Crowdfunding Round-up: My Kingdom for a Bowl of Soup, Then Another Kingdom, and Then One After That — Lots of Kingdoms...and Maybe a Zombie

Crowdfunding Round-up: My Kingdom for a Bowl of Soup, Then Another Kingdom, and Then One After That — Lots of Kingdoms...and Maybe a Zombie
Board Game: Tiny Epic Kingdoms
Whoa! It's the middle of January already! Man, it was just Christmas yesterday! Okay, so I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and are in progress of a Happy New Year and if not, well, keep it to yourself, Debbie Downer! Everyone is probably still playing through their holiday haul and has 2-3 games still in the shrink waiting to be learned, so there is NO WAY anyone is backing a game right now — but just in case, here are a few options if you are getting tired of the great games of 2013 like Francis Drake or Caverna or Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and looking for the next big thing or possibly the next thoroughly mediocre thing or even the next completely awful, untested, half-ass thing — depending on whether or not you like Kickstarter apparently.

Gamelyn Games has launched Tiny Epic Kingdoms by the increasingly prolific designer Scott Almes. (KS link) Tiny Epic Kingdoms is a 4X microgame. Are we sure it is? It looks great BTW, and I backed it, but a microgame? We need a consensus on terminology. If this is a microgame, and it is indeed small-ish, then what the hell are Love Letter and Coin Age and the like? Nanogames? Minigames is already taken for other purposes. So what should these games be called? REDACTED. I spent the next three lines making male phallus jokes about W. Eric but then deleted them. I am better than that. They were juvenile and offensive (and mostly hilarious). You will have to trust me. Plus, a W.Ericgame doesn't have much of a ring to it.

Quote:
You are a tiny kingdom with big ambition. You want to expand your population throughout the realms, learn powerful magic, build grand towers, and have your neighbors quiver at the mention of your name. The conflict? All of the other kingdoms want the same thing and there's not enough room for everyone to succeed...

In Tiny Epic Kingdoms, a 4x fantasy game in a pocket-size package, each player starts with a unique faction (which has a unique technology tree) and a small territory. Throughout the game, players collect resources, explore other territories, battle each other, research magic, and work to build a great tower to protect their realm.
Tiny Epic Kingdoms is a much better name then Insignificant Below Average Duchies, so good job on that.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Tasty Minstrel Games is back on KS, again, with Burgoo, another "name your own price" game. (KS link) TMG clearly has seen a soft spot in the market for these types of games and grats to them for having a bunch ready to go. Turns out Burgoo is a game about soup. This is a microishgame, featuring only 96 tiles. It sounds a bit like a card game playwise, but the tiles give it a nice tactile feel. Burgoo does NOT sound like something I would eat, but maybe something I would play. Check it out to see whether this flavor is for you.

Quote:
In Burgoo, each cook (player) starts the game with 12 stew ingredients randomly formed into a mixing line (two sets of six ingredients), along with a hand of ingredients that allow them to manipulate their mixing line or add ingredients to the stew from every mixing line.

On a cook's turn, he may sample the stew, taking one ingredient of his choice from the stew into his hand. Or he may spend an ingredient from his hand to divide his cooking line (gaining access to more of his ingredients) or to add ingredients from his line into the stew. But be wise because if you add an ingredient that other cooks are ready to add, they too can add to the stew on your turn.
Sounds gross, plays delicious! (Copyright! Just in case TMG tries to steal it for the box.)

From gallery of W Eric Martin
• Kickstarter noobies Black Locust Games is attempting to fund Kingdom, asking backers to "join the valiant battle to end the ultimate stalemate of good vs evil and etch the final outcome into history in this 2P strategic game". Sounds very intense. (KS link) What happens if both players are nice guys? Do I have to be the demons? Is that a sin, or do you think Jesus is cool with it, Kingdom being a game and all? I assume he has better stuff to care about, but I may play it with rain boots on just in case. Also, Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, FOOOORRRR MEEEEEEEEEE. FWIW, the game is PRETTY. I love the box art, and there are a ton of cool-looking cards.

Quote:
Kingdom is a two-player strategic card/board game pitting Gabriel and his army of archangels against Beelzebub and the dark forces of the fallen. Wield the three elements of fire, earth, and water in angelic combat, use ancient angelic scripts to gain an advantage over your opponent, or deploy pillars to protect your troops in an attempt to infiltrate the enemy's realm.

Kingdom is played with one player having the white deck to represent the archangels of Gabriel, and the other the black deck to represent Beelzebub and his army of fallen angels. Each deck consists of three types of cards: Angels, which are your main combat units; Angelic Scripts, written in the ancient celestial alphabet (Malachim) and granting the angels special abilities to assist them in infiltrating the enemy realm; and Pillars, which call up the elements of earth, fire, or water to protect them from enemy attacks.

Each army has a power meter which is charged when either side's angels visit earth. The power meter must be carefully managed if you hope to crush your opponent as your power meter determines your movement and your ability to execute the Malachim. If too many Angelic scripts are played, then your mobility on the board suffers; if, on the other hand, you use your power for movement, then your ability to harness the powers of the angelic scripts wanes.
Angels are the new hotness. They are appearing everywhere in movies and nerd books. Why just last month I saw a movie called It's a Wonderful Life that had angels in it, so they must be hot.

Board Game: Four Tribes
Grey Gnome Games who you may not have heard of despite this being its FIFTH Kickstarter is looking for tribesman to join Four Tribes. (KS link) Wow, a whole write-up and no zombies or minis without even trying! Ya, go team! Granted, it was all kingdoms and empires, but that is okay. I will allow it. (Errr, literally as I was writing that Zombie 15' popped up on my Twitter feed...) Four Tribes is a two-player game in which it's likely you fight each other over territory. That is a guess, though, as I did not actually do my research on this one. The name is a bit of a misnomer; seems like Two Tribes would have been more apropos considering its 2p, but designer Jason Glover seems like a smart dude, so I will trust him on this one.

Quote:
In the two-player game Four Tribes, each player takes on the role of a powerful monarch in conflict with the other during a time of famine. The war is at a stalemate, and both leaders decide that the key to destroying the other is to recruit the help of the Northern Tribes! Each player attempts to sway the Village Elders of the Four Tribes to join their cause by supplying each village with desperately needed supplies. Win the village, and you gain the favor of the Village Elder! Gain the favor of enough Village Elders, and you will win the support of the Four Tribes and be victorious!

While Four Tribes is a two-player game, a four-player variant will be part of the finished product.
Jason is shockingly prolific on KS! FIVE funded games! [Editor's note: Didn't do his research indeed. —WEM]

Quick Hit

Board Game: Zombie 15'
• As I was writing, IELLO launched Zombie 15'. As pretty much everything they do is amazing looking, it is no surprise that this looks great. Co-op, real-time zombie madness. I am sure W. Eric will cover it in further depth (or likely already has, but I wouldn't know since I never read his crap) but here is a link for now. (KS link)

Going, Going, Gone!

Ohhhhh, Wallet Battles happened. (KS link) Look, it has all been done before. This one just seemed extra done before. I am in the "most likely they had the idea somewhat concurrently but maybe borrowed a bit too heavily from the Coin Age campaign structure" camp as opposed to the "outright plagiarism" camp. It did lead to this awesome GeekList, so it was totally worth it.

I touched on this last month, but it was worthy of mention again. Because of the rise of the microgame, the idea of a "pay what you want, though really it is not pay what you want; it is pay what we tell you, BUT if you want you can pay more please and thank you" KS makes a lot of sense. Tasty Minstrel Games is in a particularly good position to run this kind of campaign as it has spent years building up trust and a good backer base. I wonder whether others will try this, too, and be successful. Crash Games did well with a game from a previously successful universe.

The cool thing, I guess, is that these are low risk projects to the backer. For less than a fast food lunch, maybe you can get a game that is fun. If the game is dumb, well, your doctor will appreciate one less Big Mac ingested. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for these sorts of projects. I was thinking of doing a microgame called Roshambo: Pay what you want, and I will send you a coin to flip to see who has to go first as well as an icepack.

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

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