It is 9 pm, your friends have arrived and the box is open in the middle of the table. And for twenty minutes, nobody plays: you sort tokens, hunt for the blue pawns and deal starting cards while rereading the rulebook. By the time the game finally begins, some of the excitement has already worn off.
Autumn brings game nights back, and the Essen fair kicks off a fresh wave of releases every year. It is the perfect time to fix this once and for all. Setup, meaning everything you have to lay out before the first turn, rarely gets shorter by doing it faster. It gets shorter by storing the game in the right order. Here is the method we recommend.
Why setup takes so long
In most boxes, components are stored by type: all the cards together, all the tokens together, all the pawns together. That makes sense when you close the box, but it is the opposite of what you need when you open it. At the start of a game, you are not looking for "the tokens", you are looking for each player's five starting tokens.
The original vacuum tray, the moulded plastic shell that ships with the game, does not help. It is designed so that everything fits in the box when it leaves the factory, not so that the game starts quickly. And as soon as it stops holding everything, zip bags take over and the sorting starts again every single game night.
The good news: most of the lost time can be won back when you pack away at the end of the game. Two extra minutes of smart packing save a quarter of an hour next time.
Step 1: watch a real setup
Before reorganising anything, run a complete setup, rulebook in hand, and note the order in which components come out of the box. Three phases will emerge.
Shared setup: the board, the main draw pile, the pool of resources everyone uses.
Handing out to players: pawns, meeples (the small wooden or plastic figures that represent the players), player boards, starting resources and cards.
In-game components: anything only used during play or at the end, such as score tokens, event cards or tiles that arrive as the turns go by.
This observation is the heart of the method. Everything else follows from it.
Step 2: store by phase, not by type
Once you have identified the three phases, reorganise the box so it follows them.
Shared components within easy reach
What goes on the table first should come out first. The board flat on top, the shared pool in the easiest compartments to reach. If some shared resources come in large quantities, one compartment per type saves you sorting them on the table.
One kit per player, ready to hand out
This is the biggest win. Rather than handing components out one by one, prepare a complete kit for each colour: pawns, starting tokens, player aid. At the start of the game, everyone grabs their own, and dealing takes ten seconds instead of five minutes. For this to work, the kit has to be rebuilt when you pack away, not the next time you unpack.
End-of-game components at the bottom
Anything only used for final scoring or in certain configurations can go underneath. You will only touch it when you need it, and it will not get in the way of setup.
Expansion components kept apart
If you sometimes play without an expansion, keep its components in a separate area. On the nights it stays on the shelf, there is nothing to remove. Our article on games with expansions explains how to fit everything into a single box.
Step 3: pack away for the next game
The golden rule fits in one sentence: you pack away the next game, not the one that just ended. In practice, before closing the box, rebuild the player kits, set the starting cards aside and reshuffle the draw pile if the rules allow it. The box is then ready to go on the table and start right away.
A golden rule only gets followed if it is easy to apply. That is where the layout of the box matters: when every kit and every pool has an obvious place, good packing almost takes care of itself.
Moving to a custom insert
Zip bags and spare boxes help in a pinch, but they slide around, get mixed up and eventually no longer fit under the lid. An insert, meaning an interior layout made of compartments sized to your components, locks your phase-by-phase organisation into the box itself.
Off-the-shelf inserts only exist for a handful of popular games, and they follow a standard layout, not yours. Our storage insert configurator starts from your setup instead. The process has three steps: measure the box, place the compartments, send it to production.
A few pointers to turn your method into a plan:
- Measure the usable height under the lid's rim, minus the thickness of the board and rulebooks stored on top of the insert.
- Draw one compartment per player kit, all the same size, so everyone finds theirs at a glance. Compartments can be dragged with the mouse or sized to the millimetre.
- Put the shared pool in the centre and in-game components wherever they get in the way least.
- Set the wall thickness, from 2 to 8 mm: thin to save space when the box is full, thicker for a more rigid insert.
An insert can be printed up to 310 × 310 mm in a single piece, 3D printed in our workshop in France, in the material and colour of your choice. A colour that contrasts with the inside of the box also helps you spot each compartment instantly.
Frequently asked questions
How much time can you really save?
It depends on the game and its components. But the principle never changes: anything sorted when you pack away no longer needs sorting at setup. On a game with plenty of tokens and per-player components, you will notice the difference from the very first evening.
My game has few components, is an insert worth it?
Often less so. The phase method is still useful, but if everything already fits neatly in the vacuum tray, an insert is not essential. It becomes valuable as soon as zip bags start piling up.
How much does an insert cost?
The price is calculated directly by the configurator once your compartments are placed on the plan of your box.
Start playing sooner
Have you watched your setup and identified your phases? Head to the storage insert configurator to turn your organisation into compartments and get your price.
To discover the configurator step by step, our introduction to the custom storage insert explains how it works. And if you have already modelled your own game accessory, our on-demand 3D printing service makes it from your file.