Mad Science Saturday in Somerset
over 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 09:06:54 AM

I spent this past Saturday in Somerset, Wisconsin, with Tim and Jason at Updog Products. (Also making an appearance was Claire from Cocoplum, who is using our recycled medicine vials to make designer sunglasses.) Tim and Jason had set up a simple mold (for making nameplates) on the 28 ton Arburg press, and our goal was to experiment with some different materials and additives, and see what happened.

There were specific types of plastic I wanted to try on Updog's machines: PET and PMMA. These are two common plastics that don't work well in our Precious Plastics recycling equipment at Replay Workshop; they require higher temperatures, and are very sensitive to moisture.

PET (polyethylene terepthalate) has the #1 resin code. You know it from soda bottles, berry clamshells, mushroom bins, and all sorts of consumer packaging. A variant, PETG (the G is for "glycol modified"), is also considered #1 but has some slightly different characteristics. It's also popular for 3D printing filament. While PET soda and water bottles may be the most widely recycled plastic in the USA, all the other shapes of packaging are harder for the big single-stream sorting systems to deal with, and are more likely to go to landfill. I'd brought a box of transparent PETG tubes from a local manufacturer, waste they would rather see recycled than landfilled, which we shredded up for testing. We also had a mix of random consumer PET – bottles, clamshells, whatnot – that we shredded and mixed together.

Here are samples of the output -- the left three are the mixed PET; the top one is plain PETG; the other colors are PETG with pigments added and additives like metallics and sparkles just for fun:

PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) is one of the many #7 "Other" plastics. It's often referred to simply as "acrylic" or "acrylic glass," and is known by brand names such as Plexiglas and Lucite. It gets used in everything from windows to eyeglass lenses to medical implants to retail displays to dice. It's popular for laser cutting and heat bending. A lot of it was put up at retail checkout counters during Covid; as those come down there's a glut of used material going to landfill. We ground up clear material from three sources: the hardware store across the street from Replay Workshop (offcuts from windows), local business Northern Acrylics (who specialize in making things out of acrylic glass using laser and CNC), and our friends at The Game Crafter, who laser cut custom game pieces from acrylic sheets.

Here are some Acrylic experiments: 

The one in my hand was plain recycled acrylic glass; the others all have various additives and colorants, including a foaming agent that resulted in some really funky swirling colors with depth inside the acrylic. (The gold ones really look like quilted or birdseye maple!)

On all of these, note that we weren't going for perfect output; we were just having fun running a quick series of materials, not doing full cleaning/purging between, and not fine tuning the settings. Another big factor on the acrylic is that we may not have done enough drying, and that could be the cause of the frosting effect in the uncolored piece. (But then again, the frosting is kind of neat, too.) Our overall goal wasn't final production quality, but mad science experimentation!

These plastics were otherwise going to landfill, so the important takeaway is that we CAN absolutely recycle them. Getting the optical clarity of virgin acrylic glass may be a challenge, but we don't really need that if we want to have opaque items or funky patterns. Acrylic is good for expanding the potential applications of InFUNity Tiles – it's not hurt by ultraviolet rays, for example (unlike polyolefins). Also, it can be glued, printed on, and painted. I'm thinking about an outdoor tabletop made of InFUNity Tiles, or even an artistic mosaic attached to the side of a building?

We've got another couple weeks before Kickstarter delivers the funds collected from backers, but knowing that it's coming, I also gave Updog Products the check on Saturday to start making the molds. That's underway now, and with luck we'll actually be testing them on the presses in early January!

-John Nephew, President & Recycling Enthusiast, Atlas Games

We Funded! To InFUNity and Beyond!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 03:11:00 PM

Thank you for your support!

We just wrapped up our Kickstarter for InFUNity Tiles. You helped us reach our goal by contributing a whopping $15,257! Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the project! Plus special thanks to Marisa Ostendorf at Edgeley Public Library, and Tim McNulty at Updog LLC for their last-minute bulk-tier boosts!

This was incredibly new terrain for us here at Atlas Games! There were times during the campaign that we weren't sure we'd fund at all, but today we're admiring our wonderful fan community and its efforts to support us and our endeavors big and small. It's truly because of YOU that we're able to create this amazing new project!

What’s next for us …

The next step is to use the Kickstarter funds toward their intended purpose, getting our MUD frame mold created and sent to our friends at Updog LLC. From there, they'll start producing InFUNity Tiles in their thousands!

The MUD frame will do so much more than manufacture InFUNity Tiles, too. With this mold, we can do all kinds of industrial-level injection molding to recycle even more plastic otherwise destined for the landfill, turning it into usable game accessories like dice, game bits, and so much more … it's an amazing new horizon for us that you've made possible!

And, as a game publisher, we always have more fun up our sleeve …

Enigma Kickstarter in Jan

At the end of January we'll be launching a Kickstarter for our new Enigma line! We'll be producing three different solo puzzle gamebooks, each a bit different, that all come with their own sense of adventure. You can find more information and sign up for a launch reminder here!

50% Off Black Friday Sale

Plus, on Friday, November 24th we'll be running our 50% off Black Friday Sale! FOR TWO HOURS ONLY, from 5 to 7pm CST, both physical and digital products are all up for grabs (excluding our newest releases). The discount will be automatically applied in your cart, so fill it up in advance then set yourself an alarm for the start of the sale. Start making your wish list here!

Thanks Again!

This project wouldn’t have been possible without your support. Thanks to each and every one of you who shared, liked, and backed InFUNity Tiles!

48 Hours to Go & Our KQDS-TV News Interview
over 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 12:51:08 PM

When the count switches from days to hours, things get real …

We're all holding our breath here and watching the clock tick down, as we close in on our funding goal in the LAST 48 HOURS of the InFUNity Tiles campaign. Now's the time to get the word out! Please forward the link NOW to someone you know will love it. And thank YOU for backing us!

Then, as we get ever closer to funding, we also have a fun announcement …

Today we were interviewed our local TV news! 

Our local TV news station came to Replay Workshop to interview John Nephew (Atlas Games President) and Emma Pardini (Environmental Program Coordinator at Western Lake Superior Sanitary District) about our collaborative recycling effort. 

We've been working with WLSSD to source our recycled plastic, you may remember. They set aside larger plastic items like broken sleds and storage totes, which would otherwise be headed for the landfill, and let us pick them up to use for Replay Workshop products.

We also got to talk with the news crew about our recent efforts to recycle last week's city election signs, which are being turned into today's InFUNity Tiles.

STAY TUNED! We'll post a link to the interview in the comments when it goes live. 

So, be a part of repurposing single-use plastic!

We're so close to funding this campaign, friends! And reaching this goal is so important to us. Not only will you get to experience InFUNity Tiles, which in themselves are a revolution, but you'll also be changing the hobby games industry for the better. How, you ask? Well …

We all know how much plastic goes into some of our favorite titles. From the immediately-tossed packaging, to actual game bits … lets face it, our hobby is riddled with plastic. And while we love giant handfuls of dice as much as any gamer, we can change the plastic we make them from. 

Games don't need to be made of "virgin" plastic like medical equipment does. If we can use more recycled plastics in our games, we can keep more plastic out of our landfills, and make gaming a sustainable hobby for everyone!

Please share this campaign NOW with your friends, family, co-workers, game group, and anyone who supports the plastic recycling movement. Your pledge to back InFUNity Tiles is an investment toward all our futures. Help us lead by example, so we can inspire others in our industry to take another look at plastic use, and make a difference for generations to come.

We're inFUNitely grateful for your support. ;)

-Michelle Nephew, Atlas Games Co-Owner

Einstein Shape Featured in Time Magazine!
over 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 09:22:04 PM

That's right, the Einstein Shape has been named Best Invention of 2023 by Time Magazine! We've always thought it was pretty amazing, obviously, but wowza! 

Please take a moment to share the news on your social media with a link to our Kickstarter campaign at atlas-games.com/infunityks. Thank you, and thanks for being a backer even before it went viral!

-Michelle Nephew, Atlas Games Co-Owner

Gamifying InFUNity Tiles
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 11:05:57 AM

I'm a game designer, so my first impulse when playing with our InFUNity Tile prototypes was to come up with point tally system. Here's my initial rules set: 

•  Placed Tile: +1 point for each tile placed. 
•  Surrounded Tile: +1 point for each tile with no exposed edges, that's totally surrounded.
•  Stacked Pair: -1 point for each stacked pair with the same orientation (hat on top of hat).
•  Bad Space: -1 point for each 90 degree angle on the outside edge that is the join of two tiles (the two 90 degree angles in each hat piece don't count for this).

Try to beat your own best score. It's more challenging than you'd think! Tired of solitaire? Try to beat the scores of your friends!

Each of these rules has a game design reason behind it:

• Placed Tile is the obvious basic reward. 
• Surrounded Tile rewards "deeper" builds since long narrow ones are easier to assemble.
• Stacked Pairs are a pattern, which is possible with aperiodic monotiles but not required. So disencouraging them makes the build a bit more of a challenge.
• Bad Space identifies wrong placements on the outside edge. It's based on a mathematician's observation when playing with the prototypes. She pointed out that incorrectly placed tiles can be identified on the outside edge by a tile edge that ends part way down its partner tile's corresponding edge. Tile edges should always fit full-edge to full-edge, the entire length of both, if they're correct placements. Thinking about that, I realized that describing that as "a 90 degree angle with a join" was an easier way to explain and look for bad spaces.

Help me think of more ways to tally points! Write them in the comments, and explain your game design reasoning, too!

Also, PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK to the campaign with the gamers in your life: atlas-games.com/infunityks

Thank you for backing InFUNity Tiles!

Michelle Nephew, Atlas Games Co-Owner