Enmesh Yourself in the Story of The Snow Queen

I haven't done a crowdfunding round-up in a while, so I plan to zip through a half-dozen titles quickly in this post, but before we get to that, let's dive deep into...well, I'm not even sure how to describe it.

Designer Jeeyon Shim has used Kickstarter for four projects to date, such as Field Guide to Memory, a narrative journalling game co-designed by Shing Yin Khor about a cryptid researcher who goes missing in the field, with you creating a journal of your own in the process of playing this design (KS link) and Wait for Me, a co-design with Kevin Kulp in which you "build a handwritten journal and write yourself messages in your own diary about what was and will be in this game about longing, memory, and forgiveness". (KS link)

Then Kickstarter announced that it was developing a decentralized blockchain-based protocol — the purpose of which I still don't understand — and Shim posted a long Twitter thread about how a "carbon negative blockchain platform" such as the one Kickstarter wants to use does not exist, then decided, fine, I'll do it myself, "it" being the crowdfunding of their next project.

That next project — The Snow Queen — is now live on their site, and it sounds both fascinating and bizarre. Here's the short description:

Quote:

The Snow Queen is a new keepsake game in a fairytale-inspired setting. You and your co-player embody the village girl and the snow queen, two women whose worlds lie on either side of a dreamlike mirror. Locked in a strange, doomed battle, you are both determined to save everything dear to you — no matter the cost to what's on the other side of your world.

Guided by The Snow Queen's core rules, you will create a three-act story together. First, share the loving details of your worlds and those closest to you. Once you've established your characters, crescendo into a high-stakes whirlwind of narrative tension driven by the game's unique chess-based mechanical engine. Finally, each of you create your own handmade, one-of-a-kind keepsake anthology of original fiction, art, and poetry inspired by each twist and turn of your respective stories.

In a Patreon post, designer Shing Yin Khor describes "keepsake games" as "games that produce beautiful, memorable artifacts, through the process of playing the game. These keepsakes are a collaboration between me, as a designer, and the players, who all create their own unique objects. This honors my lifetime love of tinkering and making, and reduces waste by producing something worth keeping." In other words, "The keepsake must be the byproduct of the gameplay process. The gameplay process is also the production of the keepsake."

For another example of a keepsake game, I'll note that in March 2021 Yin Khor funded a Kickstarter campaign for A Mending, a solitaire game "about a journey to visit a dear and distant friend, using sewing, map-annotating, and story-building mechanics". Think of it as a collaborative art project along the lines of paint-by-numbers, but without the numbers — or maybe more like a play with a half-written script that you fill out and complete in the process of performing.

Okay, aside from that bewitching project, what else can I tell you about that is looking for your financial support:

• In Earth from Maxime Tardif and Inside Up Games, 1-5 players use island, climate, and ecosystem cards to determine their starting conditions, then plant, compost, water, and grow various things on those islands, ideally sponging free actions on the turns of others to ensure continued growth. (KS link)

• Over three rounds in Charlie Bink's Trekking through History from Underdog Games, you draft event cards to gain benefit tokens that will ideally score you points as you complete elements of your itinerary. At the same time, you want to collect cards in chronological order because the more cards you fit into a single trek, the more points it's worth. (KS link)

• Matthew Inman, Elan Lee, and the Exploding Kittens team are back with Hand-to-Hand Wombat, a game in which some players are good wombats who want to build towers and at least one player is a bad wombat who just wants to wreck stuff without being caught. The trick? Everyone is playing with their eyes closed and just feeling for parts and tower bases, so is a fellow player klutzy or actively sabotaging you? (KS link)

• Sébastien Bernier-Wong and Peter Gorniak's Seas of Havoc from Rock Manor Games challenges you to put together a captain and ship, gather resources and build a deck with dual-use cards, then blast other players with cannons to gain infamy. (KS link)

• In the role of an architect in Old London Bridge from Gabriele Bubola, Leo Colovini, and Queen Games, you rebuild a section of the bridge, using a character card each round to bid for your ability to choose an available building. Buildings must be constructed in descending numerical order — which might force you to destroy what you've already built unless you use a park to restart the numbering — and you receive a bonus action from your newest building based on how many others of the same type you already have. (KS link)

• Evolution: New World from Dmitry Knorre, Sergey Machin, and CrowD Games is an updated version of 2010's Evolution: The Origin of Species, with you trying to add traits to creatures so that they can survive better in a harsh world, whether through better propagation, protective mutations, or defense against predators. (KS link)