How board games are made

A board game is several products built on separate lines: a mounted board, cut cards, punched tokens and a box.

stations: 6
things upstream: 58
raw sources: 18
steps from the ground: 10

The short version

A board game is a bundle of parts made on separate lines. The board is printed, laminated and mounted on thick greyboard, then scored so it folds. Cards are printed and cut into decks. Tokens are die-cut from chipboard. Everything is packed into a box with an insert tray and shrink-wrapped.

Print the board

Artwork goes on coated paper, which is laminated with a gloss or matte film. Large boards are printed in sheets, then trimmed.

Goes in
Ink Paper
Mount it on greyboard

The printed sheet is glued to a stiff board 2 or 3 millimeters thick, with a linen-textured backing paper. This is what keeps a big board flat on the table.

Goes in
Cardboard Adhesive
Score and fold it

Folds are built in, as a board can be bigger than the box. Bi-fold boards have one center hinge, tri-fold have two parallel folds, and quad-fold have two perpendicular folds.
Die-cut the tokens

Tokens and tiles are printed on thick chipboard, laminated, and punched out with a custom die made for that sheet.

Goes in
Cardboard Ink
Cut cards into decks

Printed card sheets are cut into cards and collated into decks, and dice and rulebooks come from their own lines.

Goes in
Paper Ink
Pack into the box

Parts go into a two-piece rigid box with an insert tray, so nothing shifts in shipping. Many games are then shrink-wrapped.

Goes in
Cardboard box Plastic

End of the lineBoard game

Worth repeating

Possible fragments of Senet boards, argued to be the oldest known board game, date to around 3100 BC.
A quad-fold board folds down to one quarter of its play surface so it can fit a square box.
Tokens come in thicknesses of 1, 1.5 or 2 millimeters of chipboard.