Let’s start out with a little bit of a recap of this situation. Broken Token was supposed to do an insert for Frosthaven. However, through actions taken by Broken Token the decision was made to not work with them. So Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games needed a new insert for Frosthaven. They reached out to two companies to get it done, one being wooden and one foam core from Folded Spaces. And let’s just say, the one that I got sucked. So I needed to find a better solution.

Why The One Was Bad

I’m going to give an example of this from the real world, something that you might have seen in other places. I see it not too often, but it depends on the person. Someone comes in with a request. They need a website, let’s say, to process a transaction on part of a page. The developer creates a page that processes a transaction, but the usability is very low.

They made sure to meet the requirements of the request. But the requirements don’t get to the need of the usability of the process. For the developer, it is a case where they created only what was asked for. They didn’t spend the time or might not have thought they had the time to ask questions like “Why?” or “What’s the use case?”.

The insert I got with Frosthaven, I got the Folded Spaces one, felt the same way. Does everything fit in the box, yes, then our goal is complete. Does that mean it’s useable? No, it is not.

Structural Integrity

Now, I will say, some of this was on us when we glued it together. We should have used more glue. But even that wouldn’t have made a massive difference. Part of the issue with the structural integrity and the glue is that you are trying to glue to a shiny surface. I get how the glue adheres to the foam side, but the shiny finished side, even the ones I glued more heavily, the glue hasn’t held.

And it isn’t just the glue. You can get around some of that with hobby nails. But there are large trays to hold cards. The Frosthaven box is large, and the large trays are about a foot long. There are seams, where two pieces meet, in towards the middle of those. So a major point of failure is in a really risky spot, and it will fail. And that is not something that is easily fixed with hobby nails.

Monster Sorting

Then there are the monsters. And this is the area where I have the biggest issue. I think the structural integrity can be worked around, but needs to be worked around by choices you make to go above and beyond.

But the biggest issue is how the monsters were sorted. In the insert I got for Gloomhaven, which I really liked, all the monsters laid out so you could see them. This is where I really see the issue, and the seam on the long box, of the requirements being met, but functionality not being considered.

All the monsters are put vertically into three different bosses. For the bosses, that isn’t too bad. You don’t need them too often, and there aren’t that many. But for the medium and smaller monsters, there are a ton. And when cardboard standees are packed vertically, shockingly, you can’t see them. So you need to paw through them all and hope you don’t accidentally miss them. It’s a horrible and completely non-functional design choice.

So I Bought A Better Frosthaven Insert

Now, when the insert wasn’t holding together, I got annoyed. Quite annoyed in fact, at both Folded Spaces, for the reasons above and at Cephalofair Games. I don’t know if they rushed through the process, or thought that it was fine, either way, I got an insert, but not one at the quality I’d have wanted to pay for. And, because of it, I needed to get another Frosthaven insert.

I found a much better insert. So much better it’s basically a night and day difference. Why, because this one doesn’t have seam problems. And it is set-up to handle the monsters in a way that works really well. I found a 3D printed Frosthaven insert that I bought and had shipped from Australia.

The Insert.

3D Printed

Let’s start by talking about the 3D print quality. I think that is the concern, besides time about 3D printing an insert. I would likely print one myself, but getting this one, I have no quality concerns. And I think that the creation of this insert went above and beyond what is needed.

Mainly, the person 3D printed moveable dividers for everything. And when I say everything I mean everything. They make it so that you can split up each item type and crafted footwear versus purchasable footwear, it’s a lot of effort. And they built them as standing inserts so not just between the cards but actual divides that slot in and support themselves in the box.

And the quality of the 3D print is very good. It is not a thin printing. That is my biggest concern when I get something 3D printed, it is going to be done as thin and in as flimsy a way as possible so they can print more faster. That is not the case here.

Monster Storage

And I complained a lot about monster storage for the old one. Though the card boxes were actually the worst part. The monster storage made it so much slower to get a scenario together. Well, this insert fixes it.

It actually is about as ideal as you can get. Especially for us using the Frosthaven app, but overall it is lightyears ahead of what the Folded Spaces one was. It uses the initiative tracking tokens on the top of the monster boxes to show what monsters are in the box. And then each box holds the monster activation cards (though some like scout are shared) and the monster stat block cards.

In fact, the stat block cards are used as the cover. It is a super clever way to save on plastic and create a really functional and visible system. So it makes setup of a new scenario that much faster. And for Frosthaven and Gloomhaven setup speed matters, especially when trying to get two scenarios into an evening.

Use Of The Frosthaven Box Space

Now this takes up more room in the box than other it does in the other system. But because of other smart design decision and usability decisions, it still has more room in the box while being useable. Let’s move on to that, though.

That is something that just boggles my mind. How is there more space now in the box with a custom 3rd party insert that I could fit in the tiles. Now, I won’t because that is one thing that Folded Space got right, a nice little envelope system (that doesn’t fit in the box), but that sorts the map tiles as well as you could.

I get some of how it can do that. It doesn’t have special boxes for the player boards that you have active. We kept the ones from Folded Spaces. But missing out on player storage is a minor complaint, and not really even a complaint. We never had player character storage besides the character boxes that came with Gloomhaven for Gloomhaven. So going back to that would have been easy. This is just a bit nicer.

And speaking of character storage. This fits all of the characters. Folded Spaces didn’t fit up to two of them, I believe. Possibly three to make it actually comfortable. So this had more room in the box and can fit all the character boxes.

Final Thoughts

I have a bit of an issue with what Cephalofair has done and said about this insert. I know that a number of people have massive issues with this insert and how functional it is. And Cephalofair has been, generally, radio silent on it. Which is odd for them, they tend to apologize often for things beyond their control.

This is something that they controlled. Maybe not fully, maybe Folded Spaces provided this option and they just thought about speed. But radio silence or basically as much is not a great look. And what can they do after the fact? Nothing but apologize. I already got a product that is not great, they can’t fix that. I agreed to get that product. But say that they are revisiting it repeatedly, say you want to make it better, that would be nice. And maybe they have, but it’s been hidden away, in a lot of ways, for a company that apologizes and takes a front facing stance on most other things.

But I don’t need to worry about that anymore. I own a better insert and the Folded Spaces one is going in the trash. So it isn’t really an issue for me anymore. But I want you to know, there is much better insert out there. If you buy Frosthaven now, buy that one from Etsy. It will be so much better and more useful. Only after a play or two I see the difference already. And it is too good not to share because of how much of a difference it is.

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