I make organizers for board games I don't get around to playing. I print the inserts, upgrade the games, look at the results, and show them off. Sometimes I enjoy that more than playing the game.
An insert is the arrangement inside the box: the trays and compartments that give the cards, tokens, and other pieces somewhere to go. That sounds mundane until you enjoy making one. Then the game has supplied you with a second game, with its own pieces and constraints.
There is a box. There is a collection of objects that need to fit inside it. There are different ways to arrange them. You get to decide which arrangement is satisfying.
The puzzle doesn't end with a winner. It ends with something you can pick up.
What the printer adds
I like making these organizers with a 3D printer. The attraction includes the upgrade itself: taking a game and changing the physical experience of owning it. The game design stays where it is, while the thing surrounding it becomes a project I can work on.
To picture the choices, imagine a game with cards, a shared supply of tokens, and separate pieces for each player. This isn't a particular insert I've made; it's the sort of design problem that makes an insert interesting.
One arrangement could pack everything tightly into the smallest space. Another could give each player a tray ready to lift onto the table. A third might give the shared supply its own container so the organizer becomes part of playing.
Those are different answers. A tightly packed box might require unpacking several things to reach the one you want. A tray that works beautifully on the table might be awkward inside the box. An elaborate organizer might be more enjoyable to make than the simplest practical solution.
I like that there isn't one number that settles the design. You have to decide what you care about: the arrangement, the handling, the setup, the finished appearance, or some combination of them.
It is a small design problem with an unusually pleasant set of raw materials. Even the objects you are organizing already belong to something you were interested in.
Looking at it counts
I enjoy looking at the inserts afterward. I enjoy showing them off, too.
That is part of the activity. Making something gives me one kind of pleasure; being able to look at the finished result gives me another. I don't need to pretend the whole exercise was justified by how many seconds it might save during setup.
I wouldn't tell someone who paints miniatures that the painting only counts after the miniatures appear in a game. Organizers are less glamorous than painted dragons, but I think they deserve the same courtesy.
This also explains why an unplayed game isn't necessarily an untouched game. The play count can be zero while I've spent enjoyable time working with the object. That doesn't tell me whether the game is good. It tells me that playing wasn't the only thing I found in it.
The app idea that nearly missed the point
When I explored a collection app with an AI assistant, the original request sounded practical: identify games, connect them with BoardGameGeek, help me organize them, decide what to keep and what to let go.
Then I asked whether it would be fun. I had to explain that making and organizing were already part of the fun. A tool built around getting me to stop doing those things would misunderstand the hobby it was supposed to support.
That changed what interested me about the idea. A photograph of an insert and a note about the design could be more appealing than a dashboard of unplayed games. I would want a place to appreciate the work, not a score telling me the collection was only partly optimized.
The organizing question still exists. Enjoying an insert doesn't mean I must keep its game forever. But I can make that decision without retroactively declaring the time spent making it a waste.
For now, the app is an idea. The enjoyment is already there. I have a hobby where the storage solution can be the thing I wanted to make, and I am quite happy to admit it.