Kickstarter is a site that lets people pledge money for an investment in someone’s business. You only pay if a minimum threshold is reached.

The amount of the threshold depends on how much the developers need, ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. If the amount pledged goes over the target, the extra money is used for additional design, marketing, etc. Your rewards are typically based on the amount you’ve invested, anything from a thanks to an exclusive meeting or session with the developers.

Purple Pawn has surveyed a few game projects on Kickstarter in the past. Here are some more (pledge amounts may change at any time):

Project Description Company $ Needed $ Pledged Days left
Forsaken Lands II Poster Map RPG map Maps of Mastery 2000 1907 4
Perfect, Unrevised Story game Buried Without Ceremony 7000 1460 27
Early Dark RPG Anthropos Games 3200 2007 31
Trexlin & Xephyer RPG campaign setting and fantasy card game Platinum Lion 3850 670 34
Aruneus Fantasy zombie RPG Troll in the Corner 1500 1020 27
Kooba Weird magnetic dart game. 3000 1325 31
Obsidian Twilight H.P. Lovecraft material for Pathfinder Louis Porter Jr. 3000 160 30
Cyberslums 28mm fantasy skirmish game New Evolution Games 1500 98 56
Gaggle Trivia game Gaggle Game 15000 570 5
Socks, Inc ARG with web interaction Socks Inc 6000 7029 10
Cholent Jewish-themed blind bidding card game Epicure Games 5000 210 40
d10 Core RPG System Cross-genre RPG system rulebook Late Nite Books 3000 0 33
Lomby Zombie: Corporate Stiff Standalone/expansion to board game John Goewert 4000 25 3
Politics From Hell Card game s(ands)R(andom) 1500 15 23 hours