Smash Up: The Big Geeky Box
For some time Smash Up fans have cried out, “Give us a better storage box! The cardboard awesome is overflowing from this incredibly well-designed and amazing game* your wonderful and generous company** created.”
And we heard you! This summer you’ll be able to buy The Big Geeky Box! This oversized box features three long trays for holding your Smash Up factions, as well as high quality dividers for sorting. It also comes with the really cool foam spacers that people loved in Thunderstone and Nightfall. Organization was never this hot!
Not only that, but the box comes with a bonus faction, the Geeks! Featuring Geek and Sundry, this deck will allow you to geek out like never before. Geek Dinosaurs, Geek Spies, you name it! Look for the box and the cards this fall.
* OK maybe we exaggerated that bit.
** And that bit too, but you get it.
NOTE: Requires the Smash Up base game for play. Not a standalone expansion.
User Reviews (6)
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The Shortness
If you enjoy Smash Up – it’s a box.
You need this.
(Bring on Jack the Downgrader!)
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The Mediumness
Replay Value: Once you put your cards in it – it will be a tabletop staple
Components: As boxy as boxes get. Length. Width. Depth. All accounted for! 5 Stars!
Easy to Learn: Slight learning curve on shrink wrap removal and getting the lid off. After a few dry runs – storage galore!
Family Gamer (YES):Young. Old. Who doesn’t love boxes!
Social Gamer (YES):Definitely a social centerpiece and object of discussion. Plus the lid holds nachos.
Strategy Gamer (YES):Do you put the Locations cards in front of the Factions? Behind? Should you sort alphabetically? By expansion? A real brain burner.
Casual Gamer (YES): Eh, it’s a box…why not? *indifferent shrug*
Avid Gamer (YES): You need it all! You need everything Smash Up! This is part of the addiction. And you can put everything you need into this slice of the everything you need.
Power Gamer (YES): This box means business. This box has gravitas. This box makes a resounding thump on the table that says prepare for an evening of meaning business and having gravitas.
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The Longness
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Cardboard Trough
How does one review a box? Well – I figured I would adopt the same tongue-in-cheek manner AEG has in regard to their glorious box. After all it did have its birthing pangs as a bit of Tabletop Day funness.
But if I can get serious for a moment.
As the household sorter for the various bits and chits of cardboard goodness that cross our threshold I wish I could post an open letter to Game Designers/Manufacturers and stick it dead center in the Town Square of the Cardboard Kingdom.
Dear Game Designers/Manufacturers,
Enough with these fancy air moulded plastic trays! (or whatever they are called. The Boy isn’t home right now to ask) Save your money!
xoxox,
Hai
P.S. Thank you for sharing your imagination with our tabletops! :):)
I hate those plastic trays. I’m glad our recycling truck takes them.
I can count on 10 fingers and a few toes a game box I open that still has a plastic tray in it. (Good job Pathfinder ACG!)
Most of the time they are in the blue bin before I am done punching cardboard and sorting decks. Yes – they keep things all nice and happy during shipping. No – they don’t do a lick of good once things are baggied and banded.
Other times they malinger until the first expansion and then become consolidation pointless. To the recycle bin – to be repurposed into future pointless plastic trays!
Some very nice ones I keep – to be Exacto’d ™ into a token holder or trough – once the name of the game box becomes empty space.
I don’t know how many Kickstarter updates I have received about the in’s and out’s and meticulous design paradigms of plastic trays.
I weep.
Heroes of Metro City the real arch-villain is your tray.
Smash Up was no exception to the Curse of the Plastic Tray from the get-go. Cards jumped the meticulously measured ridges. Throw it in the Game Night Game Bag or even stare at it too earnestly and you had a Schrodinger’s Box of odds on dead cats…ummm…cards upon opening. Smash Up became just that – smashed-up. The first ten minutes of gaming becoming Sort-Out.
Two expansions later the tray started getting jammy and yet the cards would still shift like the Chase Vault.
Bottom Line: If you are a card heavy game (especially a deck builder), there is no need to be fancy. Cardboard troughs and dividers. Pleeeeaaasse. Easy storage. (Dividers with snazzy art are always nice – I’m still looking at you Marvel Legendary GRRRRRR!)
The AEG Gang heard the wails and gnash of tooth upon tooth.
And now – there’s a box.
It’s a good box.
(Let’s see if @Jim and The BGdot Clubhouse will let me link a picture)
Big Geeky Box/Bad Geeky Picture
(Is it there? If not I will have to do some hefty post-review editing 😛 If it is – I referenced it against the old box. It is glorious! And there’s my beloved Gilly The Perky Goth. Hi! *GLEE*)
The Box It is indeed a good box. The trough walls are thick. The three troughs are plentiful. The base and 3 expansions leave about 70% of pristine empty space for more expansion goodness. It tantalizes. I dub it Excessivity Necessity!
(I shot the Alderac Boys a quick tweet about reskinning for Thunderstone, Nightfall, and Doomtown. They said the design has worked well for L5R and then repurposed for The Smash. “Definitely possible.” Well – that was vague, but promising.)
Foam Blocks There are six of them. They fit tight and support the cards. I have a box full of AEG foam blocks from Thunderstone. Always useful.
Dividers One word: WOW! Definitely not your standard ‘let’s just oversize some cards and call them dividers’. (And definitely definitely not let’s just throw some bland oversized cards in without even divider names. Maybe we’ll give out some stickers at a Con. I mean for a licensed comic product let’s really go out of the way to keep art variety down to a bare minimum. *long, hard stare at Legendary)
These dividers are wonderful! They aren’t even oversized cards. They are thick plastic like a credit card. You could open a lock Magnum P.I. style with these suckers! Who doesn’t want that in a divider???
Geek Faction/Locations Not the best, not the worst. It was a Tabletop Day gag after all. If you like the W-squared’s mug – you’ve got it. If you want to consume Felicia Day’s soul so you can become her *looks slyly* – you’ve got something to stare at to bring on the hoodoo. It is a pretty decent ‘Screw You’ deck when paired with a strong faction. Cards let you gain bonus VP, cancel other player’s actions and mess with their decks, stack your own deck, and even hijack someone else’s card/minion for a round.
Seriously?!?! A Nine??
Part of what I consider when musing over a game or expansion is: Does it do what it set out to do?
The Big Geeky Box is a box. It did exactly what it set out to do. Throw in some extremely swag dividers and a chaotic faction. I can offer no criticism.
The unspoken motto of The Smash is ‘Everything’s so broken that in the end it all works’ after all. 😉
Smash Up as a whole is a pretty solid 9 on my tabletop. I can’t say The Box is any different. My cards are now neat and happy and it will probably hit the table more because of it.
My only Con for The BGB is the price point. $20? *eep* A bit on the high side for some empty space. BUT when you are surfing that 30% Discount Web and looking for the one little thing to tip you into the $100 free shipping zone – it is the perfect pick-up. 😉
Thanks for The Box AEG!
Now….how about some randomizers?
Pretty please?
Problem(s):
You have the base set and at least 3 expansions for Smash Up. Now the base set no longer holds all of the cards and counters. So you either have multiple boxes or have somehow Jerry-rigged a set up in the original box.
Also, original design of base set box is not good for travel, the cards fly out of the trays and end up all over the place. Creating the weird circumstance where you need to un-smash your cards before smashing them back together.
Finally, while the cards have symbols to distinguish the factions, they can be hard to identify in the base set box. Especially if the cards are accidentally put away incorrectly.
Solution:
The Big Geeky Box. It solves all of those problems with a very sturdy box that is very well designed to store all of your cards (and more than enough room for future factions) in a secure way that also makes them easier to find. This box also includes a faction with 2 bases…
The Geeks
This group is pretty frustrating to play against, especially in 2 player. Their most powerful cards are designed to block other player’s actions, which can be devastating, since many strategies for decks can rely on specific actions being played or re-used. Aside from Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day their minions are fairly weak, their 2 power minion is designed to be discarded from your hand to draw a new card and their power 3 minion is not affected by other player’s abilities. I didn’t think I would like them, but they are fun.
For some reason, I can’t help but imagine a infomercial for the Big Geeky Box…
Abrupt sound of static followed by a studio audience applauding and cheesy music
Dynamic voice: Does this ever happen to you?
(Cut to: Black and white video of a man trying to open his base set of Smash-Up only to have the box turn into a volcano of cards, knocking the man to the floor in a sobbing heap as his wife runs off with another man.)
Dynamic voice: Or how about this?
(Cut to: A woman, disheveled and drenched in sweat, furiously trying to find a specific Smash-Up faction in her base set as smoke pours out of her oven.)
Dynamic voice: Say goodbye to the card-volcano with the new SMASH UP: BIG GEEKY BOX! The days of messed up cards, and not enough space are over. This box is specifically engineered to hold every current Smash-Up faction and up to 100 more factions! The secret is in how our “Box Scientists” included big FOAM BLOCKS! that help fill any open spaces to ensure a tight and secure fit for your factions.
But wait, there’s more! For $20, most people are more than happy to buy a box with foam blocks But we’ve included THICK, DURABLE DIVIDERS WITH AWESOME ART on each one to make finding your cards and separating them easy and fun! Future factions will be sold with their own dividers so that you can include them in this box.
But wait, there’s more!
Not only did we include the incredible dividers, but for free, we have generously included an extra faction: “The Geeks!” and 2 accompanying base cards which are both based off the Tabletop episode that featured Smash-Up.
Act now! Our operators are standing by!
**Side effects include: insomnia, smiling, chorophobia, and constant organizing**
This is a necessary thing to get if you plan on enjoying Smash Up. I thought it was going to be casual. NO. This game is so fun. Replay value is unbelievably high. SO many combinations to choose from. The world is big on BGG and Wiki. It is so fun to play random factions, choose factions, let opponents choose for you!
This Big Geeky Box is sturdy, easy to store everything, and has great art.
The dividers make it easy to sort however you would like to.
My only issue would be no storage for the counter (I just used a sandwich baggie), and all of my rules books are bent to fit in there. I guess I do not have to keep all of the rule books in there, but I like to have them for reference if anybody has questions.
I am so looking forward to getting the new expansion in the Fall!
Happy Smashing
The Big Geeky Box is just that. It has foam inserts and dividers to help sort out all your expansions into one box. Problem: That is all it does. There is one faction inside, so you can not play this as a game (hence the low replay value score, but the faction included is fun when played with another set). The components are sturdy and will last a while, but this is either overkill, or the company is planning on a lot more expansions. As of 9/12/15, I have all the expansions (faction cards, base cards, rules, victory points) in the box and am using maybe a third of the box.
The game is fun, but the Big Geeky Box is just a storage container for your game. You cannot play this without other games.
I hope this idea starts migrating to other card games. As if it wasn’t enough to geek out on the games themselves. Now we can geek out on organizing and storing those games!
This box keeps your cards safe and by itself provides “Replay Value” in the hours you can spend organizing things “just right”. The construction is quality and will last. As for the easy to learn, well, that is all part of this game which I intend to review in another field.
If you, dear reader, consider this review too short to be useful, I remind you that I’m reviewing a box.
This is not a game. It is not an expansion to a game. It is a bunch of storage space for a game.
It is fantastic.
There really isn’t much to say here, but i will say the little there is:
I did the math–took a ruler and measured out the space. The Big Geeky Box will hold the base Smash Up game and 25 expansions–24 expansions comfortably.
That’s right: 104 faction decks, plus Geeks, plus bases, plus madness. If Smash Up gets bigger than that, then we have a bigger problem than space to worry about.