Crowdfunding Round-up: Emus, Pandas, Lions, Glamazons, Aliens for Mars & a Handful of Humans

It's a hardscrabble life for emu ranchers like yourself, raising exotic birds for foreign markets. With the high cost for every bird you hatch, it probably won't be worth it in the end. You can't tell at the beginning of the year which of the six bird varieties will do best, and beware the birds with exceptional plumage! If they thrive, they can be worth big money — but if they go wrong, they can bankrupt your ranch.

In Emu Ranchers, a Decktet game for two players, each bird on your ranch is represented by a stack of cards. Cards in a single bird stack must all share a suit and must be in rank order. At the end of the hand, the value of a bird is determined by the total of the number cards in the stack. If the total is too low, then you can end up losing money on a bird. An Ace or Crown makes the stack worth more: more profit if you can cover expenses, but more loss if you can't. The object, naturally enough, is to raise profitable birds.

Mars Attacks: The Miniatures Game is a tabletop miniature wargame based on the humorous 1962 Mars Attacks trading card series from Topps in which aliens from Mars try to take over the planet of the humans — that is, Earth!

The game allows two (or more) players to take on the role of Martian invaders or the human resistance, then battle for the fate of the planet! You set your armies on the table board and move units of aliens or human soldiers to fight to achieve goals, either by defending your position or vaporizing your opponents. This tactical tabletop game features rules by veteran designer Jake Thornton and a host of stunning Mantic miniatures that can be used straight out of the box or painted to add even more character to your games.

In NOVUS, players take control of a Commander along with a powerful army. The goal of NOVUS is to attack the enemy Commander, reduce their Morale to zero and demoralize their forces to win the day!

NOVUS combines the best elements of card games like Magic: The Gathering, Vs. System, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Turns are fast-paced, and the rules are simple enough for beginners to understand, while allowing for enough complexity that expert players will still have fun.

Gameplay progresses in traditional TCG/CCG fashion; players use resources to play tactics, strategies, and character cards. Any card in your hand can be played as a resource, so customizing your deck is much easier than most other card-based games.

NOVUS is also a Feature Card Game, meaning everything you and three friends need to play is in the box.

Pandánte is a gambling game played by the Pandas of the Pandalands in the Fantasy Strike universe. In this game, lying is okay. (Humans use the softer term "bluffing".) You can lie about which abilities you have access to, and you can lie about whether your cards are strong enough to win the pot! And if you win a pot by lying, you gain the favor of a Panda Lord. Be careful, though, because other players can call you out on your lies for fun and profit.

Each round (called a "gambit"), players try to build the best hand they can from their two private cards and five community cards, similar to gameplay in Texas Hold'em Poker. Over the course of a gambit, players bet several times while making claims about how good their hands are and using abilities to influence the game. Each suit gives access to a different ability and if you don't have the one you need, just lie about it and hope you get away with it.

You can play Pandánte as a social game with a definite win condition and no player elimination, or you can play it as an ongoing gambling game in which players are eliminated when they lose their money, like in Poker. You could even play with real money if you're Panda enough.

Pushed to the brink by pervy medieval blacksmiths and sweaty basement dwellers alike, killing monsters is the easy part — now the Glamazons must face their most difficult challenge — finding female armor that is actually functional! Help our intrepid heroes smash, bash and crash through goblin heads, dragon hearts and the male gaze alike; then stare each other down in a battle of wills for who gets the spoils!

A campy takedown of the visual depiction of female warriors throughout nerdy pop culture, Glamazons vs The Curse of the Chainmail Bikini features amazing original artwork from world renowned pinup artist Joe Capobianco along with its social commentary so you can have your (cheese)cake and eat it, too!

The goal of the game is to be the first to collect a full set of properly protective armor to cover your paperdoll character mat. Crafted from the corpses of iconic monsters you've killed, each piece of armor in the game is unique and thematically tied to the creature it's made from. These pieces of armor are represented by reusable vinyl stickers with which you get to play dress up! But each dead monster has only enough raw materials to make a single piece of armor, and you'll have to figure out who gets credit for the kill — you or your "Best Friend".

Gameplay features a boiled-down bluffing system that puts the focus squarely on social interaction. The tension of trying to catch your Best Friend in a stone cold lie while you stare across the table looking for the slightest betraying twitch is the heart that beats strong within this game. You have no one to blame but yourself if you get stuck picking out glitter wedgies while the winner gets to go adventure in fabulous-yet-practical Glamazon style!