Welcome to Port-O-Bowl, the most compact way to play fantasy football yet! Port-O-Bowl is a fully-featured peg-based system that is easily magnetizable so you and your opponent can play anytime, anywhere.

The Port-O-Bowl pitch can fit in backpacks, laptop cases, and luggage. It unfolds to 8.5" x 17", the size of a sheet of legal paper. Folded up, the pitch is 8.5" x 7.5" x 3.5" (216mm x 189mm x 40mm).

The pitch is fully featured including wide zones, a scatter template, trap doors, and 7s markings.

Port-O-Bowl Notable Features include:

Skill Markers:

Players are on pegs and can be slotted with up to 4 skill markers or player numbers.

Consistent and Recognizable Player Design:

Despite the players' small size, they are made with a simplistic "Chess-like" style, so positionals can be easily recognized. Similar positionals are consistent across all teams.

How small are Port-O-Bowl players? Here are some comparison photos:

Player Status Indicators:

Turn players to the left or right to indicate their "Prone" or "Stun" status. The pitch is marked with which direction indicates "Prone" or "Stunned." The directions are the same for both coaches to eliminate confusion.

For Big Guys with nega-traits, use Port-O-Bowl's ring markers to indicate that they have failed their activation roll:

Magnetization:

Port-O-Bowl is easily magnetizable. Just add steel plates underneath the pitch before assembly. Each player peg has space to add 2 powerful 2mm x 2mm magnets, so you can stay playing even through those bumpy rides or turbulent flights.

TEAMS:

There are 20 teams and 14 Star Players available.

Humans:

Orcs:

Wood Elves:

Ratmen:

Undead:

Dwarves:

Dark Elves:
 

Chaos Dwarves:

Goblins:

Halflings:

Gnomes:

Amazons:

Lizardmen:

Necromantic:

Vampires:

Norse:

Chaos Chosen:

Snotlings:

Underworld:

Chaos Renegades:

Star Players:

 
The Port-O-Bowl playset includes:

1 Port-O-Bowl Pitch:

2 Dugouts/Player Transport cases: 

2 Score/Turn/Reroll trackers and 6 Score/Turn/Reroll Markers:

1 Ball Marker:

2 teams of your choice from above!

... As well as DOZENS of skill markers (both lettered and blank), status markers for Big Guys, and other various tokens that make playing Fantasy Football on the go a breeze.

The full Port-O-Bowl set including the pitch, 2 turn trackers, 2 teams, and 2 dugouts all fit in 3 small easy-to-pack cases.

Case dimensions:

Pitch:

8.5" x 7.5" x 3.5" (216mm x 189mm x 40mm) (Folded up)

Dugouts:

5" x 2.4" x 1.65"  (136mm x 60mm x 42mm)

PORT-O-BOWL IS GREAT FOR:

New Coaches: If you're new to the game and just want to learn, you don't have to mess with fiddly plastic players made of 5 or more pieces each (like the RATBOTZ). Each player is only one piece, and an entire team can be painted in less than an hour - no exaggeration!

Seasoned Coaches: If you've got an important tournament coming up, quickly workshop a new roster without having to assemble a new team or get skill markers ready. Set up and play in minutes! Then try again with another roster if that one didn't work out.

Coaches with Limited Space: One of the limitations of fantasy football is the space requirement: A playmat requires a sizeable table that can usually only be found at restaurants and game stores (only one of which will actually let you play there!) Teams and their markers can take up a whole closet. Port-O-Bowl takes up a fraction of that space, and can be played even in cafes where your table space is not much more than a barstool!

Traveling Coaches: If you've got a long car ride or plane ride, take out Port-O-Bowl and have a game or two in the back seat of the car or on your airplane tray.

Working Coaches: Take out Port-O-Bowl in the break room to have a few turns with your co-workers. Or if you've got an hour for lunch, get a whole game of 7s in at the lunch table.

With Port-O-Bowl, there's never a reason not to play fantasy football anytime, anywhere. Here are some photos of games in action!

The campaign will launch on May 20th.

Physical Sets and Digital Downloads will be available. Currently getting quotes for physical distribution in the United States and Europe. 

Port-O-Bowl is inspired by 2 things. The first is traveling chess sets. I've never been good at chess but I have always liked those nice-looking magnetic chess sets that can fold in your coat pocket. Even though the pieces were small, their materials and details looked fantastic.

My brother had one and while he was a lot better at chess than I was, I have always liked the idea of self-contained traveling game sets. I liked to play it just to handle the pieces, even though I never had a plan to win the game. Then when you were done, you put them all into the board and closed it up.

There was another game I played as a kid that was just like that, but it wasn't nearly as sophisticated.

Spinjas.

Spinjas blew my tiny child mind. They were little battle tops (well before "beyblade") that you put in little wind-up mechanisms. Then you wound them up and set them loose to do battle on a tiny arena that was also its carrying case.

Also, they were tiny men. Their little fists are balled at their sides in anticipation. The guy with the yellow stripe, third from the left, was my personal favorite, because he was holding a little gun.

I never saw the Spinjas commercial- likely it aired when I was too young to remember - but just behold this 90s magnificence:

I can't tell you exactly when the inspiration to make Port-O-Bowl came, but what I can tell you is that combining traveling chess with Spinjas for fantasy football was my completely sane, not-at-all feverish goal. 

Just as traveling chess and Spinjas are self-contained, so, mostly, is Port-O-Bowl. The only reason the dugouts and the pitch are not one complete file is because then they wouldn't fit on the print bed of my 220mm x 220mm 3D printer.  

Unlike Chess and the Spinjas, there is a lot more to playing fantasy football. There are different players with different stats, and each of those could have different skills that alter the game. At any point, players could be knocked down prone, stunned, hypnotized, or even can have completely forgotten they were supposed to be playing a game at all. All of these had to be somehow represented in Port-O-Bowl. 

Thus I came up with Port-O-Bowl's peg system.  

The pegs have 4 slots where pie-sliced skills can be snapped in.

As for Prone or Stunned, the cross design of the peg allows players to be turned left or right. The pitch is labeled to allow coaches to easily tell whether players are on the floor and ready to go next turn, or whether they have to spend a turn dazed on the pitch.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's extremely portable! When shrinking a game this much, sometimes something has to give.

Finally, for status effects, Port-O-Bowl has rings you place on players who have forgotten that they're supposed to be playing a game. 

 
Thus, even with its small size, Port-O-Bowl is still fully playable fantasy football. Finally! 

Now, when will Port-O-Bowl release its second version, where players are in fact spinning tops launched from spring-loaded winders? 

Only time will tell! 

It's been an amazing opening week for the Port-O-Bowl project as coaches from all over the world clamor with questions about how to get their Port-O-Bowl sets! I'm humbled by the huge interest and enthusiasm.

However, it's no secret that POB is best when printed with TWO type of 3D printers. The pitch, dugout, and turn trackers are designed to be printed in FDM. Everything else is designed to be printed with a resin printer.

But what if you only have one of those kinds of printers?

Well, I've come up with a solution. Want to print the parts for the printer you have, and order physicals for the rest? Now, you can! There are now 3 new pledge levels for those who suffer the One Printer Blues:

If you have a resin printer, but not an FDM one, there's now an FDM Parts Only physical pledge level.

And with that pledge level comes 2 add-ons for digital downloads for the rest of the set:

If you noticed, the Turn Tracker was included in both. Well, it can be printed with both. Which you prefer is up to you.

What if you had an FDM printer, but not a resin one? Well, meet the two new resin parts only pledge levels:

And with those two new pledge levels comes a new add-on to print the FDM parts:

So now if you have only one type of printer, but not the other, you can still get a whole POB set together for a pretty good price!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

In the last few days people have requested samples to test print Port-O-Bowl parts that were designed for resin on their FDM printers. One such backer offered a good reason for only having the one FDM printer: She lives in a crowded and extremely expensive city where space is a premium, and where ventillation for the resin fumes is impossible.

So, I gave her some sample STLs for some players, a section of pitch, and skill markers. I was honestly curious how it would go - it didn't even occur to me to print the tiny players on an FDM printer. I thought there was simply no way the tiny players and the tiny skill markers would print on FDM.

BUT THEY DID!

Here are some sample photos she sent. It turns out that Port-O-Bowl was accidentally designed so well that it actually prints well on an FDM printer, skill markers included:

The skill marker even slots in! Unfortunately the Orc Blitzer lost his arm in a support removal mishap. But honestly I'm surprised he even printed at all.

Another backer also sampled it on his own FDM 3D printer:

Is it as precise and as pretty as printing it on a resin printer? It sure isn't. But is it good enough to play POB?

It sure is!

These two brave giraffes (for they were indeed both giraffes) have proven something even I didn't know: That Port-O-Bowl can (most likely) be printed COMPLETELY on an FDM printer!

But don't take my word for it - why not download a sample yourself?

Head on over to the Port-O-Bowl discord and download the samples I provided in the Sample Print channel!

Hello backers and followers!

Most people by now have received either their digtital or physical sets of Port-O-Bowl, and some have had questions about how to magnetize it. Well, this guide should show you. Please excuse the varying qualities of photos: they were taken at different times throughout the year and on different pieces of furniture!

TOOLS:

You will need the two sides of the Port-O-Bowl pitch, two part epoxy (just cheap stuff from your local hardware store should do), tin snips, a permanent marker, a sheet of 22GA steel, and two sided adhesive strips. I used Pro uGlu Dashes, but you can also use 3M Command Strips. For the players you will need 2mmx2mm magnets - I used these ones. Also use protective equipment such as leather gloves and googles when cutting metal.

Step 1: Mark the Steel with the Pitch as a Template

Make an outline on the steel plate with a marker using the pitch as straightedge. I used the corner of the plate so I only had to make 2 cuts, but you don't have to. Use all sides so you know how long to make the cuts.

Step 2: Initial Cut of the Steel Plate

Now we cut the plate for the first time. For best safety and for good-looking edges, we will cut the metal multiple times. I recommend NOT doing what the photo shows and cut OUTSIDE the outline you made - a little larger than the pitch. We can trim it later, and tinstips have a habit of making ragged edges when you are cutting into the middle of big pieces of metal, rather than trimming little bits off the edge. For safety, use gloves (not pictured) and cut on top of a bucket, tupperware container, cardboard box, or something with which to catch the steel shavings (also not pictured). You don't want to leave metal shards on the ground to be trod on by people, pets, or children. Trimming with snips also produces steel particles, which are extremely bad when inhaled or stepped on. I also recommend goggles, as a metal shaving in the eye is not exactly something you can just wipe away like you can with dirt.

Step 3: Trim the Steel Plate

Hopefully you read my text, didn't go by the photo, and cut a little outside the outline you made. Now we trim the edges with the snips. It is significantly easier to make straight edges with the snips by cutting little bits off at a time, rather than cutting into the metal for the first time. Notice how the metal being cut off is curling - those curls might look fun to play with, but they can slice your finger to the bone. I am actually trimming on top of a container this time. I recommend you do the same whenever you're cutting metal with snips.

You may need to re-trim the plate if you didn't cut off enough. You don't want to wait till the epoxy is on the plate to find out that you still need to trim it.

Step 4: Mix the Epoxy

Now you will need to mix up the epoxy you'll be using to adhere the steel plate to the pitch.

I used a paper plate (pink for safety) and the included mixing spatula - but you can use a razor blade or whatever you want. The gorilla glue was exactly 50/50 resin and hardener, so I just drew a straight line on the plate and mixed it.  Mix for however long it indicates on the directions (2 minutes in my case) - you don't want to undermix or you'll have uncured epoxy living inside your Port-O-Bowl set forever.

Step 5: Apply the Epoxy to the Steel

This step is pretty self-explanatory. Spread a thin layer of the epoxy you just mixed to the bottom of your trimmed steel plate. I used a boxcutter blade to smooth it out. You don't need 100% coverage to get good adhesion, but you also don't want the edges to peel away. As long as your plate is mostly flat, you'll be fine. The epoxy is a very strong adhesive.

Step 6: Clamp the Steel to the Pitch and Let it Dry

Now you clamp your epoxied steel plate to the pitch (you can see green around the edges of the plate- that's the pitch!).

I used wood clamps for this, but you can use anything from rubber bands to a stack of heavy books. Let the epoxy dry for however long it is indicated on the directions - in my case 30 minutes. 

Step 7: Apply Adhesive Strips to the Steel-Backed Pitch

Now that your pitch has a huge layer of steel on it, it's time to start adhering it to the tray. I used Pro uGlu Dashes, but there are a number of adhesive strip options you can employ. I think you can also use hot glue here, but I haven't tried it, and hot glue can damage the tray, so I don't recommend it. The adhesive strips are glue that have wax paper on both sides, so make sure not to let the oil of your fingers get on the glue or they'll lose some of their adhesive capability.

Step 8: Insert the Pitch into the Tray

Now that you have a steel plate epoxied to the back of your pitch and adhesive strips on the back of the steel, you can simply insert them into the Port-O-Bowl tray and press down. Now simply repeat the process for the other pitch and both dugouts and congratulations! Your Port-O-Bowl pitch is magnetized.

Magnetizing the Players

The players are much easier to magnetize. You will need your players, 2mmx2mm magnets, super glue, and an xacto knife.

Take a stack of 2 magnets and put them on the end of your xacto knife.

Then put a dollop of glue inside the hole of the player peg (it's difficult to see in this photo but it's there).

Then (I didn't get a photo for this) simply slide the magnets into the hole with the Xacto Knife.

Results:

If you followed this guide, you should have a completely magnetized set for Port-O-Bowl. The magnets are strong enough that the players can be flipped completely upside down and they will still hold!

Obviously a drop or a hard shock can knock them loose, but there are only so many scenarios for which I can design. Note that the tray in the last few photos is the Xtra Tall Tray, not the original. But it demonstrates the magnetization the best, I think. 

Happy travels!