Update 1 (19/11/2024) - Rules V1.1, Minor Part Changes and Accessories Pack Added (see below for further details)

Vault Assault is an exhilarating 3D printed board game where players embody daring vault crackers on a high-stakes mission to break into a vault and seize its golden riches. With up to four players, aged 8 and above, this game combines strategy, cunning, and a touch of sabotage as participants place gears strategically on the board to connect to the vault and release the coins inside. The thrill intensifies as players navigate challenges, aiming to outmaneuver opponents and avoid triggering the alarm that could end the heist abruptly.

Key Features:

• Dynamic Gear Placement: Players use a variety of gears to create complex paths, connect to the vault, and collect coins.
• Strategic Play: Includes opportunities for strategic stealing and redirecting gears to disrupt opponents' plans.
• Interactive Mechanics: The game board, vault components, and dice rolls ensure no two games are alike.
• Multiple Game Modes: From “Challenge Mode” to “Double Trouble,” players can enjoy variations that adjust difficulty and strategy.
• Tense Heist Theme: The alarm adds an exciting unpredictability, keeping players on their toes until the very end.

Vault Assault challenges players to think ahead, adapt their strategies, and skillfully manage their gears to outsmart their rivals and become the wealthiest vault cracker.

A full instruction manual PDF for the game is included below, be sure to check it out!

Design

This game has been a BLAST to design, and I started with just a few key concepts:

• 2 - 4 Player Game
• Mechanical interactions, making the most use of the 3D printing element of board game design
• Strategy over luck within the gameplay mechanics
• High replayability (different games everytime, multiple game modes, expandable with future updates)

I made sure the design minimised the need for support and limited purged filament, and although in total this print requires around 400g of filament, only 0.81g is used for support and 18.25g is used for flushing and tower (for the full colour version shown). For the non-AMS version, the flusing and tower waste is of course 0g.

Print Profiles

I have incluided two print profiles for this project, one full colour version as shown in the images, and a no-AMS/Quick print version:

• “Vault Assault Full” - Full colour profile with correct settings dialed in (418g filament required, 9 colours, 19h48m print time)
• “Vault Assault No-AMS” - Limited colour profile with no AMS required (396g filament required, 4 colours, 16h57m print time)

Game Board Build

I designed the Game Board to be a simple build and require a minimal number of extra parts. Aside from the printed parts only a few screws and springs/elastic bands are required. You can choose to build the rachet and pawl mechanism for each of the player gears with EITHER springs or elastic bands depending which is easiet for you, however the springs will give a better result and last longer. The full maker's supply part list and additional parts are listed as part of this model, but in summary:

• 12 x M3x10mm Countersunk Screws
• 8 x M2x4mm Buttonhead Screws (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)
• 4 x Extension Spring BA001 (Only required if using springs for rachet and pawls)

• 4 x 12mm Elastic Bands (I used my partner's small hair bands) (Only required if using elastic bands for rachet and pawls)

   

Step 1

Once all the parts have been printed seperate out the elements required for building the game board, this consists of the Outer Board, Peg Board, 4 x Player Gear (with ratchet), 4 x Player Gear, 4 x Pawl. You can identify the player gears by looking for the gears which have a hole in the top side.

Step 2 - (Elastic band approach)

Take one of your elastic bands and wrap it around the silver pillar with the chamfered head on the peg board. I found the three rotations around provides the best amount of pressure. Once you have managed to get three loops around the pillar, whilst keeping the elastic band under pressure, thread the pawl through and encourage the elastic band to sit in the slot cut out on the pawl. You can then lower the pawl's peg into the hole to the left of the pillar and it should be held in place. Now take the Player Gear (with ratchet) and insert it into the other hole (you will need to pull the pawl out of the way slightly). The gear should now be held in place and the pawl should engage with the rachet. Both the gear and pawl might not sit perfectly flush at this stage, but don't worry, once the Outer Board is added it will pull everything into the correct position.

Step 2 - (Spring approach)

Place one loop of the spring over the screw hole attached to the main body of the peg board (ensuring the spring coil is facing up) and use one of the M2x4mm screws to secure it in place. Place the pawl into the hole to the left of the silver pillar and align the other loop of the spring with the cutout and hole in the top of the pawl (you may need to apply a little stretch to the spring to achieve this). Use a second M2x4mm screw to secure this end of the spring to the pawl. Now take the Player Gear (with ratchet) and insert it into the other hole (you will need to pull the pawl out of the way slightly). The gear should now be held in place and the pawl should engage with the rachet. Both the gear and pawl might not sit perfectly flush at this stage, but don't worry, once the Outer Board is added it will pull everything into the correct position.

Step 3

Repeat the previous step for all four player gears until your board looks like the image above.

Step 4

Place the Outer Board over the top of the peg board and it should slide neatly into place. Ensure that the little allignment pegs on the Outer Board go into the corresponding slots on top of each of the player gears. If the Outer Board sits flush to the Peg Board all the way round, then it is installed correctly. You can test the ratchet and pawl now by applying a little pressure to the top of the Outer Board and turning each of the outer player gears in a clockwise direction. (Isn't that sound SO satisfying?!)

Step 5

Applying some pressure to the Outer Board, turn the whole gameboard upside down and lie it on a flat surface. Using all 12 M3x10mm countersunk screws secure the two parts of the gameboard together.

Vault Assembly

1. Take the Lower Shaft (the part with the circular face attached to it containing three holes), and insert the Higher Shaft (the shorter shaft with three legs on one side and a cross on the top) so that they are tightly connected. The three feet of the Higher Shaft should be flush or just beyond flush once pushed in.
2. Insert this assembled shaft with the Lower Shaft at the bottom into the Vault Body taking care that it goes through the hole at the bottom of the Vault Body and is visible below the gear.
3. Take the Lower Mask (the circular part with 3 holes in it) and push this down into the Vault Body ensuring that the little tabs align with the slots in the Vault Body. Push this all the way down until it won't go any further. Make sure you are moving it down evenly, I found applying pressure with both thumbs was a good way to start. I did find during my prototyping that different filaments will have very slightly different tolerances, so you might find this a quite tight fit. Once this is inserted you should be able to hold just the tip of the Lower Shaft which is poking out below the gear of the Vault Body, and turn the Vault Body. If everything is going correctly, the assembled shaft should remain stationary and the Vault Body and Lower Mask should rotate around it.
4. Take the Vault Shaft Cover (A circular piece with a round cutout through the side, and a cross indent in the centre of one side) and press this onto the cross on the top of the Higher Shaft. Ensure that the direct the round cutout is facing is different to the round cutout of the Lower Shaft one. This should be quite a snug fit, but won't require too much pressure.
5. Take the Higher Mask and insert it into the top of the vault in the same way as the Lower Mask. This one doesn't have a built in stopper to get in the perfect place, so just slowly press it down until it sits a little way off the Vault Shaft Cover (1mm or 2mm is fine, closer is better). Just ensure that it DOESN'T touch the Vault Shaft Cover or things will start to jam up, or all turn together.

That's it! The Vault Door is just to keep the coins in place and hide what is going on and it is keyed so it will lock on when placed correctly.

Some filaments I tested had tiny variations that made the vault work better some times and worse others. The most important aspect is that when the vault shaft is placed into a hole on the board, it should be a pretty tight fit, as the central shaft must remain stationary for the vault to work correctly.  When I was building the final version I found that adding just 0.05mm to the shaft diameter made it go from agressively tight to just perfect, so these small differences really do make a difference!

Expansions!

I have already been planning a number of expansions for this game, and designed it in such a way that it was versitle to change, modification and future additions. Depending on the popularity of this project I will hopefully complete some of these soon and share them with you, but here are some of my ideas:

Gears Galore - There are MANY more potential viable gears that would work on the same grid and open up different placements. I am also experimenting with the idea of “broken gears” which are missing some teeth, and after a certain amount of turning cease to work and MUST be stolen back from the board to progress (a great way to limit/hamper your opponents!)

Vaults Aplenty - The vault has been designed as a modular unit on purpose so it is easy to change out the “masks” and “covers” inside to alter how coins interact and behave within the vault. This expansion would make use of that by providing a variety of different masks and covers to change vault behaviour and vary game length.

Conclusion

This has been a real passion project for me and I have LOVED creating my first board game, I hope that you all enjoy playing it as much as I've enjoyed making it! I should also note that although I have done a fair few play tests with different numbers of players and a variety of people, I am only one person, and the rules may not be in their final form yet. So it would be AMAZING if you could all feedback your experience in playing Vault Assault and let me know what went well, what went wrong, or if you think anything could be improved!
 

Update 1 (19/11/2024) - Rules V1.1, Minor Part Changes and Accessories Pack Added

Firstly I want to say a MASSIVE thank you for the great comments and feedback I recieved on this design, it has been really appreciated, and it great to see how well recieved it has been. Based on feedback I've had from users here, and from a few more round of further play testing I've made a few changes and added the new “Accessories Pack” print profile.

Rules V1.1

From further play testing there has been an overhaul of the core game loop of the rules to change the focus on more gear play and less travelling around the outerboard without interacting your gears. The main changes are:

• You can now steal ANY gear of your choice without needing to roll the dice
• Turning your player gear can now happen any time you land on the gear symbol (you can choose which action to take)
• I am recommending using only 4 (instead of the original 6) of both gear 5 and gear 6, as once people start to learn some of the placement options, these gears can be abused and limit dynamic gameplay

The full details of all the rule changes have been added into the V1.1 of the manual which can be found below. I've also added an “Easy print” version of the manual too if you want to print one out for reference (no images, mostly black on a white background, no cover page).

Minor Part Changes

Only a tiny update on this one, but I did have a comment stating that the pawl seemed to be under too much pressure when using the spring method to attach it. As an attempt to remedy this the pawls have been updated with a longer peg, which should almost lock them in place against the player gear. 

Accessories Pack

By far the two most common issues I've seen and heard are:

• It's not clear which gears mesh with other gears, and I don't want to have to look at the manual every time it's mine turn
• There are a lot of small parts for this game but no storage solution

I'm pleased to announce that I've tried to solve both of these issues with the two things included in the Accessories Pack. The first item is what I am calling the “Player Card”, which can be printed as an optional extra for each player:

These player cards solve two issues; firstly they give you a clear way to hold/display the gears in your hand, and they also provide a handy reference of which numbered gears are able to perfectly mesh with other gears! These are totally optional prints, but reduce the need to keep the manual handy when planning your turn and keep your hand more organised.

The second element of the accessories pack is the Storage Case which can hold all the components of Vault Assault, including space for 4 Player Cards AND additional space for some upcoming expansion parts (the space is designed to fit different Vault Masks):

The space inside the storage case has storage sections for up the fully assembled Vault, all the required gears, 4 Theifple, around 50 coins, 4 Player Cards and an unused space reserved for expansion Vault Masks. The lid has a version of the logo included in the design, and slides neatly into place. It can be secured shut using the optional latch attachment (requires 1 x M3x10mm screw), if you want to make sure things don't escape whilst you are transporting the game. There is also an optional bottom attachment which can be screwed on with 6 x M3x10mm screws which then lets the Storage Case lock neatly into the peg board so that it almost becomes part of the game board whilst being stored and prevents accidental knocks from dislodging it.

I hope this update has helped with some of the issues people were having and I can't wait to hear the next round of feedback! I will continue to iterate and adapt the rules to refine this into the best possible game, and before long I hope to return with some optional expansion news too. Thank you all again!