Stranger Things Board Game

This board game is a custom designed game inspired by the hit TV show Stranger Things. This game is designed for ages 8+ and can be played by 2-4 players. All parts of the game including the boards, game pieces, and cards can be created using Computer Aided Design Software (CAD)and then physically made using a laser cutter and printed paper.

The Instructable explains how to design and construct the board game step by step, including the board layout, the game pieces, and cards. There are two options given below for creating the board, laser cutting, or printing out a sheet of paper. Both options end up giving you the same goal of what this projects trying to accomplish.

To recreate this board game or create a similar one of a different theme follow the instructions below and use the provided design files.

1. 16x15 wood used for the game
2. Computer with access to Onshape, and Canva
3. A device for this
4. Laser Cutter
5. 2.5 x 2.5 blank play cards
6. 2.5 x 3.5 blank playing cards
7. Dice
8. The size of the cards
9. 8.5x11 paper
10. The glue
11. Scissors
12. Wood Stain

This board game is inspired by Stranger Things and includes trivia, challenges, and disadvantages related to the show. Players move around the board by rolling dice and landing on different spaces that are either free or require them to draw a card. The goal of the game is to move around the board to the end while successfully completing the trivia and challenges avoiding having to pull a disadvantage card if unsuccessful.

1. Open Onshape and create a new document
2. Start a new sketch (sketch 1) or rectangle sized to your discretion
3. Dimension the sketch of the square or rectangle to what you want you board game to be (for example, 16” x 15”)
4. (See image above)
5. Touch the check mark to finish the sketch, and create a second one (sketch 2) on top of the first one
6. Begin designing the board layout by sketching the path you want the game pieces to move along
7. I would advise starting at a corner space then dimension them accurately
8. After you dimension the first few spaces use the mirror tool to keep the spacing and board equal
9. (See image above)
10. Once this sketch is complete touch the check mark and create another sketch (sketch 3) on top of this one
11. Figure out what spaces on the board you want to be labeled “Trivia”, “Challenge”, and “Disadvantage. After knowing this tap the text tool on onshape and place the text on a space of your choosing
12. Make sure to dimension the top, bottom, and side of the text to the box equally for each space
13. (See image above)
14. Once you complete the sketches extrude sketch 2 with a depth of 0.25” just enough so its defined for the laser cutter
15. (See image above)
16. After finishing extrude 1 create another extrusion of sketch 3 (the text) and make sure the depth is bigger than 0.25” so I made it 0.45”
17. (See image above)

The images are in chronological order of the steps that say "(See image above)"

1. The game piece was made in Onshape
2. Open a sketch
3. Create a line that is 1.5 inch
4. At the top of that line, create another line that is 0.36 inches
5. Then, make a line going down 0.997 inches, that then goes into an outward slant at 57 degrees
6. The length of the slanted line should be 0.6 inches
7. After, connect the line to make a single face/shape
8. This is what the 1st sketch should look like
9. (See image above)
10. After that, select the revolve tool
11. When it asks for faces, select face 1 (the shape you made earlier)
12. When it asks for the revolve axis, select the 1.5 inch line
13. It should revolve to create a 3D shape and look like this
14. (See image above)
15. Now select the fillet tool and make sure the measurement is radius, the control is distance, and the radius 0.28 inches and make sure the arrow is going down
16. Then click on the top edge of the object, it should look like this
17. (See image above)
18. Your game piece should be done! You can customize the color by right clicking where it says ‘Part 1’ on the left sidebar and clicking edit appearance

The images are in chronological order of the steps that say "(See image above)"

1. Export the finished board file form Onshape in a form that fits the laser cutter (ex: PDF, DXF,etc)
2. Save the file onto a USB drive
3. Insert the USB drive into the computer connected to the laser cutter
4. Open the laser cutting software and upload the file
5. Adjust the design on the software to match the size of the material being used
6. Make sure the change the setting to what you want
7. For this board game we are engraving it so for our software we tapped engrave
8. Depending on how dark you want the laser cutter engraving to look adjust the speed accordingly
9. Choose the number of passes if wanted it to be adjusted depending on the material used
10. For this board we used one pass, but redid the laser cutter two times so it would appear darker
11. Close the laser cutter lid and double check to make sure all the settings are correct before you press print
12. Turn on the fan and touch print
13. Monitor the machine every five minutes to make sure it's running smoothly
14. You can run the machine again if you want to make it darker, if the design showed up light

1. Take a screenshot of the finished Onshape Board Design
2. (See image above)
3. Create a Canva document with the exact same dimension as the board (ex: 16in x 15in)
4. (See image above)
5. Upload the Onshape Screenshot into Canva and lower the transparency so the sketch is visible but faded
6. Touch the lock on Canva to fix the image to that position. This makes it easier when trying to trace things over it
7. (See image above)
8. Trace over the board layout using white lines to clearly define each space
9. (See image above)
10. Now it's time to start adding the pieces to the board. Make a square and adjust the size to the point where it's inside the outline of the white lines. When you do that for all the spaces the board should look like this
11. You can even add special spaces if that's what you want your board game to have
12. (See image above)
13. Now label the spaces with the words “Trivia”, “Challenge”, and “Disadvantage.” Make sure to layer them on top of the text on the Onshape image as best as you can
14. (See image above)
15. The board skill looks a bit blank so now we need to add a bunch of stranger thing images in the background
16. Make a new slide and just add a bunch of images overlays on top of each other. It should look like this
17. (See image above)
18. After having this copy and paste it on the board and send the image backward if its layered on top
19. (See image above)
20. The final board game should look filled in and like this
21. (See image above)

The images are in chronological order of the steps that say "(See image above)"

This game uses three types of cards:

1. Challenge Cards
2. Trivia Cards
3. Disadvantage Cards

Challenge and Disadvantage Cards

1. Design these cards in Canva
2. Make sure before hand you know the size of the card your glueing the paper on
3. The size of the card I got is 2.5 x 3.5
4. (See image above)
5. I made sure to make my Disadvantage and Challenge cards the same length so when you cut out and glue it, it's the same size as the actual card
6. (See image above)

Trivia Cards

1. Designed separately also in Canva
2. The size of the actual card I got is 2.5 x 2.5
3. (See image above)
4. I made the trivia cards on Canva the same size so when I cut it, it fits the card
5. Since the corners are rounded and the papers square it leave a little extra space
6. (See image above)
7. The design is simple and can be easily made or found on Canva

All cards can be printed, cut out, and laminated if wanted

The images are in chronological order of the steps that say "(See image above)"

After you have your finished design you want to add all the finishing touches you your board

1. First thing you want to do is sand down all the edges
2. Make sure the corners are rounded are the sides aren’t prickly and share
3. You also want to sad it down in case you have some extra space on the top, bottom, or sides
4. This way the board looks filled in
5. The board uses wood stain to stain the board game
6. You want to first grab the brand of wood stain, that can be any found in the store
7. We used the Colonial Maple 223
8. (See image above)
9. After we first coated the top in one layer to see the color and how it would turn out
10. Soon after we decided it needed to be a bit darker so we went again with a second layer
11. After that we dipped our brush back in the wood stain to complete the sides and bottom
12. We decided to make the back a bit more darker than the front so the top pops out
13. The final product should look like this (See image above)