Settlers of Catan
Settlers of Catan came out in 1995 and was designed by Klaus Teuber. BoardGameGeek.com puts Catan at 230 of all time, based off of user reviewers and ranking. For me it was the first board game that got me back into playing board games. It got me over that Monopoly and Cranium hump (2 games that I still enjoy but 2 games that is much harder to play regularly). From what I’ve read and learned in conversation, this is not an unfamiliar trend for other table-top gamers.
Fast forward to 2015, in my family participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange every year. During the season, we are expected to be nicer to that person and try to go out of our way to make their holiday special. On Christmas Day, to top it all off, we give each other our gift and reveal who was making their season special. From 2009, we decided that buying gifts were no fun, so we now had to make whatever we give them. I’ve done illustrations, printed photos, baked bread, etc. In 2015, I got my third oldest sister. Her and I both share a love for playing games so I felt this was a no brainer. I also knew she enjoyed Settlers of Catan. So using the resources I had available for me at school I decided to laser cut her, her own board out of wood.
Planning
I searched the web to see what Catan boards were already out there. I didn’t feel the need to start from scratch. I did know, from experience, that I wanted to pieces to fit together like a puzzle so that way they would not jiggle as much. I also didn’t want to paint it. I felt that the color of the pieces and the color of the board could be a little distracting and I wanted something much more minimal. I found a few templates on Instructables.com and mixed and matched the parts that I wanted and tossed what I didn’t. I ended up with a system that I thought was very interesting, minimal but still easy to read.
