Reddit user tricksy_trixie is an avid knitter. For Christmas her boyfriend designed and prototyped a knitting themed board game for her called Threads. There’s more info, including basic rules for play, over on the reddit thread (see what I did there?)

This isn’t your average prototype. This is beautiful, as you can see here.

tricksy_trixie is actually curious if others out there would be interested in such a game. If so, they may hit Kickstarter after playtesting.

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Reddit user, raremind, posted some pics today of his miniaturized King of Tokyo set that he can easily pack up and store in his bag. The project is pretty impressive, and cuts down the size of the game a good amount. In the end, it’s all stored in it’s own bag, and has a much smaller footprint than the original game. I especially like the use of tokens instead of the cardboard stand-ups, and the use of a paper slider for health and VP really trumps the dials in my opinion.

You can check out all the pics he posted over on imgur. If you like what you see, give him an upvote on reddit.

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Donald X. Vaccarino announced that Queen Games’ upcoming Kingdom Builder expansion’s Kickstarter campaign has been cancelled. Last week, the game designer made a public statement on BoardGameGeek.com’s message forums about lack of payment and the expiration of the contract. “The contract expires if they haven’t published the expansion by June 30 2015,” he writes. “[G]iven that they haven’t paid me yet for 2014, I’m not feeling inclined to give them more time.”

This morning, Mr. Vaccarino reports that Queen Games has been working with him to determine “just how much exactly they owe me for 2014, in a completely friendly fashion, and has paid most of it.” He attributes the post and the crossposting to the Kickstarter comments to have motivated the company to pay him.

Queen Games has published a statement about the campaign’s cancellation in a backers-only update. Queen says they will not have the rights to publish the expansion after the 30th of June and that the contract will not be extended by the designer. “Before the campaign started, everything was lined up for publishing the German edition by that time,” the update reads. “But for unfortunate circumstances we could no longer hold that date.”

The designers for Tortuga, Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim, also have stated they have not been paid by Queen Games for 2014. In a post on reddit’s boardgames subreddit, Jay Cormier says that the company only pays once per year, with ninety days after the end of the calendar to make payment. “It’s now June 19th,” he writes, “and we still haven’t been paid. We’ve sent them numerous emails – with hardly any responses.” The designers, who also developed a boardgame based on the Orphan Black television show as well as Belfort by Tasty Minstrel Games, state they are glad that Donald X. Vaccarino went public with his frustration and hope that spurs Queen Games to settle their account as well.

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Let’s say you have a 3D printer and you like Dungeons & Dragons. You start creating your own 3D models of monsters featured in the Monster Manual, showcase them on reddit/r/dnd, and share the files with others on Thingiverse, a 3D printing community. And then Wizards of the Coast files a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice, making Thingiverse remove those files.

If you’re a Reddit user going by the username mz4250, this might sound familiar.

Before the DMCA notice, mz4250 created several miniatures inspired by creatures found in various Monster Manuals, and promoted images of them in threads titled “3D Printing the Monster Manual“. Goofy images like the Dread Gazebo appeared alongside basic monsters like the Shrieker, Displacer Beast, and Demons in his imgur albums for weeks. Then the DMCA notice came and his 3D files were removed.

Initially thinking the issue came from basing the designs on WotC’s artwork and despairing that his work might not be legally available again, he contacted WotC to see what could be done. To his surprise, Wizards “want me to continue modeling and printing their monsters” and to make his modeling files available. But because Hasbro, which owns WotC, has an agreement with Shapeways, another 3D printing community, to host and print fan art, they needed the files to be hosted there. “WOTC has pleasantly surprised me this week,” he writes. “I’m happy they were pretty reasonable in the end.”

So a happy ending for mz4250, as he gets to continue sharing 3D models (at Shapeways.com/designer/mz4250) and developing more. He posts more of his work in the D&D subreddit at reddit.com/r/dnd.

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