That canvas bag on the left contains all the games on the right. Photo: Grumpy Owl Gamery
Back in July I wrote about a Kickstarter project for board gamers called The Keep: it was a plastic carrying case with modular chambers inside, designed to transport a lot of board games easily. The folks at Grumpy Owl Gamery had an ambitious plan — maybe a bit too ambitious. The expense of making injection molds for the big cases proved to be a bit too high, and it seemed a lot more people were interested in the smaller Magic Chambers than the big Keep itself. So they pulled the project early and took the feedback they were getting, and have relaunched this month with a redesigned version.
Magic Chamber with cards and bits from Arkham Horror. Photo: Grumpy Owl Gamery
The Magic Chambers still look the same: those are the small containers that are great for lots of cards, plus smaller bits and pieces. The Great Chamber, designed for holding flat boards, has been changed from a large plastic case to a padded fabric portfolio, with large flat pockets on one side and small mesh pockets on the other. And the biggest change is to The Keep itself: instead of a molded plastic case, it is now a canvas messenger-style bag. The Keep can hold up to 10 Magic Chambers or 4 Great Chambers, or some combination of the two.
A Great Chamber holding all the pieces for Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride Europe, and Puerto Rico. Photo: Grumpy Owl Gamery
The rebooted Kickstarter has a lot more flexibility for reward levels. You can now pledge for as little as a single Magic Chamber or Great Chamber, and you can add on as many of the different components as you’d like. If you kick in for The Keep, the default is one two Great Chambers and five Magic Chambers (with five Bit Pits and 150 dividers), but you can also customize that to some extent. You can even get the “Dominator” package which will come with preprinted labels for Dominion and all its current expansions.
Their total goal is a third of the original, though it’ll still be a challenge to raise. Do-it-yourself options can be cheaper, of course, but it may also be nice to have something that’s actually sized properly for games. If it’s successful, Grumpy Owl Gamery plans to create a backpack-style case and a rolling hard carry case in the future.
For more info, check out the Kickstarter page.
