Student gives new life to discarded board games

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) — A creator at Student-Made Troy is giving new life to discarded board games and their pieces.

Student-Made Troy provides future entrepreneurs with the ability to sell their products while in college through the student made store. Ian Maddox, a senior English major and the owner of Mad Ox Games, came up with the idea for what he calls the “Bits Box” when he saw some friends playing a game.

“They had found a bunch of random board game pieces just lying in a cabinet somewhere, and so they took them and just made up a game with them, which I thought was such a cool thing,” Maddox explained. “It reminded me of how much I used to do that when I was a kid, just take random pieces, take random toys, random things, and take them and make games out of them. I thought, why not make that into an actual game where people could do that for themselves?”

Maddox’s “Bits Box” includes miscellaneous pieces from board games, along with instructions to turn these pieces into a fun game.

“The idea is that people will make their own game-their own rules, their own story behind the game using the pieces in this box, or maybe pieces they found elsewhere.”

Maddox says his next step is creating a smaller version of the original idea.

“It’s going to be called the ‘Bits Bag’, and it’s going to be basically the same thing, but much smaller. That’s coming soon. I’m still waiting for a few things to come in for that.”

For now, anyone can purchase the Bits Box and other student-made creations in the Student-Made Store at the IDEA Bank in downtown Troy.