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Crowdfunding Round-up: Is Big Plastic Lying to You About the Addictive Properties of Minis?

Crowdfunding Round-up: Is Big Plastic Lying to You About the Addictive Properties of Minis?
From gallery of archit3uthis
• It's been three years since a trio of ex-BioWare video game developers ran a KS campaign for The Banner Saga, an award-winning RPG set in Viking culture. The game's now made the leap to analog, with The Banner Saga: Warbands coming from MegaCon Games and designers Brian Shotton and Kenny Sims. This is the same team behind Myth, one of the most polarizing — and lucrative — KS games of 2014. Looks like they've learned a thing or two because this time they've made the final rulebook available to backers during the campaign. (KS link)

• "64 miniatures" and "2 rondels" are phrases you wouldn't typically expect to see next to one another in a game's description, but that's the case for Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift. It's a dark fantasy co-op dungeon crawl, but manages to pull off a diceless combat system, thanks to those rondels. The game was designed by Timo Multamäki of Dragon Dawn Productions, and both Thomas Klausner and Kevin Wilson (yes, that Kevin Wilson) have lent their development skills to the project. (KS link)

Board Game: BrilliAnts
• Ants have long been a metaphor for industriousness, which makes the running of an ant colony prime territory for a strategy game. Maxime Tardif's BrilliAnts capitalizes on the idea, allowing players to run their own economic systems while trying to avoid predators. Sphere Games canceled their first campaign and relaunched with a lower price point. The pun in the English title is groanworthy, but the title of the French-language version, Fourmidable, is really quite clever. (KS link)

• There are those who say that the deck-building mechanism has run its course, had its day in the sun. But there are some designers who are still getting mileage out of it, and Jeff Lai is one of them. He's created Draconis Invasion, tinkering with elements of the standard DBG formula and wrapping it in a medieval fantasy setting. Other publishers should take note of what Jeff has done in communicating what sets his game apart from others in the genre. It's always reassuring to know that a creator is aware of their context. (KS link)

Board Game: Palaces
• Since the early days of KS back in 2011, Jeff Siadek has been running lo-fi campaigns for his own designs under his Gorilla Games label, but Palaces marks his first foray into deck-building. As Jeff notes, there's something innately satisfying about building (LEGO has been in on that secret for a long time), which is why this game involves constructing palaces via vertical stacking of blocks that must be won via auction. (KS link)

• Wongamania: Banana Economy from designer Xeo Lye has an interesting origin story. It was developed in collaboration with the Stock Exchange of Malaysia, as an educational effort to teach university students about economics. The world of finance has taken a shine to the game and helped to build its international profile. Publisher Capital Gains incorporated lots of feedback from its first edition, which had a limited print run, and is hoping to take the game global in this KS campaign. (KS link)

Board Game: Victory & Glory: Napoleon
• Glenn Drover, one of the most prominent names in game design from a decade ago, has been making something of a comeback lately. He's running a KS campaign for Victory and Glory: Napoleon, to be published under his own Electric Games studio imprint. The game will also see digital release for the PC from Slitherine. I'd imagine the strategically generic "Victory and Glory" moniker means that if the game is successful, we'll see more games from Glenn using this same system. (KS link)

• The first of two projects in this article to feature an exclamation point in the title is All Hands on Deck! from Salamander Games. Designers Chad Scott and Josh Fry are bringing this game back to KS just over a year after their first launch foundered. The quick pitch? It's blind bidding with a 108-card deck, themed with some light-hearted piratical yo-ho-hoing. One can never have enough excuses for playing Alestorm songs on repeat during game night, I say. (KS link)

• As it turns out, publisher Button Shy is no longer box shy, taking a break from the expanding line of wallet games to run a campaign for You're Fired!, a light card game designed by Doug Levandowski that has drawn favorable comparisons to Love Letter. Light fillers make for excellent lunchtime gaming fare, but a hilarious first-player rule might give you pause before pulling this out when your boss is within earshot: "The player with the most soul-crushing job goes first." (KS link)

• Arcadia Quest is currently the highest ranked game in the BGG database from KS juggernaut publisher Cool Mini Or Not, so it should come as no surprise that it's receiving a standalone expansion, following Zombicide as only the second CMON title to merit a sequel. Arcadia Quest: Inferno, designed by Eric M. Lang and the same team of developers behind the original, provides more of the same but innovates with the addition of a branching campaign system. Oh, and there are chibi demons. (KS link)

From gallery of archit3uthis

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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