Purple Pawn has been on the forefront of covering Kickstarter game projects for some time. With the explosion in both the number and scope of projects, however, that coverage must evolve. We hope to bring back shortly our comprehensive list of projects. In the meantime, though, we’re going to test a weekly roundup of Kickstarter game news that highlights interesting projects, major achievements, sneak peeks, and related stuff from around the web. Please let us know what you think of this approach.

Finished and Finishing

Zombicide successfully funded on Sunday with just over $780,000—39 times its goal! Ogre Designer’s Edition is at $715,000 with about a day-and-a-half left.

Interesting Projects

Ace of Spies is a spy-themed card game set in the 1920s. It’s the first project of new game publisher Albino Dragon, a venture of sometimes contributor to Purple Pawn, Richard Bliss (also currently an advertiser). Watch their intro video. It’s my favorite so far.

Another project with a connection to this site is Off Your Rocker from Stratus Games. It’s a party game, which honestly is not usually my thing. However, we’re currently running a giveaway of Off Your Rocker for Stratus, and as part of that have been playing a version of the game over on our Play page. It’s been a lot of fun!

Polynesian Adventure is the project of a recent business school graduate and Hawaii resident. It’s supposed to teach Polynesian culture but is just roll-and-move—or more precisely, draw-card-and-move, like Candy Land. [Reminds me of a story I did 4 years ago.] It’s passed the 50 percent mark but only has 7 days left to go.

Gen Con or Bust is fiction author Patrick Stutzman’s attempt to finance a trip to Gen Con. He’s been before but can’t afford it this year. He’s asking for $2,250.

Lots of people talk about the difficulties of dealing with sexism, classism, racism, violence, and historical realism in fantasy games. The Farewell to Fear project is trying to address that with a sophisticated “progressive post-fantasy roleplaying game”. Not simply changing the skin color of NPCs, Farewell to Fear presents a medieval-style setting undergoing social revolution.

Think punk rock meets fantasy. Bad Religion meets Tolkien, boot to face.

With the Global GameSpace project, creator Curtis Lacy is hoping to develop a cross-platform, virtual-tabletop application for playing board games over the internet. He plans to give away the software when it’s finished but needs $40,000 to make it happen.

Interesting projects show up on Indiegogo too. One of them is Sharks With Lasers, a game in which the players’ secret agent trainees must dodge sharks, and their lasers, on the way to an island.

Stuff From Around the Web

Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, talked about crowdfunding on a Gamerati Google+ Hangout and teased about a possible Kickstarter project launching soon. Could the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo from Goblin Works be what she was referring to?

On BoardGameGeek, one user is maintaining a GeekList of the top 10 most funded board game projects on Kickstarter.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group announced that it will announce next week (really) a Kickstarter project for a new Savage Worlds RPG setting.

On Troll in the Corner, Nick reminds donors to be cautious with crowdfunding, noting that there’s no guarantee of quality for supported projects.