Research: Board game counters

My next stage of research was on existing board game counters that are already on the market. Whilst looking at different board games during class and from my own knowledge, I wrote up a list on the different styles of counter that we could use in our board game.
I spoke to the rest of the team about these different styles via our Facebook group and then I decided to write about the pros and cons of each style.

- Counter style e.g. 'Connect 4':

Coin style:
Pros: 
- cheap to make
- available in different colours
- lightweight
Cons:
- might be difficult for the player to distinguish between different counters without looking closely at the detailing

- 3-D style e.g. 'Monopoly':

3-D style:
Pros:
- high level of detailing makes the counter interesting to look at
- makes the overall appearance of the board game much higher quality
Cons:
- might not be cost or time efficient specifically for our deadline




- Silhouette style e.g. 'Jigsaw puzzles'

Silhouette style:

Pros:
- cheap to make
- available in different colours
- lightweight
Cons:
- might appear as 'blobs', thus making them not eye-catching or fun to look at
- does not capture high amount of detail as opposed to a 3-D style counter or stand-up

- Stand-up style e.g. 'The Beatles'

Stand-up style:
Pros: 
- allows higher level of detailing to be added to the counter
- much more eye-catching and fun to look at, as opposed to a coin counter style
- cheap cost production, as opposed to a 3-D model counter
Cons:
- the counter might be unstable and fall over
- the products' life won't be as long as the other styles



After writing out the pros and cons of each style, I decided to digitise some possible counter models to post to the other team members via Facebook.
We decided that due to our strict time conditions because of the deadline, we decided to sway towards the stand-up style counter design. We decided to use this counter because we are still able to reflect high levels of detail on the counter through the use of the spaceship imagery on the card, whilst keeping production costs and time efficiency fairly low.