So one of the main points of this blog is to not only talk about techniques to pimp your game and talk about what is going on in the industry but also show off my completed projects. I plan on making these “showcase” posts when I finish up a project but since I have a backlog of completed work already, for now I will be discussing some of my favorite games that started me on the this path.
Up first is one of my favorite remakes: Loopin’ Chewie.
My Loopin’ Chewie is actually a remake of Hasbro’s Loopin’ Louie game. I first wrote about this piece in April 2014 on Boardgamegeek. Ironically, Hasbro came out with a remake of their own in September 2015. The story in my head goes something like: product manager at Hasbro is tasked with reprinting Loopin Louie (since it had gone out of print in the US but still had strong sales in Europe, specifically Germany). Product manager goes to BGG to see what “the kids are doing with Louie these days” and stumbles on my Chewie conversion post, loves it and convinces Hasbro big brass to make the conversion in time for “Force Friday” in 2015. And finally, we have the Hasbro official Loopin’ Chewie… or something like that.
courtesy of Hasbro
I picked up a copy and the new version is fun but I can’t help being partial to my version, of course. Looking more at my Loopin’ Chewie, it all started with a clearance sale at Toys “R” Us where I picked up my first copy of Loopin’ Louie and a couple of extras for Christmas gifts. I ended up with one left over copy that I originally thought I’d use for parts in case the first copy broke down. Nothing broke down after a few months of playing with the kids so I was left wondering what to do with my spare.
Boardgamegeek had some pretty great mods like this classic eight-player version but at the time I was really into Fantasy Flight Games’ X-wing Miniatures game and started brainstorming ideas with a friend. I knew the X-wing mini would be too fragile and alternate minis wouldn’t be any better so my friend suggested using the Millennium Falcon. He found a perfect Falcon model on eBay from an old McDonald’s toy and it wasn’t long before we hit on the obvious name of “Loopin’ Chewie” and the legend was born.
To get the feel of this new version, I took the entire original Loopin’ Louie apart and spray painted everything black except the paddles which I painted TIE Fighter grey. After I painted everything and sealed it, I started pulling original Star Wars movie images off the ‘net and incorporated them into the pieces to complete the theme.
The original Loopin’ Louie features a crazy flying farmer chasing chickens around the farm so I decided the Falcon should be chasing TIE Fighters (again, not a big stretch thematically). I didn’t want to ruin the “chicken” discs by painting them and making them too thick too work so I used permanent marker instead and sealed them. Another TIE Fighter image from the ‘net and the discs were ready.
The Death Star was the hardest but there was a relatively cheap planetarium toy put out a few years ago that I found on Amazon. It was the perfect size and already came in 2 halves. I cut the slit for Chewie to bounce through and fit over the whole assembly. I used a hot glue gun to secure the dome to the rotating assembly and it was ready to go.
I brought this out to GenCon to surprise my friends and all of us had a blast. It remains one of my favorite pimped games as everything came together and worked perfectly all the while requiring some different techniques.