This week's Crowdfunding round up has 13 new projects, with some big hitters from the board game world launching new titles. CMON are back with the new title 'Mordred' and Thunder Works are introducing 'Stonespine Architects'. There is a great selection of other projects coming this week for every budget and theme.
As always, remember, back with your head, not your heart and most importantly, love your games.
Dungeon-crafting is an ancient Minotaur art that you’ve studied for a decade under Master Hortgully. To demonstrate your skill as your final project, you must carve your own perilous labyrinth into the base of the Stonespine Mountains.
Stonespine Architects is a card-drafting game for 1-5 players where you compete to construct the most dangerous labyrinth.
Players simultaneously draft and play cards to expand their dungeons, one chamber at a time. Follow a unique blueprint and a variety of scoring challenges. Choose between mapping a path through your underground passages, placing key elements in your rooms, or searching for extra treasure.
Spend gold between rounds to customize your labyrinth with monsters, traps, treasures, and secret passages. At the end of four years, the player with the most perilous dungeon will earn the title of Master Architect!
It’s picture day, but… The ducks need help. Their hair’s a mess. Others look nice. Their hair looks great. Grab the mousse. Help the ducks.
Game-play involves several different sets of rules:
Normal rules (similar to the "Duck Duck Goose" children's game) - Players throw down a card at a time until mousse appears. The first player to slap the mousse gets it and mousses one of their ducks. The first player to mousse all their ducks wins.
In Style rules (a sets game) - Players use the non-duck animal cards to search for sets of 3. One animal card is chosen as wild. First player to get 3 sets of 3 wins.
Blowout rules - Players divvy up all cards evenly, then play as fast as possible to get 5 ducks and 5 moose. A less-intense version involves stealing extra ducks or mousse left in the centre discard pile, and the craziest version involves stealing directly from others as they uncover cards from their respective decks.
Good Cop Bad Cop is a 52 card hidden identity, deduction game where each player takes on the role of a law enforcement officer in a corrupt district. Players must investigate others to figure out who is on their side, grab one of the 2-3 guns on the table, and shoot the opposing leader to win the game.
In MonstaTama, players compete to be the most renowned “monsta tama” by taming teams of monstas. To do this, players will carefully choose which monstas they plan to encounter on their journey, then decide what monstas to prioritize taming while on their journey.
MonstaTama is a competitive deck construction (not deck building) and queue management game. Despite sharing a game mechanic that is near exclusive to collectible card games, MonstaTama has been developed from the ground up to be played as a standalone experience with deck construction being a core part of gameplay. MonstaTama allows up to 4 players to express their ingenuity through deck construction, without any preparation before play and with just one copy of the game.
With art and concept by Adrian Smith (Chronicles of HATE, Blood Rage, Rising Sun, and Ankh) and sculpting by Studio McVey, this brand-new area control game designed by Alexio Schneeberger with Andrea Chiarvesio brings a new twist to the Arthurian legend..
After the merging of Britain and the Fae realm and the vanishing of King Arthur, various factions, both mortal and Fae, now fight for power. Each player will control one of these asymmetrical factions.
They will strive to earn the favor of the 3 great leaders: Mordred, Morgana, and Merlin. But they must use the rounds available wisely, as each action costs precious time. In the end, chaos will be inevitable, and players must prepare for it. It will bring great peril, but also greater rewards.
Luddite is a roll and write style game with a fully integrated graphic novel. In Luddite, one to an unlimited number of players will progress along the story of the novel whilst competing to destroy ever more complex automata. Creating a full campaign style game.
As a Luddite you will be hacking into the neural networks of the NED automata. These bionic, dog-like creatures are capable of performing almost any complex task to which they are assigned and, as such, have begun to replace vast swathes of the human population. As a Luddite, you will work to destroy these infernal machines.
During each game, players will roll three communal dice then use these dice to interact with the various modules of the NED. They will move their Neetle nanobot through the systems of the NED, opening and closing logic gates to enter and destroy key systems of the NED robot. All the while, collecting valuable resources to help them along their way.
Each round players must add one of the dice to the clock module, the higher the die added, the more damage done to the NED but also the less time the player has inside its systems, creating a push-your-luck style tension to each decision.
If players do not get their Neetle nanobot to the exit node of the NED before the clock runs out, their hack will be a failure.
The integrated graphic novel comes with hundreds of complex images from artist Adam Beachey all from within the vast Solar 175 universe.
Scattered all about the world, ancient books lie hidden in plain sight. Contained within these mystic Tomes is said to be the arcane secrets of life, power, and the very forces of nature. It is said that whoever finds these Tomes, can control magic itself.
Classic trick taking action, with a magical twist! Tome is a fresh take on the age old genre. In the normal mode, 4 players are split into 2 teams where teammates sit across from one another. Teams compete for points each chapter (trick) by playing 1 spell (card) to see who can win victory for their team. 3-4 Players can also square off against one another in survival mode, to see who is tough enough to be the last one standing.
Trump is not stagnate each round, but constantly changing each chapter. After each player is dealt 6 spells, the remaining spells are set in the centre to form the Element Deck. Each chapter, a Title Spell is revealed from the top of the Element deck. The Element of the Title Spell determines what Element is trump for that chapter.
Each spell has a unique effect that can be used to shift the game in your favour. Weakening your opponents spells, powering up your own, or even changing trump! In order to gain the true power of a spell rules must be followed. Following suit is not required in Tome, a player can play any spell from their hand on their turn. When the lead player plays a spell, they begin a Chain in that Element. The next player can play a spell of the same Element to continue the chain and gain the effect of their spell. If a player plays a spell with a different Element, the Chain is broken and their spell is silenced and has no effect.
Within the Tome deck there are also spells of a Special Element. These spells all share a similar property. They do not start nor break a Chain, and their magic cannot be silenced. However there is a trade off: A special spell cannot be trump.
In survival mode, each player is on their own. Players begin a round with 2 health, then the player who plays the weakest spell each chapter loses a health. When a players health reaches 0, they are out of the round and each surviving player score a points.
Tome is built to be a modular game. Switching in different Elements changes up the strategy, and will ensure each game is fresh and exciting!
In Hamlet: By the Lake, you take your village building lakeside! Form lakes, build boats, go fishing, and feed your Villagers seasonal meals that give them special abilities. Hamlet: By the Lake adds variability, customizability and more individual control of resources, taking the strategy levels for Hamlet well above sea level.
Yama (山) is an abstract strategy game inspired one of the classics - Connect Four.
The goal still the same; make a line of four-in-a-row of your colour and win. The twist here is that the rotating board of Yama contains triangular slots that stand the cube up on its corner - revealing three sides, each of which can be seen from a different point of view. And it is in one of these three point-of-views in which you must try to form your line of four-in-a-row.
With Yama we strove to design the components such that they convey the rules. The cubes are painted such that no matter how you orient it one side will show a different colour to the other two. The way placing three cubes in a cluster forms a valley for placement of the next level which covers up and block your opponent, or clichés your victory. These all contributes to making Yama one of the easiest and most intuitive game to learn.
However the game itself is treacherously easy to lose yet deeply strategic and tactical when played by two equally skilled players. The three dimension aspect of the victory goal and the three dimensional aspect of the cube placement can be very tricky to wrap your head around - leading to surprising twists and turns that belies it simple rules and components.
Serengeti Sanctuary is a game for two to four players aged 7+ which takes 30 to 60 minutes to play. The game has a wildlife conservation theme, and features beautifully designed cards with wild animals from the Serengeti and a range of African terrain settings. The players seek to expand their wildlife reserves as successfully as possible.
Each turn the players draft cards from the play area following simple rules. They also have park staff members who give extra drafting abilities. The aim is to build sets of animals and therefore accumulate a growing score. Once the drafting is completed, players take turns to choose how many of their cards to play. The score they achieve is added to the victory track, and the points gained that turn are also used to enhance their staff team and gain sanctuary tokens. Players can also use points to hold cards between turns, with the aim of building even better sets. Once a player reaches 50 points or more the game ends, with victory for the highest score.
Serengeti Sanctuary marries a beautifully presented and iconic theme with nicely judged game-play. There are many paths to victory, and the outcome is unclear until the last moment. It works beautifully as a light game for a wide range of ages. Simple to learn, the game-play has surprising depths and re-playability is high.
It's also possible to play the game solo, using exactly the same rules. The target of 50 points must be achieved in three rounds for a solo victory
"A fast-paced chase through outer space!"
A race to determine the fastest spaceship in the universe is on, right here in the Milky Way! Choose your machine--one of four UFOs with totally different handling--and take your places at the startling line.
Each turn, use your "paths" to move closer to the finish line. You might move in arcs, zigzags, or even loops! But examine the racetrack closely before you choose a path to use. If you crash into a star, you won't get to move! Get in your opponents' way and make them work to pass you, or accidentally help them out by clearing out a comet from their path.
Space Racers brings the tactile fun of movement templates to a fast and simple game that can be enjoyed with almost anyone.
Pocket-Sized
Easy to Learn
1-5 Players
15 Minutes to Play
3 Distinct Ways to Play
Sword & Sorcery is an epic-fantasy cooperative board game in which 1-5 players fight together against the forces of evil, which are controlled by the game system itself.
Ancient Chronicles, a new starting point for the game, is fully compatible with the original Immortal Souls campaign in terms of gameplay, allowing players to cross over heroes and monsters from one campaign to another. Gameplay remains familiar, but this new cycle also introduces new elements to the setting, expanding both the narrative engine and the mechanisms, without making the game more complex.
The Ancient Chronicles campaign is set in the distant past of the events narrated in the Immortal Souls campaign.
New features in the game:
No Game Master needed. Play alone or with up to 5 players together against the game system itself.
No player elimination. Dying, becoming a ghost soul and resurrecting your Hero are part of the game engine.
A real story-driven campaign with multiple outcomes, a main plot and several optional Quests.
World and city exploration, with different paths and ventures to discover.
Multiple development paths for your Heroes.
A sophisticated tactical combat system, based on custom ten-sided dice.
An advanced artificial intelligence engine for Enemies and Master Enemies.
Customizable difficulty level, thanks to the different options provided with the game rules and granted by the Challenge set.
Full backward compatibility with Sword & Sorcery: Immortal Souls heroes and enemies.
Crafting, Loots, Treasures, Traps and many other aspects of a true fantasy legendary adventure are a part of the game!
Familiars, a new type of faithful companions for all your Heroes.
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