So today I thought I’d try building a Wolves board game from scratch. Got some cardboard, markers, and dice lying around, figured it couldn’t be that hard. Started by sketching a forest map on the biggest pizza box I could find – yeah, the one from last Friday’s dinner, still smelled kinda cheesy.
The Messy Beginning
First, I cut wolf tokens out of cereal boxes. Drew pointy ears and everything, but my marker bled so bad they looked like fuzzy blobs. Tried making player cards too – wrote “Alpha”, “Scout”, “Hunter” with different colored pens. Big mistake though, that cheap red ink smeared when my coffee cup sweated all over ’em.
Real disaster happened during playtesting:
- Forgot to make actual rules at first, just winged it
- Dice kept rolling under the couch every damn turn
- My cousin’s kid chewed up two “wolf cub” tokens
Fixing the Dumb Stuff
Next day I wised up and laminated everything with packing tape. Made a proper rule sheet this time – printed it big so my grandpa could read without glasses. Changed dice to colored stones from the garden since those wouldn’t roll away. Added a “den” space in the center where wolf pieces could hide.
The turning point? When I replaced those smeary cards with spare Pokémon cards. Nobody minds hunting wolves as Pikachu, turns out. Drew little wolf ears on ’em with sharpie – good enough.
How It Actually Plays
After all that trouble, we finally played proper. Works like this: Wolves move through territories hunting deer (which are just buttons from my sewing kit). Scouts reveal hidden traps, Alphas recruit more wolves. Game ends when someone controls three hunting grounds or gets eaten by the “rogue bear” – that’s just a nasty-looking rock I painted.
Weirdest thing?
The kids loved it more than store-bought games. Probably ’cause they saw me mess up making it. My nephew keeps the bear rock in his pocket now like some kinda trophy. Next time though? I’m buying a pre-made board game. This DIY crap takes way too much sweat.
