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Author Topic: Kickstarter Games of Interest  (Read 13919 times)

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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #25 on: November 01, 2015, 07:19:21 pm »
0

Probably worth mentioning Scythe which looks like a very nice euro-style 4x game with an excellent theme, and is published by Stonemaier Games who have a very strong reputation as a good publisher and a good kickstarter deliverer.

Closes on 5 November.

I've been meaning to post about it since the kickstarter began.  I seem to go through cycles of backing games and then waiting for games to arrive.  Games from the last round of backing have been arriving, so I'm starting to feel the itch to back something again.  Scythe is one of the projects I'm considering, but unlike the thousands of others who have pledged $1.4 million, I am not sold yet.  Would be interested in hearing more opinions though.  Did anybody here participate in the blind playtesting?

Another project I'm considering is Kodama, mostly because I like the theme and art.  I'm probably going to pass on it though.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #26 on: November 02, 2015, 10:53:50 pm »
+1

Alright, here are the games currently on my radar!

Scythe



This is the big one, and you might be living under a rock if you don't know about it already.  It is the latest offering by Stonemaier Games, who literally wrote the book on kickstarting board games, and the hype train is huge partially because the playtesting was so extensive.  Right now, the campaign is at 14,205 backers with $1,419,223 pledged.  There's still 3 days remaining, so there's still plenty of time for the 48-hour rush to push it over its final 1.5 million dollar stretch goal.  It has smashed multiple records already.  Along with their tremendous track record, Stonemaier Games also has a 1-month full-refund policy, which makes it even safer to back.  For the record, I am probably not going to back this, though there is still time for me to cave.

This is mainly a euro game, though it is dressed up as a 4X war game with giant mechs in fields and such.  From what I've read of it, my best comparison is probably Eclipse, though the campaign page says that its main influences are Terra Mystica and Kemet.  The latter is mainly for the combat system, but playtesting reports and (p)reviews indicate that there isn't as much combat as there is the threat of combat, which is why I liken it to Eclipse -- another 4X-ish euro game in which players, at least in my experience, often engage in arms races without really committing to meaningful battles until late, and only a few times at that.

The art is beautiful, the theme is intriguing, the production quality should be stellar.  The one thing that impresses me the most is the elegant Upgrade system.  When you take an Upgrade action, you remove a cube from an action on the top half of your player board, which uncovers more benefits for taking that action, and then you place that action cube on an action on the lower half of your player board to cover up some of its cost.  I just find that really neat.

I am hesitant to back it mainly because the game feels too big and long, such that I don't think I would be able to get it played very often at all.  I am also unsure of whether the theme really comes through.  A notable example of this is in their "encounter cards", which are supposed to add a bit of flavour to the game through unique illustrations and some odd option choices.  However, the actual in-game benefits from the options of different encounter card all boil down to very similar things for game-balance reasons (gain popularity and a bit of something else; pay money to get something good; pay popularity to get something great).  It probably works well in practice, but it just sounds kind of dry to me.

Also, there was a recent review by a fan and backer of the game that sought to list some things that people might not like, given that it is almost universal praise and hype otherwise.  There is enough there that I'm feeling OK about not backing it.

Kodama: The Tree Spirits



A relatively light game by the publishers who put out Lanterns.  It is similar to a popular Print-On-Demand game called Kigi, by the same designer. 

This is literally a tree-building game.  Cards are illustrated with branches, which you place on top of your tree trunk or other branches to grow the tree out.  The cards have various features in the illustrations which you are trying to chain to score points -- fireflies, flowers, mushrooms, caterpillars, clouds and stars. Players also have 5 kodama cards with additional scoring objectives, scoring one at the end of each of 4 seasons.  For more diversity, each season will also bring with it a randomized Decree card which adds or changes the rules slightly.

I really like the art and the theme, and the gameplay sounds interesting.  I am hesitant to back mainly because I think I already have enough games of this lightness.  My preference is more for middle-weight fare.  But if this sounds even mildly interesting to you, you can watch Rahdo's run-through to get an idea of how it plays. 

Islebound



This project just went live today, and I am backing it already.  I am biased in favour of Red Raven Games, even though their KS projects tend to have higher international shipping. :'(  A gameplay video from Rahdo should be coming, but a prototype rulebook is available for now, and it is available on Tabletopia.

This is a worker placement game (sort of) set in the same world as Above and Below, which I posted about back when it was on Kickstarter.  You command a ship and her crew and sale from island to island; the speed of your ship limits your choice of island to visit each turn.  The islands have various actions on them, e.g. collecting resources, hiring crew, building buildings with special powers. 

Different islands have different costs, and some may require you to exhaust crew members, who will need to be rested at certain islands and ports.  You can also take control of islands via force or diplomacy (or sometimes either).  When you control an island, you don't need to pay the cost to use it and opponents must pay coin costs for the island to you instead of to the bank.

I like this twist on worker placement (it is similar to a game idea I've been stewing over for ages) and I always enjoy games where I get to build stuff for special powers.  As usual, I am a big fan of Ryan Laukat's art style and fantasy worlds.

The Great Dinosaur Rush



I haven't looked too much into this game yet, but the unique game mechanism is intriguing.  It's a set collection game where you play as a paleontologist diggin up dinosaur bones, represented by wooden sticks (like the roads in Catan).  The (incredibly inaccurate but probably very fun) twist is that you assemble the bones into whatever dinosaur shape you want, scoring points on various categories.

Definitely going to consider backing this, but I have to look more into the non-dino-building mechanisms to see if it's something I'd really enjoy.  The cost might put me off though, since I am already blindly throwing money at Red Raven Games. :P
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Voltaire

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #27 on: November 03, 2015, 03:38:31 pm »
0

Oh hey! I played Kodama when it was Kigi, as a print-on-demand. It was extremely fun. I'm not sure how much Kodama is different, but Kigi's greatest thrill was the physical element - where you sit at the table matters, if you're 6' or 6" from your opponent, even though I wouldn't call it a dexterity game.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #28 on: November 03, 2015, 08:41:26 pm »
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Oh hey! I played Kodama when it was Kigi, as a print-on-demand. It was extremely fun. I'm not sure how much Kodama is different, but Kigi's greatest thrill was the physical element - where you sit at the table matters, if you're 6' or 6" from your opponent, even though I wouldn't call it a dexterity game.

Other than the look, I think the main differences are that objective cards aren't part of the draft (you get a hand of them at the start of the game), you can't play cards to others' trees, no pruning, and clear rounds (seasons) with separate rule twists (via decrees) and scoring.





In other news, I got to play Vault Wars this weekend.  I thought I posted about it before, but I can't seem to find it in this thread or the previous one.  Google suggests I might have only posted about it in the Random Stuff thread.

Anyway, Vault Wars is a game by Jon Gilmour, a co-designer of Dead of Winter.  It's a fantasy-themed auction game based on Storage Wars.  Heroes go off on adventures and some of them never make it back; the players are aspiring heroes hoping to pick up some gear on the cheap.  I was really interested in it but already backing something else (I forget what now) so I ended up convincing a friend to back it instead.  Now that I've seen and played it, I actually regret not going in on it before.

The production value is good.  I am particularly impressed in the packaging.  Unlike most games, the box is only as big as it needs to be, and it's a single piece with that kind of magnetic flap deal.

The gameplay was better than I expected, and I thought it would be really good.  Each round, each player is the auction master for a vault.  Usually this involves drawing some number of treasure cards, publicly revealing a subset, then letting each other player secretly peek at some more.  The auction master sets an initial bid, then the other players go around bidding until there is only one winner.  That player pays the auction master and takes all the cards in the vault.  If nobody outbid the initial bid, the auction master gets the items and pays the bid to the bank.  Different vaults have different setups for treasures, reveals and peeks, and many have special rules to add further diversity to each auction.

At the end of each round, players sell items, equip some for special powers, or hold on to them (paying storage fees for the privilege) to hopefully score them at the end of the game.  Aside from the items with special powers, it is relatively simple set collection.

That's the gist of it.  When we played our games, there was a lot of discussion and banter.  Having partial knowledge makes for some interesting auction choices.  There were a few fun moments where an auction master managed to bluff another player into paying big for a vault full of junk.  Some of the vaults have some very neat twists.  Overall, I highly recommend the game.
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Voltaire

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #29 on: November 03, 2015, 11:29:06 pm »
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We should play games together in real life sometime, eHalc. Vault Wars is a game I wanted to hate (generic fantasy theme, cringey pop-culture tie-in) but then it did some fascinating stuff with hidden information/drafting that I've never seen packaged together quite that way before, and ended up loving it.

To anyone reading, consider that two votes for Vault Wars.

And one sad vote that there's no pruning in Kodama - that seemed part of the heart of the game. Interesting that they'd change it.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #30 on: November 04, 2015, 12:13:20 pm »
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This might be better for "Kickstarter Games of Disinterest", but I was disappointed with Exploding Kittens. I'd just heard so much about it that I had high expectations for it. Turns out to be a fun but silly little game of mostly luck. Nothing really unique or novel about it; while I can't think of comparisons at the moment, I know that while playing it, I felt like I'd already played multiple other games just like it.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #31 on: November 04, 2015, 02:35:40 pm »
+3

This might be better for "Kickstarter Games of Disinterest", but I was disappointed with Exploding Kittens. I'd just heard so much about it that I had high expectations for it. Turns out to be a fun but silly little game of mostly luck. Nothing really unique or novel about it; while I can't think of comparisons at the moment, I know that while playing it, I felt like I'd already played multiple other games just like it.

Did you back it?  If you read the campaign page, it's pretty clear that it's a super simple, super light game that only got so big because of The Oatmeal.  More for the Munchkin crowd than for Dominion fans (not that there isn't some overlap there).
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GendoIkari

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #32 on: November 04, 2015, 04:44:10 pm »
0

This might be better for "Kickstarter Games of Disinterest", but I was disappointed with Exploding Kittens. I'd just heard so much about it that I had high expectations for it. Turns out to be a fun but silly little game of mostly luck. Nothing really unique or novel about it; while I can't think of comparisons at the moment, I know that while playing it, I felt like I'd already played multiple other games just like it.

Did you back it?  If you read the campaign page, it's pretty clear that it's a super simple, super light game that only got so big because of The Oatmeal.  More for the Munchkin crowd than for Dominion fans (not that there isn't some overlap there).

I didn't. I just knew about it because everyone was talking about it. I'm definitely in the strong anti-Munchkin camp.
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Kirian

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #33 on: November 04, 2015, 07:31:31 pm »
0

This might be better for "Kickstarter Games of Disinterest", but I was disappointed with Exploding Kittens. I'd just heard so much about it that I had high expectations for it. Turns out to be a fun but silly little game of mostly luck. Nothing really unique or novel about it; while I can't think of comparisons at the moment, I know that while playing it, I felt like I'd already played multiple other games just like it.

Oh man, you weren't here when I was ranting about how horrible it sounded?
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #34 on: December 20, 2015, 08:37:02 pm »
+2

Only posting one thing this time, which is ending soon (less than 3 days now).

Secret Hitler



The name sounds like it's only there for shock value, and the fact that it is co-created by Max Temkin (of CAH fame) only furthers that suspicion.

But it's not!  This is a social deduction game that aims to foster the same kind of distrust, paranoia and corrupt politicking that allowed Hitler to rise to power.

Here's a summary of the rules (which may not be fully correct, since I only read through the campaign page today):

You are assigned one of 3 roles: Liberal, Fascist, or Hitler.  Hitler is on the Fascist side and he doesn't know who the other Fascists are (except maybe in lower player games).  The Fascists know each other and know who Hitler is.  Liberals know nothing, but they have a majority.

Each round, one player is the Presidential Candidate, a role that passes around the table.  Think of it as the team leader in The Resistance.  This player selects another player to be the Chancellor Candidate.  Players then vote whether to accept the candidates or not.

Once elected, the President and the Chancellor will enact a Law.  The President draws 3 cards from the policy deck (where there are about twice as many Fascist policies as there are Liberal policies), discards one face-down, then passes the cards to the Chancellor.  The Chancellor likewise discards one face-down, then reveals the remaining policy to enact.  As more Fascist policies are enacted, they grant the President different mandatory powers.  The fourth and fifth ones force the President to execute another player.

The Liberals win if they manage to enact 5 Liberal policies or if they kill Hitler.  The Fascists win if they enact 6 Fascist policies or if Hitler wins the election as Chancellor anytime after the third Fascist policy has been enacted.

The process of enacting a policy is really interesting.  If the Chancellor enacts a Fascist policy, it could mean that they are a Fascist... or maybe the President is a Fascist who discarded the only Liberal policy from the draw of 3.  Or maybe the President is Liberal too and unluckily drew 3 Fascist policies!  Or maybe the Chancellor had a choice but decided that the Fascist power would be more helpful to the Liberal cause.  Whatever the case, it should give the players a lot to speculate and argue over.

It all sounds very interesting to me, potentially easier to get into than Resistance or Mafia.
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Qvist

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #35 on: June 21, 2016, 06:27:20 pm »
+1

I just checked out video previews of the game "HOPE".

It's very innovative. It's a semi-cooperative game where you try to save the world from a regression which "eats" the 3 dimensional space around you. The innovative thing is how you move in this 3 dimensional space. You can only move within one dimension and colonize those worlds with matching cards from your hand until you polarize and switch to the next dimension clockwise. To me it's really a brainburner as you have a lot of things to watch out for: Tracking the board and seeing in which directions you can move and at the same time looking out for symbols that match the cards in your hand and at the same time don't putting you in a space at the edge of the world where you can't really get out of fast. Also every character has a special ability which is always great. You can also play with an event deck with positive and negative effects to make things interesting and if you're playing with more than 2 persons you can add in a traitor mechanic what I always like. I think this game should be playable with more than 4 people but sadly isn't.

eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #36 on: June 21, 2016, 06:41:49 pm »
0

I'll have to take a closer look at HOPE.  When I first saw it, it caught my eye enough that I starred it but I haven't given it much more thought.  I didn't even remember it when you mentioned it here, but it was already starred. :P

For anybody interested, there's currently a campaign for Catacombs and Castles.  My understanding is that this is a new, streamlined game using the same system as Catacombs, but includes stuff that can be combined with Catacombs.  The kickstarter campaign allows you to pick up Catacombs as well, including a bunch of kickstarter exclusive stuff from the first Catacombs campaign.

I mentioned Catacombs back when it first appeared on Kickstarter with its fantastic new art direction.  I ultimately did not back it, largely because of all the kickstarter exclusive add-ons.  I didn't want to risk dropping so much money on a game I wasn't sure I'd actually like, but if I got the base game and liked it I would kick myself for not grabbing the exclusives.

As it is, I still haven't had a chance to play it and I find myself in the same dilemma.  Once again, I'm going to pass.  It helps that, at this point, my board game collection is significantly bigger than before and I still have plenty of stuff that hasn't been played much (or even at all, in a few cases).  I'm reasonably certain that Catacombs would rarely hit the table, so I'm content to pass on this. 

Even so, it is Of Interest and worth mentioning here. :)
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clb

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #37 on: June 21, 2016, 07:09:28 pm »
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I just checked out video previews of the game "HOPE".

I was super-excited about this last year when it first tried to launch (it cancelled a few days later), and I have been waiting for it to come back around. However, I now find that I am afraid that the 3-dimensional aspect of it will feel "gimmicky" and stop being interesting and engaging after a few plays. It doesn't look like there is a lot of game outside of the optical illusion.
I'm planning on printing out the PnP and giving it a try before I decide to vote (or not) with my wallet.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #38 on: July 09, 2016, 03:57:40 pm »
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I just checked out video previews of the game "HOPE".

I was super-excited about this last year when it first tried to launch (it cancelled a few days later), and I have been waiting for it to come back around. However, I now find that I am afraid that the 3-dimensional aspect of it will feel "gimmicky" and stop being interesting and engaging after a few plays. It doesn't look like there is a lot of game outside of the optical illusion.
I'm planning on printing out the PnP and giving it a try before I decide to vote (or not) with my wallet.

Since it's almost ending, I finally took the time to watch rahdo's run-through.  It looks interesting, but a little abstract for my tastes.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #39 on: August 02, 2016, 07:48:44 pm »
+3

Near and Far



Near and Far is the thematic sequel to Above and Below, the most popular game so far from Red Raven Games, as well as being set in the same world as some other Red Raven games (Islebound, City of Iron).  I just double-checked and apparently I forgot to post about Above and Below when it was on kickstarter, oops (unless I posted it in Random Stuff or something). 

Above and Below took traditional euro game mechanisms (primarily Action Point Allowance and Set Collection) and threw in a splash of narrative in the form of a story book, similar to the one in Tales of the Arabian Nights (but not nearly as big).

Near and Far is another euro-ish game with stories, but this one is a campaign.  A criticism of Above and Below (and Arabian Nights) is that the stories can feel random and disconnected; Near and Far tries to correct this with narratives that evolve and change depending on past decisions.  In the primary game mode, players take unique characters and play them over the course of 10 games, each on a different map of an atlas book.  There is also a story mode with tales highly specific to each character (for ~4 games, I think), and an "arcade mode" for one-off games.

The game mechanisms also include some worker placement and something that I think could be described as area majority, though I'm not entirely sure.  There are 4 factions and you can earn banners for the factions over the course of the game.  Controlling factions earns you points, but the value depends on how many camps belong to each faction, which is also player controlled.

The Kickstarter campaign has 9 days left and it is easily Red Raven's most successful campaign to date, having eclipsed their previous total funding record just on the first day.  If you are interested but don't want to pledge right now, the only KS exclusive you're missing are metal coins.

Also, if you are a fan of Above and Below but didn't get the Expanded Edition (from kickstarter or at a convention), those components are available from this campaign.  There is a tier for those components only, if that's what you want.
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yaffle

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Re: Kickstarter Games of Interest
« Reply #40 on: October 08, 2016, 06:31:34 am »
0

The Decemberists, the third best band in the world, are releasing a game on kickstarter.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/twogetherstudios/illimat?ref=checkout_payment_sources_page"

It's done by the creator of Gloom and the Tarot style cards look nice. Not sure what the stretch goals are but it's already made its pledge target. The band started playing board games on tour - in the video they have Pandemic and Codenames in their bags.
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