![Crowdfunding Round-up: Even the Best Kickstarter Games Can Be Piles of Garbage](https://cf.geekdo-images.com/getndN7PozQoHfDCkNKEFg__medium/img/GPJYQUAusf7sFCfmScyr6yUK0CE=/fit-in/500x500/filters:no_upscale():strip_icc()/pic2597394.jpg)
• Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games have put together an RPG-in-a-box game with Gloomhaven. As you might expect, the game has a fantasy setting, but the world Childres has built — featuring races like the Inox, Quatryl, Orchid, and Valrath — is anything but typical. Fans of persistence mechanisms will be interested to hear that the game comes with Daviau-style sealed envelopes that players interact with via an ongoing campaign system. Time will tell how this compares to the genre's seminal offerings. (KS link)
• If you want a different flavor of gloom, there is Tristan Hall's Gloom of Kilforth, another epic fantasy adventure game, this one sporting the tried-and-true "[common noun] of [place name]" naming trope. The game has been in development for eight years, and Hall — whose first design 1066, Tears to Many Mothers was nominated for an Origins Award earlier this year — is now ready to bring it before the masses. Kilforth is a veritable gameplay buffet, boasting competitive, cooperative, and solo play modes. (KS link)
• Parallel development is a common phenomenon in creative fields. Think The Prestige and The Illusionist, or A Bug's Life and Antz. It happens in board games, too; Gil Hova's The Networks is the second game about managing television networks to hit KS in as many months. This title, from Hova's Formal Ferret Games, features card drafting and stylized illustrations by Travis Kinchy that help the cards really pop. The project video alone is worth a look for its unique thematic presentation. (KS link)
• Eduardo Baraf is a video game developer in his day job, and that influence is evident in his newest game, GemPacked Cards. Not only do the titular gems look like cute emojis, but the game also borrows mechanically from the iOS single-player puzzle game GemPacked. Baraf is setting a blistering pace, with this being his third KS project since August 2014. If he keeps it up, we can expect to see a lot more games for kids and adults alike from Pencil First Games. (KS link)
• Avalanche at Yeti Mountain is an "Unpub alumni", the designation given to games playtested through the Unpub Network and later signed for publication. Designer Matt Wolfe (who runs this fantastic KS geeklist) is teaming up with publisher Green Couch Games to rocket-jump this small racing game onto gamers' tables. The cover art from Adam P. McIver looks like it would fit right in with author Johnathan Rand's popular Michigan Chillers series — fitting, since Green Couch is a Michigan-based publishing outfit. (KS link)
• The title of Factory Funner is a bit hard to parse, until you realize that it's from Corné Van Moorsel and publisher Cwali, the team behind 2006's Factory Fun. Like its predecessor, this is a puzzle game of machines, pipes, and reservoirs on a gridded board. The game is also getting a digital port (computers and tablets only) for solo play. Do we dare expect a Factory Funnest sometime down the road? (KS link)
• Amid all of its new releases, Tasty Minstrel Games is also revisiting its back catalogue. Back before Scott Almes was a household name, he designed a pair of games for TMG, one of which was the network-building title Kings of Air and Steam. Almes has had an expansion idea in his back pocket for a while and it's now seeing the light of day. The World's Fair expansion adds new contract and technology cards, all sporting more gorgeous Josh Cappel illustrations. (KS link)
• The year 2012 saw Break From Reality Games bringing to KS Alex Barbieri's Damage Report, a real-time co-op about managing a starship crew (which, indeed, seems to be a genre all its own these days). After considerable delays, the game was eventually released in mid-2014, and now the team is back with the game's first expansion, Damage Report: On Fire. The expansion includes three new scenarios and allows the game to support up to seven players. Quickly, to the bridge! (KS link)
• September is the month that brings us international Talk Like a Pirate Day, so what better time to run a KS campaign for Privateers! The Golden Decade, a game set in the golden age of piracy? This self-published design by Enrico Manlio Ottolini — with its missions, ship-to-ship combat, and big modular board representing an island archipelago (and what self-respecting pirate game doesn't have a big board?) — is ambitious and sandbox-y in its scope. (KS link)
• Publisher Mayday Games is most well known for their dexterity games, many of which feature unique toy-like components. Their newest addition to that product line is Shane Willis' Garbage Day, which comes packaged in a small plastic garbage can. In the game, players have to balance cards on the rim of the can in an ever-widening pile, hoping not to bring the whole stack tumbling down. The only thing missing, really, is a licensed Sesame Street expansion with everyone's favorite garbage can denizen. (KS link)
Editor's note: Please don't post links to other Kickstarter projects in the comments section. Write to me via the email address in the header, and I'll consider them for inclusion in a future crowdfunding round-up. Thanks! —WEM