Below is a selection of games that stood out to us while browsing kickstarter.com.
Backing a project can be a great thing, but please do the research on a game before you put money into it. Happy exploring!
Board & Card Games
Role-Playing Games
Miniatures Games
Gaming Music, Software & Accessories
Good luck to my personal favorite, Migration, and to its creator, @DoubleBanjo. It’s just entered its final 48 and is well on the way to hitting both the $25k and $30k stretch goals!
+1 to @HaiKulture’s call for a new kickstarter list. Lots of great games ending in the next few days and hours.
In case we don’t get a fresh Kickstarter News Sheet – This week:
I’m in for Dungeon Scroll because why not? How many Dungeon Crawls for Scrabble Heads are there?
I need to make up my mind about Arcadia Quest vs a possible forthcoming Super Dungeon Explore campaign. The AQ looks like fun, I love the chibis, and the idea of the branching scenarios. I guess I’ll let you know when Cool Mini Million gets it to my door two years after the fact.
I’m going to ride the Wagon Trail of Westerly out til the end. Honestly, for an obvious parody of the pixelated prairie of yesteryear: Oregon Trail, it is a shame so few of the backers seem to be in the spirit of it.
@DoubleBanjo A prosperous Final 48 to you and Migration
No-nonsense dinosaur battles! Apex: Theropod Deck-Building Game is really heating up. This is no cute kids game (although as a young boy I loved dinosaur battles), it’s serious competition with the best predator (Apex) clawing its way to the top by gathering prey, defeating bosses, evolving protection, and dominating the most land. Paleontologists are starting to get involved too (see KS comments), so this is looking good. The artwork is awesome as well and the designer is very open to suggestions.
@Budgie Backer Blackmail I like that – I putting that in my Kickstarter Dictionary 🙂
I mean honestly – I would love to see some of these lovely ‘supporters’ walk into their FLGS, grab a product off the wall, rip open the cellophane, toss A, B, and C components and cards they don’t want back in the poor chap behind the counter’s face and then hold out their hand for ‘freebies’ and see how far it gets them. 😛
@Budgie @Paladin I think there is a happy medium – a healthy comments section is good for a campaign. A designer can not only fund a project but build up a fan base. oddball: Aeronauts had a very healthy campaign and comments.
If I see a campaign with 400 backers but 4 updates and 30 comments I wonder who is actually interested in this project if not the designers and pledgers themselves.
If you can get a decent enough community built during the First 48 and first week – friendly chatter can get a rally or two and garner some interest during the dreaded LAG.
Less might not always be more and it is nice in my book to see a little more than what I call ‘Kickstarter Church’ people stopping in at the beginning to say ‘I pledged!’ (Christmas) and then stopping back at the end to say ‘Look what we did!’ (Easter).
But when it comes to 24 hours Hate Farms and Backer Blackmail ‘less is more and enough is enough’
@Paladin – I totally agree with you. I have friends who are keeping abreast of Tokaido and while I love the game I’m turned off both by the way the campaign is run and the amount of “backer blackmail.”
I’ve had fantastic experiences recently with Draco Magi, oddball Aeronauts, Heroes Wanted, and most recently Migration. You’re comment on the Tower community alone makes me want to check out their site.
But as it says at the top of the page: “Backing a project can be a great thing, but please do the research on a game before you put money into it. Happy exploring!”
@HaiKulture & @Granny: I’ve tried to stop reading KS comments altogether, at least when the backer number gets super high and the unwashed masses swarm them.
Games with smaller communities like Tower and Migration have been a pleasure to participate in the comments of, because people keep it civil and respect the creators and each other.
Of course, the tradeoff for that is a $20,000 – $40,000 funding tally instead of, say, $300,000. I’d probably prefer to take the funding and suffer the vocal minority (though FunForge is cowtowing A LOT to those vocal minorities).
Anyway — I LOVE Kickstarting board games despite the nature of the community. I just wish they’d start rolling in now (ANY DAY NOW, MYTH!).
Thanks to all who have supported (and will support) Robots on the Line! I appreciate it and look forward to getting it published.
And so did Robots on the Line!
Heroes of Metro City just had a HUGE day, so glad to see that!
Slaughterball is now cancelled. They’ll try again in a few months. Hopefully they’ll be more organized upon relaunch. That project was killed by not having the rulebook up until about halfway through funding.
I didn’t expect The Ancient World to be up on kickstarter so soon. I’ve been lightly following the playtesting of that one on BGG, and, well, it’s made by the guy who did City Of Iron, which is one of my favorites. That was an automatic click.
Heroes of Metro City makes me cry, because it is an awesome game and I so badly want it to fund. I know it’s yet another hero game, but it really does play differently. You feel like you’re playing as a newbie hero, slowly developing your own power and personality. The playmats are whiteboards, and you write your hero name in the provided space, and certain cards even key off your name.
@MChez – It’s still on my radar. I just have so may other games I want… 🙂
It does need some love if it’s going to fund in the next 72 hours.
@Paladin I was very reluctant to jump in with Arcadia, not because of the Chibi thing for me, but because I don’t see myself playing it tons in the near future. Yet I did, because I remember feeling the same way during the original Zombiecide campaign, and while it’s a once in a while game, I’m still kicking myself for not kickstarting it when I could. I mean missing out on Dave the Geek (Sheldon)…Grrrrr!
@Granny with regards to HoMC I hear you and agree that Heroes Wanted is a sharp left turn for hero gameplay with what’s offered out there. I would offer, that being a big fan of the ‘big three’ cape games, HoMC does play very differently from the others, and offers a bit more individual creativity if you like to think of games thematically. Hope you give it another look.
My wallet just committed seppuku.
And just when you thought you’d had enough… The creators of City of Iron, Eight-Minute Empire: Legends, and plenty of other great games just launched their next kickstarter for The Ancient World! (I added it above)
@HaiKulture @Paladin – Yeah, the people over on Takaido Kickstarter boards sound a little like whiners. The quibble is over changes in extras, when the core game is worth the money already. Funforge has definitely made some mistakes… and most of the mistakes have been by bending to the whiners… creating even more whiners.
BTW I like the new KS breakdown. If it keeps growing, you may have to do multiple pages.
Add me to the list of those that like to grouping layout!
I’m in for Dungeon Scroll and am hopeful it plays well with two.
Got home from work to find Dr. Finn’s Capo dei Capi had arrived!