Crowdfunding Round-up: A Few Captains, a Pile of Occulites, a Witch or Two, and a Gaggle of Lords and Ladies Fight to the Death — or Attempt to Secure Monetary Support for Various Game-Related Endeavors. Either Way.

Wow!! October! That means it is nearly Spiel!! With W. Eric allegedly off gathering news for Spiel stuff, I figured it was a good time to cover the TRULY important stuff — games you have not heard of from designers you have not heard of from companies that don't technically exist yet! Huzzah! Errr, I mean time to cover some cool-looking crowdfunding options vying for your backing dollars! Also, the first few are from established companies and look great respectively so that's something!

• Designer/publisher Ben Boersma from Darwin Games, in conjunction with Eagle Games, is back on Kickstarter with a revamped project for Dawn: Rise of the Occulites, a "skirmish-level miniatures game that uses an innovative card-based action resolution mechanism" called the "Natural Selection Deck" that's "responsible for everything from activating your tribe members, to resolving movement through terrain and a deep and rewarding combat system". (KS link) Whenever "terrain" and "skirmish" come up my leg goes numb, so I can't really speak to that, but I can say that there are awesome painted minis that look like a cross between a 1980's cartoon and that terrible Spore video game, but in a good way. They really are dang neat looking. Very different and cool. I do wonder whether the minis crowd is ready for the complete lack of proportionally unlikely females and muscle-y, large, gun-toting, buzzcut guys.

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Dawn: Rise of the Occulites is the first game in the Rise of the Occulites Saga. The Saga covers the evolution of the Occulites from small tribes fighting for survival to great civilizations with massive armies spreading out across and ruling the world.

Dawn takes place at the very beginning of the Occulite's evolution. At this time, the Occulites roam the lands in small tribes, moving from cave to cave, collecting the precious Sungems to keep them warm during the Long Dark. They fight over territory and resources in the struggle for survival.

Is the minis crowd going to embrace this one? Hope so.

• Tasty Minstrel Games is about to close up shop on a double dip from designer Michael R. Keller. Captains of Industry and City Hall can be had individually or together for $70. I asked my neighbor Lawrence what he would do if he had $70.

Lawrence: "I'll tell you what I'd do, man: Buy two games at the same time."
Me: "That's it? If you had $70, you'd buy two games at the same time?
Lawrence: "Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man, and I think if I had $70 I could hook that up, too, cause publishers dig dudes with money."

Words to live by. Oh, and both of these games look great. I had the chance to play a proto of Captains of Industry with designer/TMG developer Seth Jaffee at Protospiel and it has a cool market system at the core of the game. (KS link)

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As a Captain of Industry, 3-5 players will vie for domination in the cutthroat arena of the marketplace. To do this, you will:

• Build facilities to control supply,
• Develop real estate to manipulate demand,
• Invest in technology to increase efficiency,
• Complete hidden agendas to secure your legacy, and
• Undercut the competition to dominate the marketplace!

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City Hall pits 2-4 players against each other in a bid to build a thriving city and gain the approval of the voters in order to win the Mayoral election.

To do so, you'll send your staffers to the seven offices and auction off their benefits to build parks and buildings to secure the votes of the populace. You can accept your rivals influence or pay your own to keep the benefit to yourself. Leverage your money and influence to win the voters' approval and become the next Mayor of New York!

Eric and his shirt are out there meeting famous designers and board game publishing moguls in Nürnberg, while I get to play a proto with Seth Jaffee in Ypsilanti. That is kind of like thinking you are getting to meet a pro football player and the kicker shows up. In Ypsilanti.

• Enough with the established companies that are abusing Kickstarter* and on to a true family project Witch Hunt: Ravenwicke from rookie publisher/family business Goblin Rocket Games. It seems to be targeting the family crowd and the gameplay looks familyish, but I definitely don't think of hunting witches as a family theme. IMO, the game is also suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. The title and theme are a bit at odds with the board and card art. Witch Hunt: Ravenwicke sounds like a dark adventure, but the card art and board are on the cartoony side (though well done). The description pushes family fun and maybe it is, but it just seems a bit dark to me. I know I have defeated orcs and such with the Riddlenettes, so why not witches, I guess. Check it out, as maybe it is for you. As a bonus the publisher is going to attempt to deliver the game BEFORE Halloween. Halloween 2013, mind you. (KS link)

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In Witch Hunt: Ravenwicke you make your way through the village of Ravenwicke, discovering items, artifacts, and assistance in the most unexpected places. However, time is short. As ingredients are added to her cauldron, the witch gains power and tightens her grip on the village. Once all five of the ingredients have been added to the cauldron, the witch wins the game! So it's of the utmost urgency that you find her before the last ingredient is added to her brew. Oh, and did we mention that one of you is actually the witch?

Set in the backdrop of the small village of Ravenwicke, Witch Hunt is a closed-deck (72+ cards) card game that features three modes of play: the Angry Mob mode for 3-8 players, a Player versus Player mode, and HERO mode for only the bravest of souls.

* That was 100% sarcastic and intended to rile up the anti-Kickstarter crowd who are not likely to be reading these posts anyway, but still. <soapbox> TMG and Eagle and Queen and the like are using the tools provided to them to make it in a tough industry, and we as gamers are better off for it. </soapbox>

Quick Hits

•The 8th Day is a semi-cooperative board game for 2-7 players set in a post-alien invasion Earth sixty years in the future. This one has classic big gun toting and big... other things... minis. (KS link)

•Joel Eddy of Drive Thru Review is stumping for backers to support his Gen Con (and, if stretch goals are achieved, Spiel) video coverage. I had a whole bunch of funny jokes written up making fun of Joel but I decided to play it straight because he truly does great work. Check out his project. (KS link) Joel does great work and his Gen Con coverage was fantastic. His Spyrium video was particularly engaging...

•Reaper Miniatures made 3.5 MILLION dollars last year, and those greedy bastards and their awesome miniatures are back with Reaper Miniatures Bones II: The Return Of Mr Bones! (KS link) The project is on pace to make eleventy billion dollars this time around. Grats to those guys!

Going, Going, Gone!

• Designer Jason Corace is attempting to capture the feeling of a turn-of-the-century noble family with Lord and Ladies. (KS link) The gameplay is pretty simple and the theme is cool. The project mentions being inspired by period dramas like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. Being the manly, sports-loving, alpha male that I am, I have never heard of those nansy pansy shows — BUT if I had, I am sure I would be PISSED that they decided to randomly kill off Matthew the same day his son and heir to Downton was born. I mean, really? You spend three seasons setting up the marriage, even killing off Matthew's fiancé to get her out of the way, then handing the family money to stay viable just to kill him off? What the hell? Why do people watch these shows!?

Other people I mean, you know, cause I don't. Never heard of it...

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Lords and Ladies is a new card game for 3 to 5 players in which you control a turn-of-the-20th-century noble family and their servants. The game is inspired by our love of period dramas like Upstairs Downstairs and of course Downton Abbey, but instead of just watching the drama unfold, we wanted to create a game in which players could experience and make the drama themselves.

I mean, seriously! They killed Matthew! And if anyone cries spoilers, too bad! It has been like a year!

• Alf Seegert and Gryphon Games are back (with co-designer Steven Poelzing) with Cubist. (KS link — active until Oct. 7, 9:00 GMT) This was an interesting project to follow as it didn't exactly blow up. The game has a unique spin on dice use, and the gameplay looks pretty cool. People just could not get past the cover and art. It's definitely...different. If the gameplay is good, and I think it is, people will see past the epileptic art. Time will tell.

I write this thing once a month and I was fortunate enough to be a part of two successful KS campaigns, but I still have NO idea what makes a campaign successful. Mike Elliott is one of the biggest designers out there right now with Thunderstone, Quarriors!, and Star Trek: Fleet Captains, not to mention tons of TCGs. He decides to do a KS project for Sangoku and grats to him, it funded — but not by much though. Why not? The game looked decent enough. I would give it a shot if someone else had it... but it is Mike freaking Elliot! Shouldn't that matter? What makes people flock to one project but not another? I know the easy answer is "Have a good game and people will back it", but it's not that simple. It is very hard to tell what people will get behind. Companies like TMG and Dice Hate Me Games — and even established "big boys" like Queen and Eagle/Gryphon — have had several (to many) successful projects and rely on an existing customer base that trusts them, so their projects have historically done well (or at least funded). I would have thought people would have the same trust in Mike Elliot and back his project in larger numbers. I am sure if the game is good, it will do well post-KS.

Oh, also, I HATE when the first posts from a guy before he can even afford an avatar or figure out microbadges or lose the "newuser" tag is a link to his KS project. If you want to engage the BGG community to get support for your project, be IN the community for a while first. Contribute. It's like they get a KS Board Game Project Checklist that has "Post a link on BGG" on it. Check the box! Then move on. It also irrationally bothers me when a project creator has not backed other projects. Ok, back off the soapbox again.

See you in a month and remember that if you have any questions, shoot me a Geekmail or post it in here. Complaints and/or rants can be directed at W. Eric as it was likely his fault anyway.