• Arclight and Japanime Games are publishing Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows, an adaption of the Sword Art Online anime by designer Seiji Kanai with players rolling dice and working together to take down enemies. (KS link)
• Another co-op game looking for funding is DiverCity from Maxime Tardif and Sphere Games, with the scuba-diving players trying to save species on a coral reef to ensure diversity (wink, wink) in undersea environments. (KS link)
• Dragoon got a lot of love at Gen Con 2016, and now designers Jake Given, Zach Given, and Jonathan Ritter-Roderick are raising funds for a new printing of the base game as well as Dragoon: The Rogue and Barbarian Expansion, which adds two new human characters to the game and allows for play with up to six at the table. (KS link)
• The driving mission behind Restoration Games is to take well-loved games from past decades, remove all of the bad stuff about their designs that nostalgia has made you forget, then return them to market. They plan to debut three titles at Gen Con 2017 in August: Indulgence (previously Dragonmaster), Downforce (previously Daytona 500 and many other iterations), and Stop Thief!, with this latter title being the only one to hit Kickstarter. The funny thing about this design is that the most loved element of the game — at least by me, who played it frequently with my family — was the electronic noise gizmo, and a large percentage of the population now carries something far more advanced than that electronic noise gizmo on them at all times. (KS link)
• Another nostalgic blast in game form is Greedy Claw Crane Game from David Sheppard and Twitch Factory, with players rolling dice to "claw" toys from the 6x6 field that creates the floor of the claw machine. Dig in to grab the toys you want for the best sets. (KS link)
• Warp Speed from Andresakis, Cimino, Mamouris, Seretis and JAM Games is a new design, but the look of it strikes the same 1980s note as Lazer Ryderz from Greater Than Games, another 2017 release. In Warp Speed, players use their spaceships to sweep asteroids from play(!), discover planets, and complete objectives in order to score fame. (KS link)
• A similar-sounding project is Zebulon: Galactic Control from Jacob Hardin, Brandon Monahan, and Apocto Games as the description highlights your efforts to zip through space on a modular board while picking up fuel, battling others, and completing missions. (KS link)
• Magmeda Monsters designer André Forsblom of Rapid Leaf Productions says that he first started working on this two-player card-driven battle game when he was twelve, which means that at age 25 he's spent more than half his life with this game bopping around his head. Now he's trying to bring it to life to share with others. (KS link)
• Frequent Kickstarter participant John Clowdus of Small Box Games has a trio of projects underway on a ten-day project that celebrates the ten-year anniversary of SBG. Hard to believe that a decade has passed since he started releasing tiny self-published games, but we're staring at the proof in front of us, so I should start believing. The three games in question — Cartouche Dynasties, Hemloch: Dark Promenade, and Seii Daiymo — are all updated and revised versions of earlier SBG releases. (KS link)
• Another frequent Kickstarter inhabitant — this being designer Scott Almes — has created an uncomfortable-sounding environment for himself this time: Dicey Peaks from Calliope Games, with these peaks being of the Himalayan variety and with players needing to roll their way to the top of the mountain before they freeze or have their arms yanked off by a yeti. (KS link)
• Frank West's The City of Kings from publisher The City of Games is a cooperative tactical roleplaying board game for 1-4 players that features tons of choices:
You explore across the Ageless Realms by turning over tiles, discovering resources, side quests, hazards, building sites, traders and creatures as you continue to power up whilst preparing to enter Azure Rise.
At its heart, The City of Kings is a complex puzzle featuring endless strategic battles. Each creature is generated from a pool of spells, characteristics and stats offering over 10,000,000 unique battle situations. There are no dice, damage is persistent, it’s up to you to customize your characters and work together to come up with a strategy to defeat whoever stands in your way.
• Level 99 Games has taken an interesting approach with the second set of games for its EXCEED fighting system, with the sixteen characters in these four games all coming from L99's forthcoming game Seventh Cross, a huge design in the works for release in 2018. Level 99 is effectively advertising for a future release, while giving you the chance to fight now with the characters outside of the alternative-Earth 1920s era that forms the setting for Seventh Cross.(KS link)
I'm also enamored by the cocky arrogance of the aggressive limbo-er in the EXCEED cover image: "Look at me, man. I've got this even while wearing my favorite hat!"
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