Terraforming Mars organizer

Instructions: Very clear! Above average, even.Assembly: Fun and easy with the right tools. They include rubber bands and sand paper, which was smart.Wood quality: I left the sheets out in 30% RH and they wanted to curl a bit. However, I was still able to glue them tightly in place and fitment wasn't impacted. The color is great!Fit in box: Great, mostly (see below). I love the layout and the multiple holders to position around the table. The tray that holds cards horizontally wants to dump them all out when you lift it up, but I'll get used to that.Card sleeve fit, Length: It's well considered. FFG sleeves (the longest brand) fit without squishing.Card sleeve fit, Width: It's tight. The edges of sleeves stick up a bit, lifting the lid 0.5mm. It also makes sleeved cards fit poorly in one compartment of the insert as you put pieces into the box. I was able to work around it, but if you have every expansion, it could be tight with your sleeve brand.Expansion fit: This appears to have come out before a few of the very recent expansions. Milestones & Achievements are not going to fit if you have a couple other expansions. I only own them and the Preludes, so I was able to fit them where Colonies and Venus were supposed to go (see pic, it's a lot of cardboard).Board fit: There's room for 1-2 boards. They very smartly included a spacer to hold things tight if you only have 1 board. If you have more than 2 boards, you could get by with some lid lift, but note it wasn't designed around that.Metal coins: The space for money cubes is well calculated to fit the original plastic cubes. No guarantees your metal cubes or coins will all fit, but you can always overflow into an expansion tray if you don't have all the big ones.

the boxes were all easy to assemble... i used gorilla wood glue... it has some forgiveness with time getting everything together and getting the rubber bands on... if you want to sit down and put it all together during one session you will need more rubberbands (they included some) or tiny clamps. Like others have said... the player boards alone are worth it. I wanted to make them more interesting so I highlighted some with acrylic paint as shown in picture. It was a fun and worthwhile challange that came out good.

I was originally looking just to buy some upgrade player mats, but when I saw it was a reasonable amount more for the player mats+insert organizer then it was an easy purchase for me.Please note that the assembly instructions are very good, clear and simple, but note that when putting together the money cube trays (there are 2) that there is a piece that should not be glued. You should be able to pop this piece out and then insert it in the bottom of the tray to make sliding the resource cubes out a pleasant and easy experience (See smonex's video to see what I'm talking about). The instructions were clear about this but I wasn't paying attention and glued it by accident. If you make the same mistake as me then you may gently apply pressure to the piece to loosen the glue bonds, and then pop the piece out by poking into it with a flathead screwdriver from below. I was able to do with with zero damage and now it functions as it should and I really enjoy it!I wanted to enhance the player mats a little bit so I used a little paint on primer and model paints to color the resource symbols, which I think will help players (See my photo of how I painted).The glue I used to assemble is Aleene's Orginal Tacky glue, for anyone who was struggling to find a wood glue. It doesn't have too fast of a dry time, which I appreciated actually because I found it forgiving since I was working very carefully on the assembly. Just keep some paper towels handy to wipe the excess glue after pushing the pieces together.The assembly was pretty straightforward and easy, and there was only one or two pieces which I needed to sand very slightly to fit right. There was a tiny square of sandpaper included in the box which I appreciated, so look out for this and don't discard it thinking it's scrap.I recommend this to any terraforming mars player, it definitely enhances play, set up, and cleanup. And the look/style of it is appealing as well. Enjoy, be safe, and wash your hands gamers! :]

We love the Smonex Wooden Organizer for Terraforming Mars and the 5 game boards. The whole package fits easily into the box and holds all of the expansions. It does take 4 to 5 hours to put together with your own wood glue, but well worth it in the end for the organization and ease of game set-up. We went with one of the wood glue brands that Smonex recommended on their website and it worked really well.My partner and I cannot image playing Terraforming Mars without the Smonex game boards. In addition to holding the cubes in place, they also make it much easier to mark higher amounts of resource production. This is a huge plus for us.One note: Our sleeved cards do not lay flat in the card overflow space provided by the organizer. They sit at a slight angle, unfortunately, but this is manageable. Given the different card sleeve brands and their dimensions for Terraforming Mars, this may not affect everyone in the same way.

I purchased this as a gift for my husband, who wouldn't spend the money for this organizer, but loves keeping his games organized. Terraforming Mars is a family favorite board game, but it gets messy with all the pieces scattered all over the table during play. The player boards are amazing and keep the money cubes and player cubes organized and contained. The organizer holds all the expansions and keep cards, tokens, and other game pieces organized both in the box and during play.It took some time to assemble, but it was time well spent. I recommend quick dry wood glue.