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• Don Eskridge of Orange Machine Games invited us to Abandon Planet in 2017, and for 2018 he's heading out even further into in the universe with Black Hole Council, which like that previous title is a negotiation-based game for 4-8 players. (KS link) An overview:
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Black Hole Council is a negotiation and deduction game about deciding the fate of 32 different planets. Players take on the role of Councilors on the Black Hole Council. Each Councilor has been paid off by shady organizations, and so has a secret agenda card they're trying to fulfill. During six negotiation rounds and three deductions rounds, players attempt to achieve their agenda and guess the goals of other players.
During negotiations, a leader chooses whether to settle, tax, mine, conquer, or "black hole" five different planets while the other Councilors attempt to influence the leader's decision. This happens while a two-minute sand timer is running, and after it runs out, all players except the leader vote on the proposal. If it passes, all players advance (or not) on the influence track, depending on how well they did during the negotiation.
During deduction rounds, players attempt to guess certain goals held by the other players. Correct guesses earn influence coins for you, while incorrect guesses earn coins for your opponent.
The more players can negotiate to achieve their agenda and deduce what other players' goals are, the more likely they are to advance on the influence track and become the new de facto ruler of the Council.
During negotiations, a leader chooses whether to settle, tax, mine, conquer, or "black hole" five different planets while the other Councilors attempt to influence the leader's decision. This happens while a two-minute sand timer is running, and after it runs out, all players except the leader vote on the proposal. If it passes, all players advance (or not) on the influence track, depending on how well they did during the negotiation.
During deduction rounds, players attempt to guess certain goals held by the other players. Correct guesses earn influence coins for you, while incorrect guesses earn coins for your opponent.
The more players can negotiate to achieve their agenda and deduce what other players' goals are, the more likely they are to advance on the influence track and become the new de facto ruler of the Council.
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Tokyo Jidohanbaiki is a collection of at least twenty games playable with a "dice" tower in the shape of a drink machine and small bottles in six colors that serve as the "dice"you'll drop into the tower. Guest designers for this collection of games includes Rory O'Connor and Kenichi Tanabe.
The real-time dexterity game Tokyo Jutaku, which is for 1-8 players, comes with 69 unique wooden building pieces as well as 32 double-sided site cards on which you'll attempt to build structures.
Tokyo Metro is an economic worker placement game in which 1-4 players invest in train lines, ride the rails to locations where they can build new stations, and finagle their way to additional actions.
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• This description of Dwar7s Winter from Luís Brüeh and Vesuvius Media is short — "Dwar7s Winter is a hand-building, resource management game with tower defense elements in the gameplay. Each player wants to achieve more victory points, but the only way to survive the winter is to work together." — but that probably gives you all you need to know whether to investigate further. (KS link)
• Joshua Mason's Outfoxed from Quirky Co. is a simple two-player card game of birds trying to surround fox and fox trying to eat all the birds. Weird to see the designer pitching fourteen other games in this same project, only one of which has a listing in the BGG database. Geekgold awaits whoever wants to mine this designer's vein. (KS link)
• Joseph Limbaugh's Postcard Dungeons from Modest Games is possibly the most minimalist dungeon crawl someone could design. Dice and tokens not included. (KS link)
• Movable Type is a card-drafting, word-building game — Scrabble meets Sushi Go! in game equation terms — that has a second edition being funded by designer Robin David and publisher Uncanny Cardboard, with the main difference in this new edition being more cards to allow for play with up to six players at once. (KS link)
• Jessica Feinberg has run a couple of dozen Kickstarter projects related to her art and books, and now she's launched her first KS campaign for a game, with Dragon Watcher: The Card Game being a 2-5 player card game in which you must collect two of each type of dragon first to win. (KS link)
• Sean Han's Dogtag is a card game for 2-5 people that combines drawings of cute pups with social media-type goals that you'll complete through card play and the assistance of other players who might be looking for you scratch behind their ears in return. (KS link)
• As I've stated numerous times, I know next to nothing about wargames, so I'll just quote this description of Frank Chadwick's Thunder in the East from Victory Point Games, a 2-4 player that boasts a playing time of 8-12 hours (KS link):
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Frank Chadwick's ETO (European Theater of Operations) is a series of linked games covering the land campaigns of World War II in Europe using a constant map and unit scale, and common rules.
Thunder in the East is the first game in that series, this one covering the titanic struggle on the Russian Front. This is a two-player game (although teams or even solitaire play would be just fine): one player assumes the role of the Axis (Germany and its allies) and the other player assumes the role of the Soviets (i.e., the Soviet Union).
The individual ground units represent Divisions of 10-15,000 soldiers, Corps (from the Latin word "Corpus," meaning body) of approximately 25-50,000 soldiers, or Armies of approximately 75,000 or more men. The Soviet ground units are mostly armies of approximately 40,000 men each, with a few cavalry and airborne corps of about 10,000 men each.
Air units represent about 200 combat aircraft early in the war, and gradually more as the war progresses. Each hex on the map represents 30 miles of actual terrain from side to side, and each Game Turn represents the passage of 7.5 days (or up to 15 days during inclement weather).
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
Thunder in the East is the first game in that series, this one covering the titanic struggle on the Russian Front. This is a two-player game (although teams or even solitaire play would be just fine): one player assumes the role of the Axis (Germany and its allies) and the other player assumes the role of the Soviets (i.e., the Soviet Union).
The individual ground units represent Divisions of 10-15,000 soldiers, Corps (from the Latin word "Corpus," meaning body) of approximately 25-50,000 soldiers, or Armies of approximately 75,000 or more men. The Soviet ground units are mostly armies of approximately 40,000 men each, with a few cavalry and airborne corps of about 10,000 men each.
Air units represent about 200 combat aircraft early in the war, and gradually more as the war progresses. Each hex on the map represents 30 miles of actual terrain from side to side, and each Game Turn represents the passage of 7.5 days (or up to 15 days during inclement weather).
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