Last week was a rough one for the pockets, with Tang Garden and a huge line up of other projects vying for attention. Fortunately a few of the bigger projects also catching my eye were pushed over till next month, including Tidal Blades.
This week there is a great line up of different projects, something for every type of gamer and every budget. I don't plan on backing any of these but please let me know if I am missing something.
Historic characters from the American Wild West face off and write new legends across the face of history! Gather your gun, your mount, and your grit as you forge your path into the history books.
Western Legends is an open-world sandbox tabletop adventure for 2-6 players set in the American Wild West. Players assume the roles of historical figures of the era, earning their legendary status in a variety of ways: gamble, drive cattle, prospect for gold, rob the bank, fight bandits, pursue stories, become an outlaw, keep the peace. The possibilities are darn near endless.
Each player's turn starts with drawing poker cards and/or gaining cash. Then they choose three actions. Possible actions include: move on the map (how far depends on whether they have a mount), doing a location-specific action (such as mine for gold if they are at a gold mine, gamble if they're in a saloon, etc.), fight other players at the same location (either duel them, rob them, or arrest them if they're wanted), play poker cards that have action abilities, etc. Legendary Points (LPs) are earned based on the outcomes of many of these actions, and the winner is whoever has the most LPs at the end of the game.
Key Points - Award-Winning gaming experience set in the American West! - Beautiful artwork, and presentation brings this highly thematic game to life. - Intuitive gameplay and choices let’s you write your own legend every game!
Earth Under Siege: Flashpoint is a 1-4 player, co-op, sci-fi dungeon crawler where players complete covert missions against an invading alien force bent on subjugation of the entire Earth.
Setting:
The world is in chaos. Alien enemies are assaulting military bases all over the globe, obliterating any resistance and enslaving the survivors. They attack indiscriminately and they show no mercy. They call themselves the Xethan, but where they come from is a complete mystery. They were simply not here one moment and initiating global conquest the next. If they came from space, there are no signs of it. None of the expected indicators of aliens traversing the stars, such as starships in orbit, have been observed. Indeed, the Xethan seem to possess no vehicles in their assaults at all. Instead, they rely on short range portal technology far beyond anything we’ve ever seen, which allows them to teleport short distances bypassing many of our defenses.
But the situation is much worse than just that. These Xethan are being aided by an insurgent faction of human terrorists that operate along the Russian/Ukrainian border. They call themselves the Vormacht, and, for reasons unknown, they seem to be working with these alien invaders and betraying their own species.
It has only been six months since the Xethan first appeared and they have already conquered large numbers of military bases all across Russia and Europe. If their momentum is not halted, the human race may well fall to these alien invaders. Someone must stop them.
We are that someone. Now is the time. While the world is still reeling from this unexpected assault, we have not been idle. We have come together, as a species, in recognition of this greater threat to our existence. We are no longer just splintered factions of rival groups; no longer separated by our differences. Humankind has never stood so together, united, arm in arm, moving together towards this one mission. We have become AEGIS, an allied force drawn from countries all over the Earth to stand against this threat. No longer will we stay on the defensive. Now is the time we stand up and show these Xethan that humankind will not fall so easily. Now, at this flashpoint in history, we fight back.
Gameplay: Earth Under Siege: Flashpoint missions are heavily focused on stealth, covert actions, and sabotage. Players are Operatives of AEGIS, and their missions are focused on infiltrating enemy facilities, using every method available, such as cutting the power, using the ventilation shafts, making use of silenced weapons, and hacking into the enemy database.
Players develop their Operatives and HQ over the course of a 30+ mission campaign as they follow the story deeper and deeper until they uncover the true nature of the Enemy and where they came from.
Each round, players perform actions with their Operatives by exhausting one of their six action tokens until they run out of available tokens, or choose to pass. But players must be judicious in their use of their action tokens, because they normally only recover three of them each Refresh Phase.
Each Operative comes with a unique deck of Tactics cards which gives them access to powerful actions and effects. Each Players will develop these decks over the course of the campaign allowing them to tailor their gameplay to a particular style or focusing on specific combos.
Rise of Tokugawa is an expansion for Small Samurai Empires, including a 5th player, solo mode, training grounds, a playmat and more!
As house Tokugawa rises to power, many of the daimyos prepare for the inevitable – an all-out war between the houses. No-one is safe, not even within the great castle walls.
Train your Samurai to be invincible warriors. Deploy archers, elite units and generals and use your unique tactics to bring an advantage to the battlefield. Prepare for siege and glorious battles. For glory and honor!
New guests arrive at the tea party bringing even more joy and chaos. Players need to follow even madder rules and things are getting curiouser and curiouser!
Curiouser & Curiouser expansion introduces 4 new characters (the King of Hearts, the March Hare, the Duchess and the Jabberwock) and a new Event mechanic with quirky happenings every round affecting scoring and the character abilities. A mini game might even be added!
Every round, players change their character and a new Event is drawn, changing either the rules or the scoring of the round. Then, according to the rules of the base game, three Forbidden Letters and a Discussion theme are drawn. The player to the left of the Queen of Hearts presses the teapot to start the timer and the game begins. Each player has to say a word, suitable to the Discussion theme while avoiding the Forbidden Letters before the time runs out. If they successfully do so, they reset the timer and the next player has to give their own word. If someone doesn't say a suitable word in time they are out for the round and when only one player remains the round ends. The longer each player stays in a round, the more points they are awarded.
UH OH! Games Presents, Word Explosion. Word Explosion is a highly explosive word game for 2 - 8 players that will challenge you like you've never been challenged before. Are you a teacher, spelling bee champ, master linguist, or just an average person who likes word games?
Word Explosion isn't just a word game, it's a strategy-based card game that will test your witts, vocabulary, knowledge of the alphabet forward and back, and your ability to sabotage your opponents to do whatever it takes to win. Players will take turns matching letters, continue the alphabet, spell words, or play action cards until they are the first to get rid of all their cards. Whatever method you prefer, be the first player to get rid of all your cards and be crowned the "Word Explosion Master."
Starting with the player sitting to the left of the dealer, each player takes a single turn, and then play passes to their LEFT. On your turn you must play either:
1. A letter that matches the top card of the discard pile (If the top card of the discard pile is an Action card with a letter in the top or bottom corner, you must use this letter.)
2. A letter that comes AFTER the top card of the discard pile, in alphabetical order.
3. Cards to spell a word that BEGINS with the top card of the discard pile.
4. An Action card for its special effect
If you CANNOT do any of these, you must draw cards until you get one that you can play.
To win you must be the first player to get rid of all of your cards, without being UH OH'ed! What does this mean??? You'll just have to play to find out (Or you know... read the rules!)
Build a team of amazing fictional and historical women to put escaped literary terrors back in their books! Can the Lady of Shalott defeat Dracula? Or Heidi and Ada Lovelace overcome a Kraken? Can Nzinga and Mary Seacole deal with the Martian Robots from War of the Worlds?
Library Labyrinth is a co-operative board game set in a cursed library. It plays in about 45-60 minutes for 2 to 5 players, or around 30 minutes as a solo game. Library Labyrinth is a quick game leading to ridiculous character mash ups. Of course Alice in Wonderland and Marie Curie can deal with the Big Bad Wolf! It can also scale between a game suitable for ten-year-olds and a fiendish puzzle. Floor tiles can be swapped out to make a harder grid, more difficult monsters can be used, or the amount of time can be reduced. Each game will also come with a booklet about the characters and the literary terrors in the game.
The play space is a grid of 25 octagonal tiles. These can rotate and flip, revealing (and changing) parts of the library. On some tiles literary terrors spawn - which the players need to defeat by drafting different book cards from their hands. These book cards each feature a fictional or historical woman with a combination of six different skills. Team up different cards to defeat specific terrors, and then travel through the library to place the terrors back on the correct shelves. But the curse is still at work in the library, undoing your good work, so make sure that you don't run out of time or let the library become overwhelmed...
On their turn each player can pick up cards, trade cards, flip or rotate floor tiles, move down a lit path (as shown on the floor tiles), capture a terror, or put a terror back in the right shelf. Player take three actions, and can donate one action to another player. After each player turn, a curse disturbance card is drawn, which disrupts the playing area by rotating a tile or spawning a new terror.
The game is won when all six shelves have been filled with a captured terror. The game is lost if the deck of curse cards runs out or six terrors are left on the library floor.
The objective of the game is to faithfully simulate World War II in the European Theater, with simple rules, in exciting games of short duration (3-5 hours).
The warring factions and the countries that comprise them at the start of the game are: • Axis (Germany and Finland). • Allies (United Kingdom and France) • Soviet Union.
Other major and minor countries will join the war later on in the game. Each player controls one side. With two players, one player leads the Allies and the Soviet Union.
Twenty-two three-month turns are played, starting in winter 1940, when Germany is preparing to invade France (having started World War II by invading Poland) and the Soviet Union has already attacked Finland.
Player can do several actions in each turn: 1. Supply 2. Reinforcements (Major Powers) 3. Armor Production 4. Air Missions 5. Submarine Missions (Axis only) 6. Development 7. Lend Lease (Allies only).
Moving and attacking do not spend any action but players need to have enought supply (action 1) to do them. Players can also perform Submarine Warfare and Strategic Bombing if they have enough Air and Submarine Missions (actions 4 and 5)
The Illiterati are an evil secret organization that has taken over the world. Your job as a member of the League of Librarians is to save the world's books — one word at a time.
Illiterati is a real-time, co-operative word game in which players work together to form words and bind books. Each player starts the game with five letter tiles and a red torched book that shows a condition that player must achieve to restore that book, e.g. using 8+ tiles with at least 3 green symbols, create words that are all animals. A library of three random tiles is placed in the center of the table. The game takes place in three-minute rounds, and before the round begins each player draw seven letter tiles from the draw bag.
Once the countdown begins, players can talk and trade letters as much as they want with one another and the library to try to achieve their goal. Once time ends, if the library contains too many letters — and this threshold is based on your difficulty level — then you trigger a burn event. Flip all of these letters face down, then remove one of them from the game, then discard excess letters to the discard bag. If you burn too many letters, you lose the game. If you didn't burn any letters and you've completed your goal, flip your red book face down and draw a blue waterlogged book to give yourself a new goal.
At the end of the round, draw an illiterati villain card and resolve its effect. If you've drawn this villain previously — and the deck contains five copies of five villains — then all of the previous effects from this villain also resolve in a chain attack from newest to oldest. Villain attacks often strip letters from words, which means you'll need to create new words with what's left during the next round to avoid burning another letter.
Once all players have completed two books — or three or four depending on your difficulty level — draw one more book, the Final Chapter, with all players needing to complete this challenge in the same round, e.g., using 12+ tiles, create words in which all of your vowels are the same color. If all players meet this goal during the same round, you win; if even one person fails, another villain attacks, then you draw new tiles to start another round. You can discard and redraw up to seven tiles at the start of a round, but you must draw a second illiterati villain card that round — and if the villain deck runs out, you lose.
Solar 175 is an epic, euro-style legacy experience for 1-5 players set in a dystopian, sci-fi future. The game utilizes bag-building, area control and worker placement. It is inspired as a fusion between classic euro games such as Orleans and El Grande and a unique thematic and evolving universe. Solar 175 is set in a prosperous expanding solar system with immersive worldbuilding and engaging narratives. The game is rich on theme and will feature interesting ethical and philosophical choices as well as engaging euro style gameplay.
Play occurs across three cyclical phases, the draw phase, the assign phase and the action phase. Players simultaneously draw workers from their unique embossed bag and assign these workers to jobs on their double layered player board. During the action phase players take turns to remove workers from these jobs to perform a large variety of actions to help propel them to victory.
The winner is the player with the most influence points at the end of the game, influence points can be gained via many different strategies, such as helping to build giant megastructures, influencing the upcoming election and building outposts across the solar system. Play continues until one player has built all of their 15 unique outposts tokens which triggers the election phase and end game scoring.
Solar 175 has an innovative end game scoring system which changes based on how the players interact with the game-world. This creates unique winning conditions in each game making each one feel fresh and distinctive. The legacy campaign contains dozens of hours of content with engaging narrative and multiple endings. Once complete, the game is fully replayable and the game-world continues to expand and evolve endlessly.
Factory 42 is a Euro-style board game for 2-5 players. The game tells the story of the workweek of Marxistic dwarves in a steampunk industrial setting, placing the player in the role of factory Overseers. It combines worker placement and a cube tower to create a resource management puzzle. Factory 42 is a cutthroat competitive game with elements of co-operation and deals involving Economics, Fantasy, Industry and Negotiation with a pinch of satire, but not too much to make it a Humor game. It satisfyingly blends two-fold tensions: camaraderie forged in shared goals, and the opportunistic trampling of temporary competition. A tight game of glancing blows and communal glory creating a wicked blend of sharp elbows and shared ambition. Visually, Factory 42 takes its influence from 1920’s Soviet Union propaganda, fantasy literature and elements of pre-WWI Prussian decor.
The general process control at Factory 42 is as follows:
Receive work orders/requisitions from the government
Receive some of the requisitioned resources (as determined by the cube tower)
Load resources (and spike additional resources) onto railcars
Transfer the railcars to docks at individual manufacturing facilities
Burn leftover resources to generate steam
Trade resources on the open market
Use steam and resources to manufacture requested items.
Capricious Bureaucracy:* Resources made available to all players, making up a common pool, are delivered via the Bureaucracy Tower; a mechanic that can deliver or withhold resources in a random manner. This replicates the notion that “the powers that be” redirect funds/resources by tying them up in red tape, trapping resources that would otherwise normally be available for the general populace. What goes into the tower does not always come out, or may have been held up during some unknown bureaucratic process, to later materialize when least expected
Requisition:* Tactical decisions start with the acquisition of resources vital to the production process. The order of worker meeples on the requisition line dictates the volume of resources acquired for the common pool (available to all) and the number that can be obtained and stored in a player’s personal warehouse. Choices made here can benefit a player’s future actions but may also unwittingly aid a rival, making each choice so very important.
Loading:* Players can tactically direct their workers to the loading bays where resources are loaded onto lines of rail transport. Order here can be extremely vital to one’s success. Misjudging the order (or cunningly foreseeing the future) may lead a player to have to load a cart for a rival rather than for one’s self. Alliances may be made during this process, just as enemies can be made of rivals, depending on choices made when loading
Shipping and Storage:* Once loaded, each rail cart proceeds to the shipping location awaiting direction. Workers have the option of forwarding on the loaded carts to player’s docks. Once more order of placement is paramount as carts are only shipped in order. A cart may not contain useful resources and so could be sent to a rival, taking up valuable storage space, or maybe it will benefit a rival in an attempt to build a verbally agreed alliance. Often a cart has been loaded with a wide variety of resources and only part of this precious load is of use. Limited storage space in player’s personal docks and warehouses dictates the shipping decision-making process as much as a rival’s needs
Trade and Research:* Commodities may be traded on an ever changing market, often enabling an unnecessary resource to be exchanged at a price, for something of more use. Research is equally important, allowing players to expand storage facilities, improve material handling in the manufacturing process or even learn how to use Invention cards to add special actions/abilities during play
Manufacture and Accounting:* The government dictate what should...no, what must be manufactured during a game round. The government orders must be completed or many, sometimes all players suffer sanctions. A degree of cooperation is needed here for the greater good of Dwarven society, but on an individual level, completion of a government order leads to reward and ultimately progression on the path to victory
Around 800BC China was blossoming as a civilization. The Zhou emperor sat on the throne of a feudal China and ruled through wise philosophers, able warlords, and a strong army. The Chinese world was making huge cultural, scientific, and philosophical strides.
But a single generation later, those same advisors and lords rose up against the throne, and each other, to claim hegemony for their philosophy and way of life. Welcome to the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China.
Spring and Autumn: Story of China is a 4X civilization game in which you take control of one of the pre-eminent states of the time to explore the world around you, expand your borders, research powerful advancements, build up your economy, and bring honor upon your name. Your goal is to establish a true dynasty in China.
Spring and Autumn: Story of China expands on the system from in Hellenica: Story of Greece, introducing all-new gameplay elements like a philosophy system, diplomacy, enhanced combat, honor, expanded victory conditions, the Great Wall, and did we mention Chinese dragons? As with all "Story of" games, Spring and Autumn: Story of China will include the best AI and solo play system available in a 4x game.
Can you guide your civilization during these turbulent times? Will your vision of Chinese civilization be remembered for all time, or will you merely be a stepping stone for another…?
Europe, end of 20th century. Our economy runs entirely on fossil gas and coal-fired power plants. Climate change is a fact. Which region will have sustainable (non-fossil) electricity production first and wins the game?
Each game round, the electricity demand (in GW) in your region increases due to the fate of the Dice. It's up to you to build power stations to produce the required GW demand. This provides you with income, with which you can eventually close the old fossil power stations and replace them with sustainable power stations that do not emit CO2. You can trade GW surpluses and GW shortages with the other players or External Markets to balance supply and demand.
So are you going to increase sustainability quickly (with the risk of GW shortages), or are you more careful (at the risk of being late)? The region that is the first to produce more GW than the GW demand and has closed all its fossil power plants, wins. But beware, wind and solar energy sometimes only generate half of their GW power peak.
It is the late 13th century and history is altered by the rise of the Worldbreakers, individuals who harness the mysterious substance mythium to magnify their natural talents. The Mongol princess Khutulun, a Worldbreaker and a descendent of the great Chinggis Khan, is reuniting the distant tribes of the Mongol Empire. However, other factions are rising to oppose her, each with their own agenda.
Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate is a customizable two-player card game. Players start the game with a Worldbreaker that has a unique special ability and a deck of 30 cards. Each player aims to be the first to reach 10 power, which is gained by developing Location cards and by attacking the opponent.
The game is divided into rounds, during each of which the players alternate taking turns. A turn is composed of one action, such as gaining mythium (the currency of the game), drawing a card, playing a card, or attacking the opponent. Worldbreakers has three card types: events, followers, and locations. Events are impactful one-time effects. Followers are people who join your cause and can either defend your board or attack your opponent. Finally, Locations are places where mythium can be collected. They have a numbered list of stages, each of which can be developed for a one-time bonus such as power or resources.
Proper timing and resource management is key to victory: wait too long, and your opponent will mount a crushing attack or finish developing their Locations for a power advantage. Who will wrestle control of mythium and forever reshape history?
Shhnable Wabble is a 3-10+ player, family-friendly acting game, made for ages 8 and up, bringing up to ten players together acting in a series of fun scenes from all across the galaxy.
In Shhnable Wabble players earn points by both acting if guessed correctly, while non-acting players attempt to deduce their hidden cards acted in scene for points too. Bonus points are spontaneously on offer by playing Director’s Cut cards on to a live scene delivering outrageous demands mid-scene making, Shhnable Wabble the most excellent acting game in the galaxy.
With more voting time than acting, Shhnable Wabble creates the night’s experience by offering points for all players in every single scene. The player with the most points at the ends wins Dr Shhnable challenge and is the next rising star of the galaxy.
The Lost Code is a smart deduction game, from 2 to 4 players, in which you’ll have to figure out which numbers stand on your display while seeing only other player’ numbers! Score the most points you can during the game, by placing the right bets on your numbers, but don’t lose your final goal: deduce your numbers!
Sentinels of the Multiverse — Rook City Renegades expands the recently-released core game of Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition! Fans across the Multiverse have been playing and loving the latest and greatest version of the award-winning cooperative comic book card game, and so we’re back to Kickstarter to bring you more great Sentinel of the Multiverse content, as well as some brand new surprises!
A few street-level heroes have teamed up, calling themselves Dark Watch. The gun-toting vigilante Expatriette has plans (and guns) for every contingency. The ancient martial artist and auto mechanic Mr. Fixer has a lifetime of experience. The cursed paranormal investigator NightMist knows countless incantations. The arcane avian apprentice The Harpy — once known as the villainous Matriarch — is now a bird of a different feather, using her magical power for good (though she still has a lot to learn about control). The hapless Setback’s luck might be bad (most of the time), but he’s the heart and soul of the team, ready to throw himself into danger without a second thought to protect others. As a team, they have a lot to offer, but they still have their work cut out for them. Perhaps they could use a little help from a new hero? Time will tell...
In Pilgrim, players are abbots and abbesses of their own provincial 14th century abbey, each seeking to:
Build the best pilgrim routes to distant sites via strategic shrines
Ordain serfs to become acolytes
Give alms to the poor
Build essential annexes
Be the most devout and pious
A unique twist on a mancala-movement mechanism distributes a player's acolytes across eight duties and the capital city to determine each turn's action. 18xx-style tile development on the map board builds trade routes for revenue and pilgrim trails for endgame points. Common serfs need to be ordained to ensure that the abbey is adequately serviced and your acolyte numbers will need to be carefully balanced across ever changing duties and vocational tasks.
Pilgrim is a game played over 26 rounds with perfect information, zero randomness (once the game starts), and one hundred and sixty sextillion possible starting set-ups. Player interaction is intense and constant. The meek might inherit the earth, but you will need to be made of stronger stuff to become the next cardinal and win the game.
Comments