An early adopter of crowdfunding, Tasty Minstrel Games is now looking to raise general operating and marketing funds through equity crowdfunding portal MicroVentures. The company says it has three games in development, 15 in production, and has sold over 400,000 units since 2010. It appears that any return on a crowdfunding investment could only come about through the sale of shares back to the company or if the company as a whole was sold at some point in the future. But equity crowdfunding is significantly more complex that your typical game project. Read those documents carefully.

Calliope Games has been doing a great job with its focus on easier-going strategy games. Next in that line is to be Dicey Peaks, currently funded and aiming for stretch-goals in its final hours on Kickstarter. I got a brief preview of Dicey Peaks at Toy Fair. It’s a push-your-luck dice game of mountain-climbing. To win, players must make their way to the summit while managing their oxygen and avoiding yeti attacks.

With Commands & Colors: Tricorne from Compass Games, designer Richard Borg takes his C&C card-driven system to the American Revolution. The game will include more than 300 wood blocks, printed dice, a mounted map-board, and separate decks of combat cards to represent the differentiated strategies of the British and Colonials.

On the verge of funding is another block war game, Combat Infantry. Columbia Games’s version of squad-level combat in World War II, this one emphasizes fog-of-war with blocks that are single-sided and rotate to record current strength. The box will include six historical scenarios from the invasion of Normandy, as well as four additional generic scenarios.

Tesla vs. Edison: Duel is an abbreviated, two-player card game that covers the same history of early electric utilities as Artana’s full Tesla vs. Edison board game. Most importantly, the company finally included Samuel Insull, my favorite personality of the period.

Kenzer and Company is on Kickstarter for the first time with Aces & Eights: Reloaded, a revised edition of its wild-west roleplaying game. Kenzer promises a second edition “chock-full of new rules, tweaks, art and other enhancements,” while maintaining the game’s unique shot-clock, a targeting overlay for fun old-west style shoot-outs.

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The latest nostalgic trigger overfunding on Kickstarter is the Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game from Modiphius Entertainment. Designed by Matt Leacock of Pandemic fame, the game has players taking on the roles of the individual Tracy family members, completing various rescue missions around the world, and most importantly, piloting miniatures of the beloved Thunderbirds vehicles. The project is currently working toward a stretch goal that would allow a fifth player to act as the evil Hood.

If for no other reason, I would have had to mention Bad Medicine for best integration of a gorilla suit in a project video. Fortunately, though, this party game that bucks the recent trend of simply being crude has more to offer than that. In Bad Medicine players identify maladies, concoct remedies, and argue over side effects. Sounds like a visit with the grandparents.

RPE Miniatures’ Phroggs project is for 28mm metal figures of science-fiction amphibians. They’ll be produced in Poison Dart Frog, Fire Bellied Toad, and Bullfrog versions, each with futuristic uniforms and weapons.

Another minis project is the one for cast resin terrain by THMiniatures. It features unpainted elements in two groups: fortifications and ruins.

I’m a very geeky geek. Besides the obvious focus on games, I have a real fascination with the history of electric utilities (it’s the engineering background, I guess). So Artana’s project for a board game on just that subject hooked me on two fronts. Tesla vs. Edison has the PR antics, stock shenanigans, and business chicanery that was a real part of the industry in its early days. My only beef (without having played the game yet) is Artana’s assumption that all geeks will side with Tesla. You can count me in the Edison camp.

Nova Aetas is a tactical combat board game set in Renaissance Italy. Nova Aetas can be played single-player, cooperative, or competitive and includes 50 miniatures, 3D terrain, and a campaign of 30 scenarios. It also promises tough enemies controlled by an aggressive AI and a time-based action management system.

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