U-N-I Games

Published by Rachel Fogerty on Dec 20th 2016

Featured Tippmann Customer

Company:

U-N-I Games

Name:

Buddy Gilbert and Dale Bloomer

Address:

2716 4th Place NW

Birmingham, AL 35215

Product being covered:

POW -- Prisoner of War multi person board game

We have a very unique expandable game board. The game board expands to the size needed depending on the number of players, eliminating wasted time traveling over unoccupied territory. The characteristics of the game board require precise and consistent cuts, which the Tippmann Clicker Die Press was able to offer.

Object of Game:

To be the first player to move his or her troops around the playable game board from their camp to their own colored headquarters.

What led you to the Tippmann press as a solution for your die cutting needs?

At first we had planned to have another company build the games, right down to the shrink wrap and we would just sell the product. Because we wanted to start with a small number of games (500 Games) the per game cost would be very expensive even though they would be made in China.

Because we live in the greatest country in the world, it didn't make sense why we couldn't make them here in the United States. After researching local manufacturing we realized to keep the games affordable we would have to make the games ourselves.

U-N-I Games has gone to great lengths to use American Products. We looked for companies based in the USA. What has impressed me the most about doing business with the US companies is the attitude of the people. I have found that doing business with companies that have sound principles, like Tippmann, opens doors to other companies with the same attitudes.

Dale found Tippmann through a web search. I was familiar with the quality of Tippmann paint ball markers and was glad to see they made a press. We contacted Bob Tippmann who worked with U-N-I Games to pick out an affordable, high quality US made Die Press that perfectly fit our needs. Because we needed a more complex die than Tippmann manufactured, Bob told us about Steel Rule Diemaster (Menominee Falls, Wisconsin). They crafted the two steel rule dies needed to make the expandable game board for the P.O.W. Game.

How we cut our material prior to using the Tippmann Press:

We used a manual cutter. I was the man and I had a cutter (X-acto knife). The first two sets of prototype game boards where made by Dale and myself. It took us around 40 hours one weekend. That included a couple of trips to the hobby store, printing, gluing and hand cutting the foam board with an X-acto knife. The Tippmann press increased our production from two games in a weekend to 100 games in a weekend.