Monday, September 21, 2015

Obligatory 2015 Kickstarter Post Part III: Top 10 List (Part II)



Another day, another part of my top 10 Kickstarters list!  This will be the final post in my 2015 Kickstater interests list.  This post will focus on my games 1-5 of the top 10 and these are some great looking games!  If you haven’t seen my previous two posts (which are on my honorable mentions and my games 6-10 of my top 10) just click on the links that I’ll provide below if you are so inclined.  Again, remember that these are only games that haven’t shipped to backers; it doesn’t matter when the campaign was or even if it has even happened yet.  And here are the promised links!



Okay, now we move on to the meat of my post, the top 5 game interests from Kickstarter.  These are all games that I am extremely interested in.  Of these 5 games I have backed 2 of them and another I have as the top game on my Christmas list.  Let’s get this started.

#5 – Gloomhaven (Cephalofair Games)


Gloomhaven is a co-operative, grid movement, and hand management game designed by Isaac Childres (who just recently finished and shipped his first Kickstarter for Forge War) and will be released by Cephalofair games.  This game is still currently funding and is at (during the time of this post) 2,841 backers and has made $221,626 thus far.  Gloomhaven is a game that takes the idea of a dungeon crawler and turns it on its head.  This game uses two part cards as its primary mechanism.  You take your hand of cards (which is completely different for all the classes) and you get to use 2 of them on your turn.  You just have to decide which card you will use the top portion for and which you’ll use the bottom portion for.  This game also has a “legacy” style in that it grows with you as you continue to level up and move through the game.  This allows the world to change and grow instead of stagnating.  I am very much looking forward to this game but I will hold off until it hits retail so I can get a better idea of the game as a whole.

#4 – The Networks (Formal Ferret Games)


The Networks is a card drafting game designed by Gil Hova and will be released by Formal Ferret Games.  This game is still currently funding and is at (during the time of this post) 1,498 backers and has made $55,220 thus far.  The Networks looks like an awesome medium/light weight game that we’ll be able to break out will new gamers and seasoned gamers alike.  It really looks like fun as you draft cards in order to place them on your board to attempt to score the most viewers possible.  This game has a wit and elegance to it and the campaign is being impeccably run by Hova.  This game is one that I will back (I haven’t currently but will in the next couple of days) along with one other in my top 5.  This is a game that I think will appeal to such a large amount of gamers and I’m glad it is doing so well.  Another plus for this game is that it plays solo as well as up to five people.  I love the player count!

#3 – New Bedford (Dice Hate Me/Greater Than Games)


New Bedford is a worker placement and city building game designed by Nathaniel Levan and will be released by the Dice Hate Me imprint of Greater Than Gamers.  This game was funded by 2,316 backers and made $109,343 during its run on Kickstarter.  This game was one that I had my eye on about 9 months ago or so when it was originally on in December of 2014.  They ended up cancelling the project as they decided they could do an even better campaign and improve the game in the meantime.  I really respect this decision as what they have created is a beautiful worker placement game with and absolutely original theme that centers on whaling in the town of New Bedford.  This game was an insta-back for me and I can’t wait till it hits my door sometime next year.  Also, this was another of the impeccably run Kickstarters that you’ll find on my list.  As a bonus you could buy a second game called Nantucket for only $6 and no difference in shipping.

#2 – Scythe (Stonemaier Games)



Scythe is an area control, territory building, and economic game designed by Jamey Stegmaier and will be released by his company Stonemaier Games.  This game hasn’t yet going onto Kickstarter for its run but will start on October 13th, 2015.  This is going to be one of the hottest releases of the year and I think that it will do very well in its run.  This game has been (loosely) likened to a mixture of Agricola and Kemet in that you use/harvest resources and use deterministic combat in order to control parts of the board.  I love that Stegmaier came up with this idea when he ran across the artist, Jakub Rozalski’s, work.  This is a blend of steampunk and of World War I imagery which is both stark and beautiful at the same time.  Stonemaier Games runs some of the best Kickstarter campaigns in the business and I think that this one will be their most popular to date.  This is another game that’s price point will be high enough that I can’t afford to back it now, but when it hits retail it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine!

#1 – The Gallerist (Eagle-Gryphon Games)


The Gallerist is a worker placement, set collection and economic game designed by the fabulous Vital Lacerda (of CO2, Vinhos, and Kanban: Automotive Revolution, fame) and will be released by Eagle-Gryphon Games.  This game was funded by 1,089 backers and made 83,212 during its run on Kickstarter.  This game has one of the coolest themes I’ve ever seen in a boardgame.  You take control of a burgeoning art gallery and use your workers in order to go out and find new artists.  You can then go further into the game to try to control the popularity of said artists in order to resell their works of art for an even larger amount of money.  The artwork and the graphic design of this game are absolutely on point.  Eagle-Gryphon did a great job in the production of this game, as it looks absolutely gorgeous.  This game will be the top game on my Christmas list this year.  I truly hope to have it under the tree waiting for me on Christmas morning!

Well there you have it.  Three separate posts listing my top 10 Kickstarter interests, my honorable mentions, and a few more just for fun!  This series was a ton of fun to write and I hope you all enjoyed reading them.  As always, if you have any questions or comments please post below.  Until next time, game on!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Obligatory 2015 Kickstarter Post Part II: Top 10 List (Part I)



Now we get to move to my top 10 interests on Kickstarter.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out the first post in this series please take a second and take a look.  The first post has 5 games that are my honorable mentions (as well as 12 games that I didn’t quite make the list) and it sets up for this post.  The biggest rule I’ve set for myself on these posts is that these are all Kickstarter campaigns that haven’t yet been shipped to their backers.  Other than that there are no rules on the dates or anything along those lines.  Again, before you read this you can check out my honorable mentions list at the below link.


With the preliminaries out of the way we can now move on to games 6-10 of my top 10 Kickstarter 2015 list.  Keep an eye out in the next day or two as I’ll be releasing my games 1-5 of the top 10 list.  Alright, here we go!

#10 – ExoPlanets (Board&Dice)


ExoPlanets is a tile drafting, tile placement, set collection, and area control game designed by Przemyslaw Swierczynski and will be released by Polish publisher Board&Dice.  This game was funded by 904 backers and made $44,021 during its run on Kickstarter.  It is being released by Board&Dice during Essen Spiel 2015 and looks like a really cool game.  I was very interested in this game when I saw the run through by Richard Ham.  It is a beautiful looking tile drafting and placement game that has just enough “take-that” attitude in it with its player interactions.  You are basically attempting to control planets in order to get different resources which will let you control other planets.  There is some hidden information that each player has in some of their tiles where they are able to gain points with different sets and things of the like.  It just looks like a fun game and we love Dice Brewing which is also released by this company.  The shipping was really what held me back on this game.  I hope that they will partner with a company over here to release it in the United States.  If/what they do that this will probably be an insta-buy.

#9 – Mistfall (NSKN Games/Passport Game Studios)


Mistfall is a co-operative, deck-building, adventure game designed by Blazej Kubacki and will be released by NSKN Games and Passport Game Studios.  This game was funded by 2,489 backers and made $134,348 during its run on Kickstarter.  To be honest this game wasn’t really on my radar during its campaign (much to my chagrin).  This game is an insta-buy for me for a few reasons.  The first is that many reviewers have stated that it has some similarities to the Lord of the Rings LCG by Fantasy Flight, Sentinels of the Multiverse by Greater Than Games, and Legends of Andor by KOSMOS.  These are some great games and the mixture of the three of them just sounds like it would be an amazing game.  I saw Ricky Royal’s play through of the game and it got me even more interested in the mechanics and gameplay.  The game also looks absolutely beautiful on the table and that certainly doesn’t hurt!  Another reason I want this game is because it looks like it would play great solo.  I think this may be a Christmas purchase and I can’t wait.

#8 – Wizards of the Wild (CrossCut Games)


Wizards of the Wild is a card drafting, dice rolling, set collection, engine building game designed by Adam West and Dan Schnake and will be released by CrossCut Games.  This game was funded by 1,307 backers and made $46,291 during its run on Kickstarter.  This game is actually the first on the list that I am a proud backer of!  This was an easy purchase as the base game was only $16 for what appears to be a light, fun, card and dice game that will play fast and easy.  The artwork and theme are great and the mechanics look solid in this Yahtzee-style dice rolling game.  Engine building (along with card play) is one of my favorite mechanics in a game and this one really seems to use it well.  As a bonus this was one of the best run Kickstarters I’ve been a part of and the game should be in backer’s hands by November or December at the latest making it to us on time.  Can’t wait for this one!

#7 – Bottom of the 9th (Dice Hate Me Games/Greater Than Games)


Bottom of the 9th is a dice rolling, press your luck game with splashes of bluffing and deduction.  This game is designed by Darrell Louder and Mike Mullins and will be released by the Dice Hate Me Games imprint of Greater Than Games.  Bottom of the 9th was funded by 2,183 backers and made $67,251 during its run on Kickstarter.  I saw this game’s campaign go up and I was instantly enamored by the mechanics and old-school art that was on display.  The cards that make up your players are actually made to look like old Topps-style baseball cards and really lend to the theme of this game.  This game was an insta-back for me with its great style, fun gameplay, and low price point.  Again, just like the Wizards of the Wild campaign, this was one of the best-run Kickstarters I’ve been a part of.  I’ve never heard anything bad about the way that Dice Hate Me Games runs their campaigns and this is no different.  Spoiler alert, there may be another Dice Hate Me Games campaign higher on my list!  This game is currently running on time and should hit backer’s doors before the World Series which is really what they were shooting for.  Can’t wait!

#6 – Trickerion: Legends of Illusion (APE Games)


Trickerion: Legends of Illusion is a Euro-style, worker placement, and action selection game designed by Richard Amann and Viktor Peter and will be released by APE Games.  This game was funded by 4,330 backers and made $285,309 during its run on Kickstarter.  This game was a sneaky little surprise when it came on the scene.  I was able to catch a Richard Ham run through and this game immediately shot up to one of my major Kickstarter interests.  It is a pretty classic worker placement game but it has some interesting ways of going about these mechanics that I think will make it stand out from other games of its genre.  The theme goes a long, long way in really taking this game to the next level.  I love that you take a magician who specializes in a certain type of magic and you create their entire show.  Of course, the most reputation points (a.k.a. victory points) will win the game.  The art and mechanics really make this one a high candidate for a possible Christmas purchase when it is released.  I hope it does really well at its debut at Essen Spiel 2015.

Well folks, there you have it, games 6-10 of my top 10 Kickstarter 2015 list.  As stated earlier, keep your eyes open on my site and BoardGameGeek as I will have the final installment of the series up in the next couple of days.  As usual, if you have any questions or comments feel free to post them below.  Until next time, game on!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Obligatory 2015 Kickstarter Post Part I: Honorable Mentions



Okay, I have finally broken down and created my 2015 Kickstarter list!  This will be the first in a series of posts that will feature the Kickstarters that I am interested in.  These games are ones that haven’t been shipped out to their backers as of the writing of this post.  This means that their campaigns may be still going on, completed, or even haven’t started yet.  Also, for this list I didn’t look at any date for the campaigns as all I’m really looking for are games that haven’t been shipped.  One of the games on the honorable mentions has been rumored for a couple years and still hasn’t even had its Kickstarter!  This first post will focus on 5 honorable mentions (as well as some other cool looking ones that didn’t quite make the cut) that just missed out of my top 10 list.  Without further ado, here are my Kickstarter honorable mentions.


The first honorable mention to make it onto my Kickstarter list is Consequential.  This game is designed by Chris Cieslik and will be distributed by Asmadi Games after the (supposed?) Kickstarter.  This is a co-operative game with an app portion that will be used heavily for the story portions of the game.  Cieslik has been working on this game for quite some time as it was first mentioned around Gen Con 2012.  Here we are 3 years later and there are just some tenuous mentions of a Kickstarter coming up soon.  I hope that this game will be up soon and will do well because it looks quite interesting and could be another game that integrates applications with success.  The only reason it is so low is because my interest seems to be waning further as this game continues to taunt without any real substance behind it.



The next game that is interesting on the Kickstarter front and gets an honorable mention is 7th Continent.  This game is by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter and will be distributed by Serious Poulp after its Kickstarter.  This game has really been going around BoardGameGeek with its very interesting looking mechanics and theme.  This game is inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks which really creates a game that will be much like a choose-your-own-adventure experience.  I find this idea to be very fascinating and am looking forward to see how it works.  I will hold off on this game until it hits retail because I really want to see how it plays and what others are saying about it before I take the leap.  So far the buzz is great and I love different themes/mechanics in games so I think this could be a winner.  They are obviously looking to have a successful Kickstarter (which starts 9/29/15) as they already have at least two slated expansions entitled The Forbidden Sanctuary and The Icy Maze.


The next Kickstarter game to receive an honorable mention is Above & Below.  This is a game designed by Ryan Laukat and distributed by his company, Red Raven Games.  This is a game that uses set collection, card drafting, and storytelling as its primary mechanics.  Ryan is truly a triple threat as he has designed this game, done all of the art for it, and is releasing it himself.  This game looks absolutely beautiful and it seems to really do a great job in marrying storytelling with an actual game!  I’ve seen other games that use storytelling as a primary mechanic but don’t seem to have any actually game along with it.  Above & Below will hopefully be one of those rare games that uses storytelling and is a fun game as well!


The fourth game to make its way onto my Kickstarter honorable mention list is Shadows over Normandie.  This game is designed by Yan & Clem (they also designed Heroes of Normandie) and distributed by Devil Pig Games and Iello.  This game is a war style game that uses grid movement, dice rolling, and hex-and-counter mechanics.  I am not normally interested in these types of games but this one really grabbed me.  The mechanics are interesting and the theme is awesome!  This game finds a group of soldiers who got split from the main army and find themselves fighting a cult of Nazis who are bringing up Cthulhu horrors.  I like the mashing of the World War II theme with the Cthulhu theme.  It appears to be a great game with a sweet theme and that is enough to make this list.


The final game to make it onto my Kickstarter honorable mention list, and thus just miss the top 10, is Millennium Blades.  This game is designed by D. Brad Talton, Jr. and distributed by his company, Level 99 Games.  This game wasn’t one I knew much about when it first popped up on Kickstarter but it quickly became incredibly interesting to me.  This game takes the idea of collectible card games and turns it on its head.  In this game you’ll draft cards, use hand management and set collection in an effort to gain victory points during card battles.  This makes the game essentially a commodity trading game that strives to be a CCG-simulator.  This idea is very interesting and I can’t wait to see the final product to see if Talton was successful in his ambitious Kickstarter.

These are the 5 games that just missed my top 10 but I felt deserved honorable mentions.  Below I have the names of 12 other games that just missed the honorable mentions but still look very cool.  Check them out if they sound cool to you!


- Apocrypha Adventure Card Game
- Blood Rage
- Foe Hunters
- The Guardians: Explore
- The Others: 7 Sins
- Posthuman


- Prime Time
- Raiders of the North Sea
- Rome: Rise to Power
- Salvation Road
- Super Dungeon Explore: Legends
- Zombicide: Black Plague

Thanks so much for taking a look at my blog!  This is just the first in this series and the next one will feature games 6-10 of my top 10 Kickstarter interests.  Stay tuned to find out what they are.  As usual, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them.  Until next time, game on!