In role-playing games there’s something about a contemporary or near-future setting that has grabbed me over the past few years. “It’s our world, but different.” Now, there’s an Urban Fantasy setting for the Savage Worlds game system up on IndieGoGo with an interesting twist: the Greek Gods and Titans do battle in a game that seems part Jason Bourne, part Shadowrun. Olympus Inc. is a licensed Savage Worlds product with reward tiers beginning at $15. Pop on over to their IndieGoGo page and download a sample chapter.
More roleplaying goodness! With just a few days to go, Infinitas DM looks like everything I wanted a roleplaying game app to be. It’s a tabletop game platform somewhat similar to Roll20, plus intergrated campaign management. Right now, Atom Switch Inc. is coming down to the wire: just over $4000 left to make their modest funding goal. A pledge of $5 (five bucks?) gets you the finished app, hopefully at the end of the year. (Honestly, I think they underpriced their pledge tiers.)
Ghostbusters: The Board Game II? What? Didn’t the Ghostbusters board game just get released? Anyway, if you liked that and have $125 to blow on a Ghostbusters board game based on the not-so-great movie Ghostbusters II, um. Go ahead, ’cause apparently nearly 3000 people liked Ghostbusters II enough to pony up the cash, so yeah, it’s funded already.
Speaking of the 80’s, It’s The Goonies Adventure Card Game! In this game by Albino Dragon, you’re just a bunch’a rag-tag kids trying to find the treasure of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy while evading the Fratelli criminal — you know what, it’s The Goonies. Just get it already. It’s funded nearly five times over which is even more amazing than the time you ate your weight in Godfather’s pizza, right?
This week in Popular Card Game Coattail Riding/Parody/Marketplace Confusion, our Cards Against Humanity winner is Cards Against Technology, where a Canadian (!) ran out of Cards Against Humanity cards so he made his own. “Imagine playing Cards Against Humanity, but with unlimited possibilities to choose from making the game almost different every time, and funnier, and less boring as time passes depending on who you play with.” Typos and Arial instead of Helvetica on these cards. Plenty of ® and ™ symbols in the text so these guys don’t get sued. Only $273 of $1500 CAD pledged. Runner-up: Deck a Celebrity, where the judge pulls out a topic card (“AIDS!” she cries out.) and players have eight quotes from celebrities to best match the topic. (“If he invited you out, he’s got to pay.” -Beyonce was the winning card. Tee-hee.) It’s more Apples to Apples than CAH. They’ve pulled in $2,462 in pledges, but they wanted $15k. Nice KS intro video and better card design, though.
A Kickstarter project for Ghostbusters: The Board Game was just launched by Cryptozoic Entertainment. The game, which the company hopes to ship in October, is described as a cooperative “episodic adventure” game.
Players take on the roles of the four original ghostbuster characters—Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddemore—and pursue their supernatural quarry through four episodes in each of three campaigns. In the final episode of each campaign, the players will take on one of the iconic bosses, Slimer, Idulnas, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
For a pledge of $80 backers will get 10 double-sided game board tiles, dice, tokens, character cards, ghost cards, and at least 47 miniature game pieces—ghostbusters, bosses, galloping ghouls, gruesome twosomes, and boogaloo manifestations. Included in the $125 Mass Hysteria pledge level are the Kickstarter exclusive foil-stamped box, Sandman boss figure, Sedgewick Hotel tiles, glow-in-the-dark dice, and super-sized, impossible-mode Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Expect additional stretch goals. Cryptozoic is seeking $250,000 in funding.