type! It appears that board gamers don't like the reference to poker or casino on many of the current chip offerings and there seems to be a hankering for a grey chip...

the not liking casino themes isn't surprising. I was sort of similar but then started actually looking at chips and the designs there are a lot of casino designs that are amazing and help tie the chips together

 

[Tommy]

Wow so I officially borked my first PCF post trying to reply to this thread and created another thread that looks like a scam. Setting a new precedent for computer illiteracy. (I really have no idea how that happened...) https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...pache-majestic-poker-chips.43056/#post-802232

That said, it's still early and if people have feedback for the chip, now is the time. https://forms.gle/j3Fbu7aCb6LU6G8e6

Welcome to PCF. If want to gauge interest, posting the thread in the GB forum was the correct place. Posting external links for data collection as a new member will get the same reaction no matter where its posted.

 

[kikashi]

the not liking casino themes isn't surprising. I was sort of similar but then started actually looking at chips and the designs there are a lot of casino designs that are amazing and help tie the chips together

Yup, similar here! I now actually think that the Iron Clays and the proposed Apache 18xx sets are rather bland.

 

[Amish Rabbi]

Yup, similar here! I now actually think that the Iron Clays and the proposed Apache 18xx sets are rather bland.

Exactly what I told my friend about them lol. So I’m still plugging away at my custom sets

 

[witlessdiviner]

and there seems to be a hankering for a grey chip...

Yeah the insistence that grey is the correct color for 20$s and the chips shouldn’t have inlays drives me up the wall the most about that thread.

 

[pkrchp]

Yeah the insistence that grey is the correct color for 20$s and the chips shouldn’t have inlays drives me up the wall the most about that thread.

Just don't judge all boardgamers/18xx-players by the loud ones (in there) and especially not by clearclaw. He's pretty opinionated which has good and negative sides, but his particular view on inlays/labels is definitely not shared by the majority. From my experience most do actually prefer rather bland inlays with clearly visible denominations and no casino symbols at all. Using more or less original casino tokens in some medieval setting would be a game-breaker for them. That's the reason behind Iron Clays' success even though their handling is not up to snuff.
So what's the best option if you'd prefer the handling of chips but the design of shiny metal coins for immersion? I don't know, but it's the reason for rather bland chips. I'd prefer to find a middle ground, too. I just don't know where …

 

[kikashi]

Agree about the mismatch between casino-themed tokens and boardgames. But they don't necessarily have to be as bland as the iron clays or proposed apache stuff.

The 18xx set posted earlier was an example of something more exciting (to me), but perhaps too game specific. A lot of games involve cubes or meeples. So a design like this one could be more generic and at the same time more exciting and easier to recognize the denominations at a glance:

 

[witlessdiviner]

That’s a little much for me. I think if apache sold a 20$ elite chip those would work quite nicely for 18xx. My board game 100 count of elites has gone over quite nicely. But everyone likes the jacks more.

 

[Richard D]

I didn’t get clearclaw's insistence on grey as 20s either. However, I built a set of Apache Majestics for board games and relabelled some yellows as 20s, and quickly realised that in some settings, the white 1s and the yellow 20s could be confused at a distance (especially in a mixed stack). I swapped out the yellows for blues (and relabelled the yellows as 1s for use in another, smaller set).

 

[Amish Rabbi]

I didn’t get clearclaw's insistence on grey as 20s either. However, I built a set of Apache Majestics for board games and relabelled some yellows as 20s, and quickly realised that in some settings, the white 1s and the yellow 20s could be confused at a distance (especially in a mixed stack). I swapped out the yellows for blues (and relabelled the yellows as 1s for use in another, smaller set).

Blue or yellow works but depends on the specific set, my cheap chips I went yellow because blue 20s blended with the purple 500s and the yellow doesn’t blend with anything.

Grey 20 is just a no go for me period

 

[Breich]

I have been contacted by the owner of an 18xx board game company to make a set for board gamers. Here is early concept art that will be for 39mm chips. The company that contacted me needs to get 50,000 chips sold to make this happen.
View attachment 298235

This is pretty awesome. I'm a heavy 18xx gamer and we've been using all of my sets to facilitate playing. I've got at least one or two people in my group that would be interested in some sort of group buy.

 

[StormCrow]

I didn’t get clearclaw's insistence on grey as 20s either. However, I built a set of Apache Majestics for board games and relabelled some yellows as 20s, and quickly realised that in some settings, the white 1s and the yellow 20s could be confused at a distance (especially in a mixed stack). I swapped out the yellows for blues (and relabelled the yellows as 1s for use in another, smaller set).

I went the opposite direction and designed my set with the yellow $20 but used blue for the $1 rather than white.

 

[bachismyhero]

Also just wanted to reply here to indicate my potential interest in the prospective Apache 18xx set that may be forthcoming. I am cautiously optimistic about some of the original design prototype work shown above in this thread.

 

[JCL]

Yeah the insistence that grey is the correct color for 20$s and the chips shouldn’t have inlays drives me up the wall the most about that thread.

Outside of any question of denominations, inlays consistently make chips more slippery.

 

[JCL]

I didn’t get clearclaw's insistence on grey as 20s either.

Just tradition and the common value of standards. Most of my players (then, not now -- group composition changed), were already long since habituated to gray $20s and we had a rapidly accreting set of players and game groups in other areas also habituated to gray $20s and thus there was (and is) considerable value in attempting to cement a common standard.

More broadly I have 3 basic metrics for poker chips:

- Easily distinguished from each other (good colour separation)
- Easily handled (consistent sizing, not slippery)
- Easily counted (constant thickness, good edgespots)

As that's basically what we do with them: we move them about and we count them. Standards for colours, like white for 1s and red for 5s, improve rapid, easy, no-conscious-attention-required countability. Labels or inlays consistently make chips more slippery and if denominated, for me and a few others also make them much harder and slower to count.

 

[BGinGA]

Inlays do not make chips slippery. Material composition and the resulting surface tension are much more important variables.

And grey is not a standard color for $20 denominations anywhere in the poker chip world.

 

[tulkas]

Definitely not a standard but there are a few gray 20s (yellow had 284).

 

[JCL]

Take your choice of chip available in labeled and unlabeled forms and actually test them. While I agree that materials are foundational, the correlation between labels or inlays and increased slipperiness is 1:1 in my tests (I'm just over a half-dozen chip-types in now). In my tests the chips without labels are consistently less slippery than the same chips with labels. I'll happily agree that this is not necessarily true, but I've yet to find an exception in practice.

I use poker chips for money in 18xx boardgames and as such am exclusively concerned with the expectations of that player base -- which at the time around me and within the population I talked with (admittedly mostly coming from the EU), was predominantly used to grays for $20s. As for gray not being standard in the poker chip world? I love standards -- there are so many of them! But more broadly, I don't play poker, my players don't play poker, the chips are and will never be used for poker. And my players were consistently used to gray for 20...and that won.

My interest in in poker chips as easily manipulable/countable/etc valuta for the 18xx and like games. If they handle, count or differentiate more easily, then they're good by me. I'm not interested in chip riffles or prettiness or sound or hand-feel or casino-like appearance or behaviour, just how easy they are to casually grab, pass, and move about in precise quantities; how distinctly different the chips appear from each other in typical (poor) lighting conditions (differentiation of generally just 5 denominations); and how trivially easy it is to assess the exact total value of a handful of piles of chips across the table at a glance (really shouldn't take more time than a blink). And that's really all of my concerns: see, handle, count.

 

[BGinGA]

Was merely using *your* terminology:

Just tradition and the common value of standards.

I have 3 basic metrics for poker chips

Dunno where you're getting grey $20 denomination chips as a 'standard' color, as most $20 chips are either black (California) or yellow (pretty much everywhere else). Are there exceptions? Sure, but no other color is used anywhere near as often as those two. Gaming tokens issued with board games may differ, but when it comes to poker chips, the two standards for 20 denominatons are yellow and black.

Take your choice of chip available in labeled and unlabeled forms and actually test them. While I agree that materials are foundational, the correlation between labels or inlays and increased slipperiness is 1:1 in my tests (I'm just over a half-dozen chip-types in now). In my tests the chips without labels are consistently less slippery than the same chips with labels. I'll happily agree that this is not necessarily true, but I've yet to find an exception in practice.

I've done quite a few diffetent chip tests over a very long time, and on almost every conceivable type of chip. This isn't my first rodeo.

I think your tests are flawed. For starters, there is a huge difference between chips with inlays, and chips with adhesive labels. And done properly, neither type should have any effect on the slipperiness of the final product whatsover, since there should be no contact between the inlays/labels of adjacent chips (being recessed), only contact between the chip materials.

On the other hand, if you are merely slapping on stickers to otherwise flat chips and then comparing them to one another, then of course most (but not all) labeled chips will be slicker -- unless the sticker material has more friction than the base material type being tested (very possible, given the inherent slickness of many plastics and the wide variety of differing label materials and textures available ).

But your blanket claim that adding inlays (or even labels) to chips makes them slippery is patently false.

 

[JCL]

Dunno where you're getting grey $20 denomination chips as a 'standard' color...

At this remove of years, neither do I. My general recollection is that I asked my players, they said "gray" and I checked online and found some support for that but I don't recall what it was. Possibly things like (checking quickly now):

https://www.quora.com/What-denomination-is-each-color-chip-in-poker

But I don't know -- it was over ten years ago now. And...I then found supplies of gray chips, thus completing the circle. Meanwhile gray makes a relatively nice colour for 20s, easily distinguishable from the other standard colours, unlikely to be confused by edgespots and (generally) of a relatively consistent level of visual dullness given the typical white/red/black/purple for the other main denominations (1/5/(20)/100/500).

...as most $20 chips are either black (California) or yellow (pretty much everywhere else).

Is that "pretty much everywhere else" US-centric? The players that advocated gray here had (mostly) recently moved from the EU (Switzerland, Germany, etc).

I think your tests are flawed. For starters, there is a huge difference between chips with inlays, and chips with adhesive labels. And done properly, neither type should have any effect on the slipperiness of the final product whatsover, since there should be no contact between the inlays/labels of adjacent chips (being recessed), only contact between the chip materials.

No disagreement as to what should be, but disagreement on what I'm finding in practice. For instance Apache Majestics as stickered direct from Apache are significantly more slippery than unlabeled Apache Majestics. Same for Milanos and PGIs (thought from different sources of course). Same again for ASM CSQs with inlays as versus blanks with no inlays. Same yet again for ASM Key West with inlays versus no-inlay blanks. Same again for A and H molds. Also FWLIW for what look like hot-stamped top-hat-and-cane Paulsons versus inlaid Paulsons on the same mold (but I have no idea what chips they are in practice). Etc. In every case using a simple test of a board, a chip stuck down with double-sided tape, a stack of chips atop and then tilting the board, the sticker or inlay chips slide first almost every time, and not by a small margin.

On the other hand, if you are merely slapping on stickers to otherwise flat chips...

I'm the one that wants no stickers and no denominations, remember? I'm not about to go sticker things.

Mostly I'm pretty unsatisfied with what I'm currently finding on market for poker chips. PGIs were are pretty good in terms of high friction (but I'd really like something much more hockey-puck-rubbery-sticky/high-friction), not polishing when left in the car boot for several years (Milanos), not brittle (ceramics, ASMs), a reasonable weight (all the ABS metal slug crap), not (so) thermally sensitive (some ASMs left leaning in a hot car almost curled), and not as generally prone to wear as Paulsons seem to be (that buttery/chalky feel that people seem to like so much is something I specifically want to avoid -- too slippery). Something between a rubbery hock-puck and dry unglazed stoneware...sounds pretty good.

But your blanket claim that adding inlays (or even labels) to chips makes them slippery is patently false.

I guess I'll have to do another video.

 

[Poker Zombie]

Quora - and most other crowd-sourced information sources are frequently wrong. One person claiming that the $2 chip is yellow and the $20 is grey is just one person, with no reputation to worry about.

A chip fanatic board on the other hand, an incorrect statement will generate opposition. Love him or hate him, BG is rarely factually wrong. It is his reputation. Sure, you can find non-standard colors as many jurisdictions adhere to no legal "standard", but the most common colors are yellow $20s (unless in California).

No disagreement as to what should be, but disagreement on what I'm finding in practice. For instance Apache Majestics as stickered direct from Apache are significantly more slippery than unlabeled Apache Majestics. Same for Milanos and PGIs (thought from different sources of course). Same again for ASM CSQs with inlays as versus blanks with no inlays. Same yet again for ASM Key West with inlays versus no-inlay blanks. Same again for A and H molds. Also FWLIW for what look like hot-stamped top-hat-and-cane Paulsons versus inlaid Paulsons on the same mold (but I have no idea what chips they are in practice). Etc. In every case using a simple test of a board, a chip stuck down with double-sided tape, a stack of chips atop and then tilting the board, the sticker or inlay chips slide first almost every time, and not by a small margin.

There should be no reason a Majestic with a label is any different than an unlabeled one. The labels never make contact. Label or not, there is zero friction when the 2 surfaces never touch.

Chips without a recess for an inlay will have less friction than a chip with an identical composition and no recess for an inlay (such as a hotstamp). But then those two really cannot be considered similar chips for comparisons.

But since you should never add a label to a hot stamped chip, the comment that "adding a label makes it slippery" is just misleading. Labels should never touch each other in stacks.

 

[BGinGA]

Is that "pretty much everywhere else" US-centric? The players that advocated gray here had (mostly) recently moved from the EU (Switzerland, Germany, etc).

World-wide, in regards to yellow being the most commonly used color. But if considering Europe only, then the most common 20 denom is red/pink/orange, followed by yellow. A grey 20 is almost unheard-of there (less than 1% of all documented 20 denom chips in Europe).

 

[JCL]

Quora - and most other crowd-sourced information sources are frequently wrong. One person claiming that the $2 chip is yellow and the $20 is grey is just one person, with no reputation to worry about.

Sure. I have no idea if that's the reference I found back then, just something I found on my first search now.

There should be no reason a Majestic with a label is any different than an unlabeled one. The labels never make contact. Label or not, there is zero friction when the 2 surfaces never touch.

Sure, but E pur si muove.

But since you should never add a label to a hot stamped chip, the comment that "adding a label makes it slippery" is just misleading. Labels should never touch each other in stacks.

And yet...

More directly, the ASMs here don't have a recess, do have inlays, and are experimentally more slippery when they have an inlay than when not. They do not appear to subscribe to whatever assumed propriety. Possibly side effects of the inlay application process change the surface material behaviour? I don't know, but more slippery they sure are.

 

[JCL]

World-wide, in regards to yellow being the most commonly used color. But if considering Europe only, then the most common 20 denom is red/pink/orange, followed by yellow. A grey 20 is almost unheard-of there (less than 1% of all documented 20 denom chips in Europe).

Curious. I'll have to ask them where they habituated.