Crowdfunding Highlights

crowdfunding-highlights-iconBitbox is a game storage system for taking the components for your game — boards, rulebooks, and all those little pieces — and storing them, cutting down on the space required for all those game boxes. A unit fits within an IKEA Kallax cube space, and the video shows fourteen different games (Stone Age, Concept, Reverse Charades, Splendor, Power Grid, Telestrations, Machi Koro, Survive, The Lord of the Rings TCG base set, Ticket to Ride, RoboRally, Codenames, 7 Wonders, and Kingdom Builder were shown) stored in that single Bitbox. $50 gets you a Bitbox and a carry-to-game-night box. If we knew about this thing before it launched, you could have had that for $30.

The Prince Valiant RPG just came on Kickstarter last week. This game, set in the time of King Arthur and designed by Greg Stafford, is a storytelling game designed to be accessible to younger players. If you’ve wanted to tell stories about noble knights, you can get a physical copy of the game book filled with gorgeous full-color artwork from Hal Foster’s comic strip for just $30.

220px-TheWarriors_1979_Movie_PosterWell, after our last look at Crowdfunding Highlights, I think we’ve covered all the modular-board scenario-based standalone miniature battle games up on Kickstarter and — are you kidding me? There’s The Warriors: Turf War, based on the 1979 movie where a gang is set up for murder and all the gangs in New York City are hunting them down. Included in the base game are several miniatures, including the comical Baseball Furies (just called “Furies” here). Let’s do the rundown from last time: “early bird stretch goals not completely sold out (hurry!), more than three dozen miniatures (46!), second-ever KS from the company, $105 normal price tag. Come out to play.

Jackson Robinson does cards. You’ve got less than 19 hours to get some awesome currency-inspired playing cards. The cards are based on American and Chinese currency. (I’ve got one of his Wasteland decks and they’re really fantastic.) $14 gets you one of these decks, $28 gets you two. Stop reading and go now! There’s just *gasp* 18 hours left now! Go! Go! Go!

ChinaCards

not cahHonestly, I can’t wait for the US Presidential election to be over. There are soooo many Kickstarters that are trying to capitalize on Trump or Hillary that we just know aren’t going to fund or, god forbid they actually do fund, won’t be fulfilled any time before the election. Case in point: What the Drumpf, which is Apples to Apples with questions and Trump-like quotes “and the debate leader picks the funniest, most racist or most insane answer”. They want 3500 GBP for this thing.

Last week: People Vs. Politics, the “CAH with uncomfortable political discussion” game — how did it do? Unsuccessful, with just under half of the $4800 goal made.

amazon_logoThe Amazon Boardgame sale has gone live. For the past few years, Amazon.com has been holding a boardgame sale on the Saturday during Gen Con, with the occasional addition of new games over the course of the day. Games are generally marked down to 50% of MSRP. The only RPG being offered at the moment is the Fate Core rulebook. Boardgames (at the moment) include Five Tribes, Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak, Dixit, Tzolk’in, Flash Point, Libertalia, Tsuro, Tokaido, Ticket to Ride Europe, Kingdom Builder, and more. The boardgame sale is a one-day event.

 

Edit: Today is no longer the Saturday of Gen Con.

 

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Kingdom Builder MarshlandsDonald X. Vaccarino announced that Queen Games’ upcoming Kingdom Builder expansion’s Kickstarter campaign has been cancelled. Last week, the game designer made a public statement on BoardGameGeek.com’s message forums about lack of payment and the expiration of the contract. “The contract expires if they haven’t published the expansion by June 30 2015,” he writes. “[G]iven that they haven’t paid me yet for 2014, I’m not feeling inclined to give them more time.”

This morning, Mr. Vaccarino reports that Queen Games has been working with him to determine “just how much exactly they owe me for 2014, in a completely friendly fashion, and has paid most of it.” He attributes the post and the crossposting to the Kickstarter comments to have motivated the company to pay him.

Queen Games has published a statement about the campaign’s cancellation in a backers-only update. Queen says they will not have the rights to publish the expansion after the 30th of June and that the contract will not be extended by the designer. “Before the campaign started, everything was lined up for publishing the German edition by that time,” the update reads. “But for unfortunate circumstances we could no longer hold that date.”

The designers for Tortuga, Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim, also have stated they have not been paid by Queen Games for 2014. In a post on reddit’s boardgames subreddit, Jay Cormier says that the company only pays once per year, with ninety days after the end of the calendar to make payment. “It’s now June 19th,” he writes, “and we still haven’t been paid. We’ve sent them numerous emails – with hardly any responses.” The designers, who also developed a boardgame based on the Orphan Black television show as well as Belfort by Tasty Minstrel Games, state they are glad that Donald X. Vaccarino went public with his frustration and hope that spurs Queen Games to settle their account as well.

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