Frugal GM Review: Devin Knight's Dark Forest Token Pack

Thanks to the GM's Day Sale over at DriveThruRPG I was able to pick up several items off of my "wish list".

One of these items was Devin Knight's Dark Forest Token Pack. Normally $2.99, during this sale it is marked down to 99¢. Normally I'd have grabbed these up at the full price, but since I'm not currently running or playing in an online game (the place I generally use these tokens), they were shuffled off to my wish list instead of my shopping cart.


I've been using Devin Knight's tokens for years and even had a handful of custom tokens made. If you've downloaded some of DK's free tokens you may very well be playing with some of my former PCs! I've noticed over the years that he's just gotten better and better at his craft. Not only has his art improved, but he's gotten better at delivering the finished results.

Copyright Devin Knight

His earlier tokens were basically full sized, which was great unless you wanted to enlarge them or print them out for paper tokens. Now, even though they are generally still 72 DPI, they are simply over-sized. This lets you increase the token size in an online game without pixelation  or even print them up.

Now it has been a while since I've bought any of Devin's tokens and I was pleasantly surprised that the download contained to make files. The first was a zipped folder of all the tokens as organized PNG files. It may be a little thing, but since I already have a metric butt-load of assorted digital tokens, being able to file away new ones easily goes a long way with me. That second file was a layered PDF of the tokens as well.

PDF Token Backgrounds

This PDF is significant for a couple of reasons. First was the simple fact that it gives the purchaser hi-resolution versions of the tokens for paper token use. Now instead of trying to "blow up" the online-appropriate tokens for printing use we can use a suitably-sized version. Even with the now-larger PNG tokens the pixelation isn't terrible, with the PDF file it isn't an issue at all. Add to this the fact that Devin gives three options for the token background.....sweet. The example on the left has been severely reduced and just shown for an example of the background available. You have to select one background at a time...I just stitched three copies together.

Providing the PDF is a great touch on Devin's part that really adds some flexibility in use for these tokens. If you play in an online game using one of the popular online mapping programs then purchasing these tokens is a no-brainer at less than 2¢ a token. If you use paper minis....same deal. If you don't use flat paper minis, I can see this not being a quick choice, but there are a couple of tokens that might really fill a whole in your collection. I thought the spider swarm was one of the nicer representations I've seen (like it better than the Cardboard Heroes version).

Overall, the collection of 60+ virtual and paper tokens provided in Devin Knight's Dark Forest Token Pack is a pretty good deal at $2.99. If obtained during the GM's Day Sale over at DriveThruRPG (lasting until March 15th) it is practically a steal. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.