The Official Good Ideas Thread™
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@HardwareGeek ???
I am surprised that you do not order your books by size.
That's the only true method.
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@BernieTheBernie We were told that size doesn't matter, it's how you use it, or some such shit
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@Applied-Mediocrity use? We're talking about books and board games.
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@Gustav said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
@Applied-Mediocrity use? We're talking about books and board games.
Some people like their forts made out of Duplo.
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@TimeBandit said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
And when the wolves attack your camp, time for the meeting to end!
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@izzion said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
And when the wolves attack your camp, time to push the manager at the wolves and for the meeting to end!
FTFY
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
Books at least are conventionally stored upright and not stacked vertically,
You can store game boxes in the same way as books. You just need to secure the lid with a strap first.
No, the inside of the box won't stay organized. But most games don't need them to.
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@acrow a rubber band works as well, you don't need a (more expensive) strap. And in many cases, the box lid is snug enough that you don't even need that.
But, as to the OP's point, even stored upright, there is so much variance in boxes' sizes that you almost always end up with weird stacking patterns. Unless you've got a large-enough collection of games that you can first pre-sort them by (rough) box size, but at that point the space needed to store the whole collection is probably more of an issue than the stacking itself.
Related, some boxes are also annoyingly full of empty (or sometimes a plastic shell that amounts to the same). Sometimes it's because the box size is dictated by the largest element (usually the board) but I suspect in some cases it's purely to make a game appear larger (and thus worth more money?). Some people accept to repack things in smaller boxes (or store several (related) games together) and throw away some of the boxes, but most people don't like to do that -- which is a weird psychological thing since the box itself is (usually) completely useless and the game just as fun if you only have the components, and yet people will keep the box even when complaining it's annoying to do so.
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@remi said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
box itself is (usually) completely useless
A good game box has some features that can be difficult to get with improvised boxes:
- It has separate compartments for the various components / kinds of cards / tokens / etc so that you can easily find stuff and don't have to sort through everything every time you set up the game.
- These compartments are held shut by the lid of the box (or sometimes the game board) so that you can turn the box around (and store it upright!) without messing up everything.
You can possibly get these features by packing everything in zip-lock bags or something, but that's usually way less convenient to use.
Of course, not all game boxes are good.
FIled under: Beware the chaotic evil game box!
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@remi said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
@acrow a rubber band works as well, you don't need a (more expensive) strap.
If it's a stiff, flat rubber band of approximately the right initial length, then sure. Normal office rubber bands don't hold boxes closed tightly enough. It only takes a few millimeters of leeway to ruin your day. And if it's stiff but not flat, then it'll dig into the box. ...In practice, it's hard to find rubber bands that work for this. Especially since every box is a different size.
No, I don't have that many board games. But I've had to figure out (and try) to hold other kinds of boxes shut. In the end, the straps were the only thing that worked nearly universally. You don't even need to use expensive ones. Military surplus ones from your nearest shop will work just as well. As does, with some reservations, Velcro (tm).
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@acrow my brother has a large collection of board games and he has some source of good quality rubber bands that work perfectly. They aren't flat, either. They're longer than the usual office supplies (though he has several sizes, some are smaller), and also sturdier, but they are neither significantly more expensive, nor exceptionally difficult to find, he just knows which brand to buy. I do have a handful of them that he gave me at various points, just because he has tons of them (he buys it by bags of 100 or more).
So OK, it's not quite a "normal office rubber band" but it isn't "artisan hand crafted by a monk in the Himalayas from vegan organic hevea trees harvested during a full moon with a 6 months order delay" either.
Basically, just buy long not shitty rubber bands and you'll be fine.
@ixvedeusi said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
A good game box has some features that can be difficult to get with improvised boxes:
Sure, but aside from the fact that few boxes are "good," many games don't have that many components that it's such a hassle to spend 2 min manually sorting them at the beginning of a game (if they're all mixed together).
So if you "only" threw out bad game boxes, and boxes for games that don't have that many components, you'd still be throwing out the vast majority of boxes (not all boxes are ridiculously over-sized though, so for many there wouldn't be a point in throwing them away...).
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@remi A question that now came to mind: If the boxes are useless, then why do Steam (and presumably other video game launchers) show you a list of package covers by default? Used to be that Steam only gave your full list of games as a textual list. But then added an array of box cover images.
Could it be that we have to sell the games to ourselves again and again to justify the time spent on them?
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Wait, are we talking video game boxes or board game boxes???
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@Arantor said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
Wait, are we talking video game boxes or board game boxes???
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@Arantor do video games still come in physical boxes?
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@remi Yes, they do. And despite this random image of a supermarket shelf having mostly console games in view, PC games are also there. Or were when I last went to see, a couple of months ago.
What is actually inside the PC game box, I do not know. Probably a code for redeeming the game off some service or other.
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@remi said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
@Arantor do video games still come in physical boxes?
Limited Run Games produces old school big boxes, none of this DVD case crap. But also I still have some of my DOS era big boxes.
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@Arantor said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
But also I still have some of my DOS era big boxes.
Same here. I probably even have a couple of boxes with floppies inside (not 5 1/4, I may be -old but not (yet) -old).
I don't have any working floppy drive anywhere in the house (though... there may be one on an old box from my wife's childhood that's buried at the back of a cupboard, but I have no idea if the machine still works, let alone the floppy drive), and even if I had it is somewhat unlikely the floppies would still work. But I still have them.
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Still have a working 3.5" floppy drive. I have a 5.25" drive in my closet, that hasn't seen the light of day in 2 decades, should still work but . Not sure that I have any 5.25" floppies left to even test it out, still have a box of 3.5" floppies in the closet though. Some probably still have school projects on them.
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@Dragoon said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
Not sure that I have any 5.25" floppies left to even test it out
I have originals 5.25" floppies of Windows 2, somewhere.
Yes, I also have a
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@TimeBandit and an old enough computer where to test if the disks are still usable?
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
Books at least are conventionally stored upright and not stacked vertically,
But then, I'm not conventional...
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@BernieTheBernie I must have a 5.25" floppy drive somewhere
As for a place to plug it,
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@TimeBandit said in The Official Good Ideas Thread™:
@BernieTheBernie I must have a 5.25" floppy drive somewhere
As for a place to plug it,