Requirements for a Bank

I decided I would start my first location with the Bank because it was somewhere in the middle when it came to difficulty. It wouldn't be too easy, like some of the other buildings would be (4 walls and a roof), but it also wasn't a monstrously hard task either, as something like the Church would be. So I figured this would be the test. If I could pull this off then there really is no limit of what I could potentially do. Also, the bank has a variety of different pieces that need to be stored inside of it, but the nice thing was that these pieces were rarely used and so this building would make a good learning project.

To begin, I needed to do some prep work again. Yeah, I know, I'm a meticulous planner.

These are the small cards that go with the Bank of Arkham location. They are used as loan cards in the game and have text to that effect on the opposite side. There are eight of them, one for each player, but since the cards suck, we very rarely ever get them in game and as a result, they stay packed away most of the time. By the way, there are two sized cards in this game, large and small. Large cards measure 2.5”w x 3.5”h. Small cards measure 1 5/8”w x 2.5”h.

I knew I wanted these cards to be stored inside the bank, so that meant two opposite sides of the bank would need to be at least a bit bigger than the small card measurements, landscape or portrait. Eight cards is not a very thick stack, but I do need enough room to add new cards if any need to get stored in here from an expansion (I doubt that will happen, but you never know), so I will make the stack at least 1/4” or more thick.

These are the money tokens. Money usually belongs in a bank, and I had originally decided to create another smaller removable box inside the bank next to the cards...

but since my game group does not actually use the money tokens and instead uses two black 10-sided dice for each player, this wont be needed after all. Too bad actually as I made the box out of cereal box cardboard and even went as far as gluing nice shiny black fabric to the inside, and was going to do something to the outside also. The money chits make good counters for other things though, and there is a rumor card that can be played that uses money also, but, again, I still feel 2 black D10s take up less room and are less fiddly than all those cardboard chits. So instead I shall make the “vault” in the bank, only big enough for 2 D10s and toss the money chits. This will remove the need to make a removable “vault” also.

The final requirement would be for players to still be able to get at all those cards and dice inside the bank while keeping the lid closed tightly when the board traveled, which in essence could be upside-down. I needed a locking mechanism that wasn't fiddly and opened easily, but at the same time stayed closed when I needed it too. I had lots of ideas, none of which seemed to be that great and would either make it too hard to open or not secured enough when closed. Things like the “Inter-office memo envelope lock,” which is basically two rivets with a string that is wrapped around each one a bunch of times in a figure eight, the tension holding it together and the “Small latch,” a small latch at a hardware store, maybe hook and eye or something of the sort.

Nothing really seemed right, until one day, I was in a craft store checking out magnet striping. The striping wasn't magnetic enough and would break apart with very little effort, but next to it were these little babies. Only 1/4” round and half that as tall, and they are powerful. Very powerful. Yet with a slight bend of the cardboard or plastic between them, they would easily snap right apart (do not try this without something between them as they are almost impossible to get apart this way). So I think I found our lock. Now to get started with a prototype.