Kodama The Tree SpiritsKodama: The Tree Spirits from Action Phase Games is a reimplementation of designer Daniel Solis’ Kigi, with a bit of added sophistication. Scoring points in the game involves growing tree branches with contiguous caterpillars, flowers, mushrooms, or other features. But rather than its strategy or mechanics, Kodama’s major draw has to be its overall aesthetic. Laying down branch cards is really about cultivating a beautiful and tranquil home for the spirits.

The first of its kind in our Crowdfunding Highlights series, Chess Boxing Global is an equity crowdfunding project that seeks to build an international sports league for Chessboxing. A total of 10 percent equity is being offered for approximately €390,000 (not open to residents of the United States).

The Mad Adventurers SocietyThe team at The Mad Adventurers Society wants to help you run a better game. The one who calls himself The Angry GM really just wants you to know you’re doing it wrong. For the privilege of reading their blog and listening to their podcasts they also expect you really should donate to their Patreon campaign.

Current Kickstarter projects Fathoms and Rivals are both tactical miniatures games set in underwater worlds. Fathoms has more of a modern military feel, Rivals more a mythical or fantastical one. Fathoms’ monster miniatures are frightening; Rivals’ are delightful. Fathoms has mechanics for flooding of submerged structures. Rivals has “aether” for purchasing troops and fueling special powers.

Prospectus Crystal BallProspectus from Mr. B Games pairs market economics with magical potion-making. “A mage has to know when to cash in his troll sweat for some owl spit.” It also has this neat crystal ball device for determining market movements in all of the various components.

For all the talk of “platonic ideal,” “syntactical combinations,” and “Aristotelian categories,” Band or Album is just a social game that assumes any and every phrase works as either the name of a band or the title of an album, but never both. Back the project to receive a set of rules with some guitar pic-shaped coins, and argue to your heart’s content.

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

Crowdfunding Highlights

Kill Doctor Lucky Deluxe Anniversary EditionThough Cheapass Games’ classic has seen a number of reprints over the years, the new Deluxe Anniversary Edition of Kill Doctor Lucky will have revised rules and a refined map-board. Think of the game as a wacky prequel to Clue. Players move their pieces around a map of the mansion, attempting to catch up with Dr. Lucky and kill him without any witnesses. Should someone manage to find him alone, opposing players, however, still have an opportunity to play their cards in Dr. Lucky’s favor, giving him that quick boost of luck that allows him to escape murder—temporarily.

Kobold Press is putting together a book of 300 new monsters for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a collection of monster lairs with detailed battle maps. Backers can get the Tome of Beasts, the Book of Lairs, or both, in any combination of print or PDF.

Scythe is a Euro-style 4X game set in an alternate-history version of early 20th century Eastern Europe. It has mech miniatures, deterministic combat, and unique factions. And as Stonemaier Games is wont to do, the game is available in premium, collector, and connoisseur editions with metal coins, plastic modeled resource bits, and an art book.

Ninja Star Games’ Wolf & Hound is a card game played in partnerships. As shepherds, the goal of players is to manipulate the wolf in to chasing away their opponents’ sheep, while using the sheepdog to rescue their own sheep from the forest.

Machu Picchu Dice

Machu Picchu Dice are to be hand-made in Cusco, Peru from Nephrite stone inlaid with silver, chrysocolla, lapis lazuli, spondylus, and abalone. Available in three styles, a pair of dice will run $39-55.

High-tech instead of artisanal, Boogie Dice are self-rolling. They respond to sudden noises, such as clapping or the snapping of fingers, by bouncing around of their own accord. What this accomplishes, I have no idea but it sure is cool. A pair with charging station goes for $38. If the project gets to $200k, they’ll also make 20-sided boogie dice.

Crowdfunding Highlights

patreon logoIt’s an all-Patreon episode of Crowdfunding Highlights! This week we’re looking at four gaming-related projects that you can back on a monthly subscription basis at a rate you choose. (Patreon lets you cap monthly payments to keep your budget happy.) As patrons sign up, funding levels hit milestones which might unlock additional goodies. Like other crowdfunding sites, projects might have tiers to unlock bonus material for backers.

Like beer and boardgames? So do Aaron and Matt of Blame Society Films. They drink beer with their friends, play board games, and record it for your entertainment. Games played range from the current hotness in party games to to obscure games that nobody really wants to play, like Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex, Pretty Pretty Princess, or Party Mania (with VHS tape). It’s goofy fun with adult beverages that you can provide! Milestones for this project include better beer. Beer & Boardgames on Patreon.

liz

Every Thursday evening at 9 PM Eastern, Liz Bauman organizes and hosts #RPGchat over on Twitter. The weekly hour-long chat is a guided discussion using the #RPGchat hashtag. By supporting Liz in this Patreon project, she’ll be able to have dedicated time to curate content and develop topics for the hour, and feature industry guests and co-hosts in the project. More information is at Patreon.com/RPGchat.

If you like Johnn Four’s Roleplaying Tips newsletter, he’s opened up the ability to let readers support him via Patreon. The fifteen-year old email newsletter is free, but he’s moved to crowdfunding for the fans who want to support the newsletter. (And, as a bonus, patrons giving at least $5 a month get a monthly PDF compilation of the 4-5 tips newsletters.)

 

cardboard edison

Over at Cardboard Edison, Chris and Suzanne Zinsli have been working on aggregating news and information about the game design world for the past three years. In addition to reviewing hundreds of websites, dozens of podcasts, and tons of social media, the couple has developed several industry report infographics and held interviews about design with Chris Kirkman, Matt Leacock, Daniel Solis, and more. They’re looking for patrons to help them aggregate game design news.

 

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

UberStaxUberStax is a universal game accessory that can be used as a holder for cards, tiles, tokens and other game components. Its racks and supporting elements fit together in extra-wide, multi-level, or other configurations as appropriate to the game or desired by the user. UberStax are meant not just as a convenience for the general gamer but also as a support for those with manual dexterity issues.

Hawke Robinson is a registered recreational therapist who’s run both adapted and non-adapted roleplaying games for people with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, and a variety of special needs, as well as for at-risk children. So far, he’s been limited to providing these therapeutic services—which he does without charge—to the area of Spokane, Washington. He’d like, however, to take his game on the road and so is turning to the public for help with funding a wheelchair-friendly RPG trailer—basically a game room on wheels.

RPG trailer

The Networks is a card-drafting game where the goal of players is to assemble the best lineup of television shows and attract the most viewers. Shows, stars, time slots, genres, demographics, and advertisers all must be managed and considered. The shows themselves even age over time, forcing players to continually develop new shows to keep viewers tuning in. Despite these various elements, The Networks is supposed to be a light-to-moderate game with a healthy dose of satirical humor.

LaticeLatice is beautiful and its gameplay simple. Place a tile adjacent to another tile with which it shares a color or shape. Place it next to two or more tiles with shared color or shape to earn special moves such as repositioning an already placed tile.

A Hindu board game out of Croatia, Catch Krishna in Vrindavan aims to encapsulate the Bhakti devotion. One player takes on the role of Krishna, the others become the gopis chasing him around a map of the ancient city.

Recall of CthulhuUnder a banner of “cultists have kids too,” Toy Vault is seeking funds for Recall of Cthulhu, a Lovecraftian memory-matching game. The basic game is straightforward—turn over two matching tiles—but the advanced game adds a layer of moderate complexity. For example, some tiles are worth more than others, matching is no longer 1-to-1, and certain tiles trigger special actions, like a bonus turn-over.

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

The theater department of Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon has a history of adopting Paizo’s roleplaying games to the stage. The school’s next production, Night of Ashes, is a prequel for the Hell’s Rebels Pathfinder Adventure Path. With performances scheduled for November, the school’s PTA has turned to Kickstarter for help in funding video equipment to record the event, including a GoPro to capture elements of the show that will be audience-interactive. Extra funds will be used to improve costuming.

Cleveland High School Pathfinder

Back when I was in high school (in the 1980s), there were fanzines, like The Oracle for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Now The Play Generated Map and Document Archive wants to reprint it bound in hardcover.

More on the cutting-edge, Aether Forge Miniatures is looking for support to produce a line of modular space ship miniatures. Individual sections would fit together to form custom ships. Though I love the idea, I do have to point out that Aether Forge is really just one guy still teaching himself how to use 3D modeling software.

With a slicker presentation is Less, a simple abstract strategy game played on a modular board. The goal is to jump one’s pieces in to the opponent’s corner, three moves per turn. The board’s modularity, however means that each game there will be a different configuration of walls getting in the way. Fortunately pieces can jump walls, just at the cost of an extra move.

Walls is another race-through-the-maze type abstract strategy game. What makes this one interesting, though, is that players can change the maze during the course of the game, clearing a path for themselves or blocking their opponents. Each turn, a player rolls two dice, one for the number of spaces they can move, one for the number of walls they can turn.

Booze Barons is a deduction game about competing bootleggers during prohibition. As players move their game pawns around to different speakeasies and other locations, they their goal is to figure out which other player is making which kind of booze. The game accommodates up to nine players, always in three aligned mobs.

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

Hasbro Crowdfunding Party Games

Hasbro Gaming LabOr should I say crowdsourcing. Well, it’s probably more accurate to call it a combination of the two. Let me explain…

As Hasbro tries to engage more with fans, the company is turning to the public to find the next great party game. The effort is being led by a group in the company called “Hasbro Gaming Lab”.

Hasbro Gaming Lab is a team of passionate and game enthusiasts and designers, whose mission is to discover and develop great new games, connect with the growing gaming community, and bring fresh experiences to gamers everywhere.

Specifically, Hasbro is inviting the public to submit ideas for face-to-face party games. The folks at Hasbro Gaming Lab will select their five favorite, based on the following criteria:

40%: Gameplay (are there well considered rules, balanced mechanics, limited (if any) digital involvement)

20%: Story/theme (abide by a narrative to give dimension to the concept)

20%: Potential for Fun-ness (It should have the potential to bring people together, instigate laughter, or create good times)

20%: Viability (50 foot game boards sound awesome… but it’s unlikely they can be made into a game)

Then to choose the best from among those five, Hasbro is enlisting the help of Indiegogo. All five will be asked to launch their games as projects on the crowdfunding website. When the campaigns are finished, Hasbro judges will choose a single winner, again based on the above criteria—not necessarily the highest funding. The winning project gets a bonus $10,000 direct from Hasbro, as well as free consultation and mentoring sessions at Hasbro’s offices in Providence, Rhode Island (travel expenses paid for a team of three).

Here’s the real amazing thing. Participants, even the winners, retain all rights to their game! Hasbro only requires a right-of-first-refusal. That is, should the winner find a third-party publisher interested in acquiring the game, Hasbro will have the right to meet or exceed the offer.

The deadline for submitting initial ideas on the Hasbro Gaming Lab website is September 30th. Good luck!

[via Entrepreneur]

Crowdfunding Highlights

Christopher Ferguson revisits the old zip-top-bag micro war game format with his Kickstarter project for Star Patrol. It’s a hex-and-counter game of spaceship combat that embraces Newtonian space flight mechanics. During the course of the game, players must keep track of inertia and orientation for each of their custom-designed ships.

Also hearkening back to the earlier days of hobby gaming is the Marmoreal Tomb Campaign Starter from Earnest Gary Gygax Jr. Designed for AD&D (but with stretch goals also compatible with Pathfinder and 5th Edition), the campaign is based on the game Earnest used to run while managing the Dungeon Hobby Shop for TSR.

Another RPG project on Kickstarter turns the 1993 novel, Vurt by Jeff Noon, in to a tabletop game. The setting of Vurt is a cyberpunk world in which munching on color-coded feathers allows people to access an alternate reality. In game form, Vurt will use Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System.

Dingo's Dreams TilesAlternate realities of a sort also make an appearance on the board game front. Dingo’s Dreams from Red Raven Games and designer Alf Seegert has players guiding animals through a dream world. Gameplay involves manipulating a matrix of tiles so that as they’re flipped from landscape-side to animal-side, the animals fit a specific target pattern for the round.

Prime Time from Golden Egg Games is a board game about managing a television network. Players compete to develop shows, cast actors, and fill their weekly schedules in a way that will attract various viewer demographics, earn awards, and sell advertising. A somewhat more substantial Euro-style strategy game, this one nevertheless appears to marry mechanics and theme very well.

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

Crowdfunding Highlights

JurassAttackNow that the world of cloned dinosaurs is back in our minds, it is no surprise that a game about the extinct giants is getting some board game love. In JurassAttack!, players compete against each other in a simultaneous turn-based card game. Select a dinosaur or pack of dinosaurs from your hand and reveal it. The players with the most ferocious beast wins.

If you have ever fancied yourself to be a bit of an art enthusiast, The Gallerist will give you an idea of what it is like to run a high-class gallery. In this game, players take on the roll of art dealer, museum curator, and manager for budding artists. The goal is to have the most popular, and financially sound gallery in town.

If you’ve ever been on a road trip across the country, you’ve probably seen your fair share of side-of-the-road vehicle victims. In Roadkill Rivals, players act as travelers on a dusty Arizona highway in search of the perfect roadside varmint. The goal is to collect the right combination of cards to “create road kill” (AKA run over a poor, unsuspecting creature), sabotage your opponents, and earn points. How do you create road kill? Collect certain animal and vehicle cards. If you succeed, splat.

League of Gothic HorrorLeague of Adventures roleplaying fans will be happy to know that there is a Victorian-era expansion based on dark tales of the supernatural. In League of Gothic Horror, players must work to discover what lurks in the shadows using steampunk style artifacts. The 160-page campaign book includes loads of new content, as well as helpful hints for playing a Gothic Horror game.

Why should we settle for traditional gaming dice when we are playing science-fiction themed games? I’m tired of the same old pip style rolls. I want my dice to represent my style. Space Roller is a fancy pants set of six-sided dice that looks like something that would be used in the world of Tron. They have a futuristic sci-fi space design that will make your game night buddies jealous. Now, if only they would make a full set of gaming dice.

Space Roller

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

Crowdfunding Highlights

Fifty years after the game’s first release, Flying Buffalo is bringing back Nuclear War. The classic card game has players attempting to eliminate each others’ populations. Fallout from a nuclear warhead, however, can be unpredictable. And any player wiped out is given a last chance to launch all their remaining cards, thus possibly setting off a chain reaction where everyone loses.

Exploring the collapse of society in a more nuanced fashion is the story game, Downfall. This one sees players building the setting together, in particular its cultural landscape. Then they choose a flaw—like conformity or greed—and narrate how, despite heroic attempts, that flaw becomes the seed of catastrophe.

For those contemplating the aftermath of cataclysm, there’s Conflicted. As much a discussion tool as a card game, Conflicted presents morally challenging situations for preppers. How far are you willing to go to survive?

World War Cthulhu: Cold War is a 1970s espionage setting for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. It’s as if the cold war and potential for mutually-assured destruction weren’t scary enough.

Slip CupSlip Cup is a cup insert that keeps the ball out of the beer in Beer Pong. Sized to fit most 16 and 18 ounce disposable cups, Slip Cup has tabs to keep an on-target ball from bouncing out, and is short enough to hold that ball while leaving room underneath for the penalty beer. A numbered pack of 20 (enables a variety of new games) can be had for a pledge of just $5 plus shipping. I’ll leave you to decide if this project is part of the apocalypse theme.

Last up and definitely off the theme is Hocus. It’s a card game derived from Texas Hold ‘Em Poker but with a fantasy theme that allows a player to cast spells to play cards to the community, the pot, or a personal pocket. Several hands, each with their own community, pot, and pockets can be played simultaneously.

Hocus Kickstarter

  • Comments Off on Crowdfunding Highlights

Casual Game Insider issue 12 coverEach issue of Casual Game Insider is filled with reviews, behind-the-scene looks, interviews, commentary, and other stories from the world of casual games. That is, games of quality which don’t require hours of study to play well or enjoy. After 3 years its mission of promoting fun, social, casual game play remains unchanged. And whether you pick up an issue to read poolside, subscribe for your waiting room, or leave several about to surreptitiously hook your family on board games, what’s great about Casual Game Insider is that it’s a magazine that’s also serious about quality.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. With the permission of the publisher, Purple Pawn offers you here an opportunity to download the current issue for free.

Click here to download a FREE digital issue of Casual Game Insider.

If you like it, you might consider subscribing by pledging to the magazine’s Kickstarter project for a fourth year. Print and electronic delivery options are available.

  • Comments Off on Free Issue of Casual Game Insider
« Previous Page« Previous Entries  Next Entries »Next Page »