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Patrick Nickell of Crash Games has two games on offer: Brett J. Gilbert's Fish Frenzy and David Short's Backyard Builders Treehouse, this latter title being a revamped version of Yardmaster Express with new art courtesy of licensee holder IELLO. While Crash Games ran its earlier titles through Kickstarter for funding, Nickell had sworn off crowdfunding after connecting with a business partner in 2015, but that partnership has fallen through and Nickell himself has had medical issues that kept him away from the business for many months. (His 30-minute explanatory video on the Kickstarter project covers this latter issue in detail, and having talked with Patrick many times at conventions, I wish that I could comfort him with more than a few kind words.)
The games have already been manufactured, but due to the combination of issues above, Nickell was unable to do anything with them. Now he's trying to get them out to the public in order to pay both the bill for publication and royalties due to the designers, with Crash Games getting nothing in return except (ideally) a clearing of its debts. Nickell notes that these two games won't be available through distribution, and he mentions that if at all possible, he will still find a way to bring a new edition of Finca to market, something he had announced in May 2016. (KS link)
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• Sector 6 from Jaime González García and Draco Ideas falls into the category of "build a tile-based labyrinth before play, then run around said labyrinth". More specifically, players have two prisoners that are racing through the labyrinth to scoop up oxygen. I see no reference to this oxygen serving as anything other than points, which is unfortunate as I would expect you'd need to use oxygen during play in order to stay alive and do more things, prisoners dropping as their supply ran out and leaving the victors to wheezily celebrate from their tanks ran dry as well. (KS link)
• Infected: The Board Game is from first-time Mexican publisher GZRI Games, and the game has a board with embedded magnets along with magnet sticks that allow you to move virus balls about and a picture of a rulebook (without the rules themselves being available) and these worrying sentences — "Infected: The Board Game is not like other games. Here, players don't start in the same place each game played." — which suggest that the designer/publisher is not familiar with modern games. (KS link)
• The holidays are over, but if you want to prepare for Hanukkah 2017, Eric Pavony would like to introduce you to Spinagogue, which he dubs the first-ever dreidel-spinning stadium. (KS link)
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• In just a few hours from the posting of this item, Mayday Games will have finished a KS project for a budget Crokinole board that's coming in waves of 450 copies at a time. (KS link)
• Also ending soon is a project for dice coins from J.M. Ward of Ultimate Custom Coins, and while the concept of "dice coins" might seem bizarre, the explanation of them will only solidify that feeling. To use a dice coin, you spin, place a finger on it, then look to see which number on the edge of the coin to the left of that finger is fully visible. That number is your die result. Available from d4 up to d20 for all your dice coin needs! (KS link)
• Button Shy continues to expand its line of tiny wallet games, and that phrase works whether you have a tiny wallet or are interested in tiny games. John du Bois' Avignon: Pilgrimage is a standalone expansion to the earlier Avignon: A Clash of Popes, with two players again battling to be Pope by using the powers of six new characters. Mix and match characters from the earlier game to Pope-battle in many configurations.
Find Your Seats from Mitchell Shipman posits players as competitive party planners who are apparently working the same event and trying to best seat their guests amongst everyone else in order to score points from their satisfaction.
On a turn in Rob Cramer's Turbo Drift, you choose a row or column of cards or one single card from a 2x3 grid, then use those cards to maneuver your car around obstacles. Once per game, you can go turbo and use all of the cards, hoping not to mess yourself up while burning rubber. (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
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