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Over the years, there have been a few solutions produced to try and keep your play area tidy and organised, either using 3D printing or bespoke laser-cut trays that are made to fit components on a game by game basis.
On the 15th of August, Steve Green from Fat Cat Gaming launched his Kickstarter for Omnitray: The Modular Board Game & Tabletop Player Organiser after a short run had been sold through his web store to test demand for the product.
30 minutes later, the Kickstarter was funded, and now two weeks on, the campaign is sitting at 1260% funded with 6 days to go!
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| Everything that was included with the original Omnitray package |
The Omnitray was designed with several popular games in mind, and comes complete with a standard “Hero” module, which take the large cards used in games like Talisman, Descent, Imperial Assault and many more.
There are two further modules that fit inside the Hero module, that take Tarot cards, like those from Mansions of Madness and Elder Sign, and Standard cards which are used in the Arkham Horror Living Card Game, Arcadia Quest and Ticket to Ride.
Several types of insert have been made to take various game contents and cards, with 1.5mm slots for cards, 2mm and 3mm slots for tokens, 16mm round for cones and 16mm square for dice. There was even a 16mm and 13mm round module made especially made for Talisman for its attribute cones.
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| Latest iteration of Omnitray with revised back plate, rivets and thumb notches | |||
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| 8mm Cube Upgrade | Standard Card Insert Upgrade | “Long” Insert Upgrades | |
Over the course of the Kickstarter, Steve has been very receptive to feedback and suggestions for the Omnitray, which has resulted in a few upgrades being made to the design along with some extras that have been included as Stretch Goals.
The back plate is now made from poplar wood, 8mm cube inserts have been added as standard for euro-gamers, the “long” inserts that featured in the Tarot and Standard modules have been standardised and various new combinations have been added to take more tokens, and even a slider!
There have been some add-ons added to the campaign, with whiteboards being made available for those that want to keep track of points and inventory items with dry wipe pens.
He’s even trying to work out a last minute add-on for Zombicide as I type this!
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| Standard Talisman character | Standard Talisman character flipped 180 degrees | ||
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| Talisman character using dice for attributes | Relic character showing the need for a slider |
Of course, the first thing I did when I got hold of the Omnitray was try out a number of loadouts for Talisman, including my preferred method of using dice instead of cones for recording attributes. The dice inserts are made for 16mm dice, but of course 12mm dice will fit just fine!
As you can see, it all fits in rather well, and I had the thought of flipping the Omnitray in order to give easier access to the cones or dice. You can see that fate tokens are arranged so you can separate dark and light fate when playing with the rules from The Woodland expansion.
It was clear that the Relic character sheet would require a bit of work, seeing as a slider of some sort is needed for the level progression, and the latest iteration of the Omnitray has just what is needed using the new Standard insert and a slider.
Of course, Nemesis cards from Relic are portrait instead of landscape and this causes a number of problems with the orientation of the tokens etc, but I have come up with a solution for this below!
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| The 5 Nemeses from the Nemesis and Halls of Terra expansions for Relic | |||
It took a little bit of doing, but I managed to cobble together a template to use that looked relatively “chaotic” without going over the top and the cards will slot right into the Omnitray and can be used in the same way as character sheets.
The good news is that you can use a d12 in the 16mm square inserts, and I’m hoping that a d24 will fit too, so that I can keep track of Infamy. *Note, a d25 is not needed because as soon as you hit 25 Infamy, you win the game!
You can download 300dpi versions of the updated Nemesis cards in a zip file at the bottom of the page.
So, in closing I would say that you are likely to get a lot of use out of an Omnitray with all of its inserts and modules, even if you only own the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman. If that is the case, you will be quids in if your gaming collection starts to grow!
Give the Kickstarter campaign a look over, and if you really don’t fancy going the whole hog, you can always just grab a few Fat Cat Meeples! I mean, who wouldn’t want some of those!