Etsy window shopping

An article called Ten Handmade Gifts for the Tabletop Fan in Your Life, published in Tabletop Gaming magazine, inspired me to search Etsy for things a solo gamer might like to order. Besides inserts, trays and card holders, there is a wide variety of custom bits and minis you can purchase to embellish your board games, as well as decorative things for the home, and actual card games.

I am listing here a few that caught my eye, leaving out upgrades to Terraforming Mars because of the recent Kickstarter campaign, mugs and t-shirts with jokes that nobody laughs to, and any merchandise featuring a simple meeple design because that's just lazy design.

1. Custom components to replace cubes or tokens

Wingspan is already famous for looking good on the table, but there is always room for improvement with these Wingspan resource tokens.

If you have Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein, you may feel that the cubes don't represent blood and muscle tissue realistically enough. If so, you may want to take a look at these Acrylic tokens for Abomination.

And my personal favourite: Deputy token stands for Black Orchestra. The Reich ministers now really look menacing when they get in your way.

2. Game challenge boards

Solo challenges take place quite frequently in the 1PG, and people also set personal goals like playing games in their collection a set number of times. These wooden boards help you keep track of your progress: 10x10 game challenge tracker

3. Card Games

I found two soloable ones: the first is Puzzle Dungeon, a game I own and recently started playing. It is an excellent little card game, super portable, with a good balance of thinkiness and fun.

The other is a game called Ecologies. I'm not familiar with it, but I was drawn to the beautiful vintage illustrations. The solo mode is a beat-your-own-score. If you don't mind that, it is perhaps worth checking out.

4. Scenery sculpts

Back to game bling: Underwater Cities could use some 3D upgrades, like this Underwater Cities network.

This Polish shop has amazing sculpts for various buildings and monuments on the Mage Knight map such as this Mage Knight portal location.

This Storm tile for Forbidden Desert caught my attention too.

5. Christmas ornaments

Why not decorate a board game-themed Christmas tree this year? These Root-themed Christmas ornaments may be what you're looking for (I would prefer them to be colourful though).

6. Game box keychains

Did you know you needed a wooden game box keychain? Neither did I. These Wooden miniature games keychains look cute.

7. Wall poster art

Finally, some prints for your walls. The ones I like don't show solo games but maybe we can make an exception when it comes to house decor.

Check out this Cat playing Go poster

And these faux mid-century Dominoes poster, and Yahtzee poster.

If you have any Etsy findings you would like to share, please let us know.