A while ago I met some small games designed to fit into pockets. These ranged from copies of well known board games such as Tic Tac Toe to skill games where you had to get ball bearings into dents in cardboard.

A board game is a game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games can be based on pure strategy, chance (e.g. rolling dice) or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve. Early board games represented a battle between two armies, and most current board games are still based on defeating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points (often expressed as in-game currency).

There are many different types and styles of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, as with checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, as with Cluedo. Rules can range from the very simple, as in tic-tac-toe, to those describing a game universe in great detail, as in Dungeons & Dragons (although most of the latter are role-playig games where the board is secondary to the game, helping to visualize the game scenario).

The amount of time required to learn to play or master a game varies greatly from game to game. Learning time does not necessarily correlate with the number or complexity of rules; some games, such as chess or Go, have simple rulesets while possessing profound strategies.

Carcassonne is a clever game played from tiles which would work well in a small tin. No requirement for a playing board will always be a plus when space is at a premium.

When we are making games that fit inside a restricted space we must choose games that either fold, are segmental or simplistic. Jenga was an obvious choice and this was made using 3mm acrylic. It could also be made from MDF. I followed this with a small Tic Tac Toe to practice making pieces on the lathe.