This is a huge week with 19 projects due to start in the next week. All of these projects are either live now or starting in the next 7 days. After a heavy few weeks, I think my money is safe this week as I have no plans on backing any of the available projects. If my money were going to one of these projects, it would be Damask. I saw this game in person at Airecon and it really does look Beautiful.
if you back any projects please let me know in the comments.
Wayfarers of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 820 AD. As brave explorers, cartographers and astronomers, players set off from Baghdad to map the surrounding land, waterways, and heavens above. Players must carefully manage their caravan of workers and equipment, while reporting back regularly to journal their findings at the House of Wisdom. Will you succeed in impressing the Caliph, or lose your way and succumb to the wilderness?
The aim of Wayfarers of the South Tigris is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at the game's end. Points are primarily gained by mapping the land, water, and sky. Players can also gain points from upgrading their caravans, by gaining inspiration from nobles, and by influencing the three guilds of science, trade and exploration. As they make discoveries, players will want to quickly journal their progress. The game ends once one player’s marker has reached the far right column of the journal track.
Extravaganza is a strategic lip-sync battle board game for 2-4 drag queens.
The game takes place over the course of a single song, made up of lyric tokens. Each of the 5 judges chooses a random dance move category that will be judged during the game.
On your turn:
BEDAZZLE: draw random rhinestones from the bag and add them to your stage area.
MOVE: like a queen in chess ;)
DRAW: draw a card, and take lip tokens depending on how many cards in the display have the same color.
DANCE: play a dance move card, spending rhinestones to increase the star-quality and earning points based on the dance move category.
LIP-SYNC: spend your lip tokens to claim lyrics of the song.
Earn points each time you play a dance move or claim lyrics, doing your best to earn 10s while also meeting the judges specific desires. Play your cards right and you just might impress the judges and earn 10s across the board!
Fliptown is a flip & write game in which you are trying to earn stars by exploring a wild west town. The game uses a standard poker deck to drive an open world-style of game play, along with dry erase boards or print-and-play sheets that serves as each player's map.
Each turn, flip over 3 cards, assigning one card to represent your suit, one card to represent your value, and one card to represent your poker card. The suit dictates which of four regions you’ll activate, the value dictates which site within that region you get to circle and the poker card will go toward a five-card poker hand that is resolved at the end of each round.
Each of the four regions — Trail, Badlands, Mine and Town — offers a different puzzle to master, while each site within a region provides a unique reward such as cash, gold, helpful items like guns, horses and tools, or bonus actions to create powerful combinations.
For solo play, you can play to achieve a high score or compete against one of four "cowbot" robot opponents, each with their own motivation.
For multiplayer play, players will use "community cards" in the center of play, with players resolving each turn simultaneously. Additionally, Bounty Cards add competitive goals that players are racing to achieve.
In addition to the standard game, you can also play as one of 14 wild west characters. Each character has a unique set of starting resources and a unique special ability.
It’s the age of discovery! The British Empire needs to find new naval trade routes to Asia, and thus launches many expeditions to the Arctic in order to find The Northwest Passage. In Through Ice and Snow you and your friends journey through the Arctic and vie to become the most prestigious explorer by documenting species, chartering treacherous lands and discovering the elusive Northwest passage.
As the expedition progresses new map pieces and routes will be revealed and added to the modular board. Each player is in charge of their own ship, and the crews include three officers with individual abilities:
- The Carpenter, a craftsman that provides improvements and structures
- The Scientist, a scholar that provides invention and research
- The Captain, an officer that provides leadership and organization
You can also recruit Inuit - exceptional guides who are experts in finding fuel, improving sleds and leading vital hunting parties.
Each voyage brings unique challenges and events for your crews to face: Those Arctic journeys faced many tragedies, since finding food was extremely hard, the overworked crews were prone to mutiny, and the weather was merciless. Succeed and become immortalised. Fail and be lost to the ice….forever.
The dark night goes pale. Slowly thin streaks of light lift up like hair and splits the insipid sky. A drop of blue slowly bleeds out in the ocean from the center and out. “Moogh” said the male tribe leader. All others around him in the cave opening knew what it meant. Gathering the stingers they made from flint and sticks they set off in the now golden pink but cold morning.
Scuffling through the dense woods and out in the plains they could see their prey towering in the distance under the sun which had now shown its full face. “Ugh Moogh Oog” they exclaimed. A few moments later it was all a vortex of hairs and muscle, blood sprouting, shouting and stabbing their shafts with flint spearheads into the huge beast. The Mammoth chase had begun - Will they survive the fight and who will be the one that finish off the big beast
Moogh is a semi coop game for 2 or 4 players playing two tribes trying to defeat a "Moogh" in a blood n' fur hurly burly. Each player controls the cavemen who are moved around a square grid board chasing their prey.
Each caveman has some unique abilities so they need to cooperate to win. The Moogh is controlled by the “game” and players use a control card to determine its actions. Unfortunately the Moogh has a rage that increase every time the cavemen attack it and when it gets angry it is equally difficult to kill. Cavemen can only take 2 hits before they die - and when they get hit the first time they turn their card to reveal a different set of abilities.
Tribesmen get savage points for actions they take during the game and among the survivors - the team with most savage points will win leadership of both tribes. A game will last about 25 minutes.
Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor is a strategically challenging and fully cooperative board game for 1 to 4 players set in a deeply immersive post-apocalyptic dark fantasy setting. As the known world is about to end, the players take over the role of a great hero to lead their faction through these dark times.
Uprising is a 4X cooperative game played against two asymmetric enemy factions controlled by the game itself: Chaos and the Empire. Explore the wasteland, expand your dominion, exploit the resources of the liberated territories, and exterminate the Legions and Hordes around you.
Every game tells a completely different story due to a modular board, asymmetric factions and a huge variety of different events. The game ends after four chapters. If you have not collected more victory points than Chaos and the Empire, the world will truly end.
Grab your Breakfast is a family light drafting game about grabbing the heartiest breakfast possible.
There will be a sumptuous spread on the table ... pancakes, cereal, bagels and cups of coffee. Start collecting what you would like for your breakfast.
But you'll need more than luck to win. Some food are worth more points than others so you have to plan what to collect. Reveal hidden food items as you play the game and get bonus points for special combinations of cards you collect. Be careful about penalty points if you don't let others collect the items you want!
Spirit Duels is a fast-paced card game of dice-driven combat. Lead a team of magical creatures known as Spirits into battle against your opponent! Command and evolve your Spirits to gain the advantage in combat and defeat your rivals!
IT Startup - Office Lockdown is a stand-alone expansion to "IT Startup - The Card Game". It contains 50% more components than the older "IT Startup - The Card Game" base game from 2020. It is playable for 1-6 players (standard game mode with a shared deck), with additional 2 vs 2, custom deck, solo and tournament modes. Aside from being a stand-alone game it can also be combined with previous game editions.
Beyond the Horizon is a massive expansion for Waste Knights: Second Edition, a postapocalyptic game of adventure and survival. Now is the time to leave the continent, embark upon a ship and sail to places you only know from legends and myths.
Explore a new map enabling you to visit Tasmania, Solomon Islands or New Zealand altered by the Apocalypse. Learn the truth behind the infamous Project X, while battling deadly sea monsters and experiencing strange weather phenomena. Seek for fresh water – a new resource that will make the game even more realistic and challenging both for sea-farers and continent dwellers.
Play as one of new Knights armed with unique abilities and expand your base game using tens of new cards, tokens, and adventures to experience a setting of enormous proportions however you like – solo, cooperatively or competitively.
Choose your ship, set the course and see where the winds shall take you!
From the great trading centre of Damascus, via the Silk Road, ancient weaving techniques and motifs made their way to the famous textile houses of Venice. Master weavers used draw looms to create richly woven fabrics that became known as Damasks. For centuries these luxurious silks lavished the wardrobes and halls of mansions and palaces across Europe. Players play the roles of these master weavers, trying to make the most money whilst also gaining the favour of the Weaver's Guild.
Players draft silk cubes from a spinning wheel, and use them to mount Damasks. Matching colours and patterns sell well, but the Weavers Guild and other players might change these plans. By choosing well, planning ahead, linking patterns and knowing when to help others, players will make the most money and win the game.
The Oranienburg canal, which gave this game its name, was built between 1832 and 1837 in Brandenburg. The Havel River was difficult to navigate near the Oranienburg mills, so a canal was built from the Havel that crossed the older Ruppin canal, thereby forming the Oranienburg canal cross. During the industrialization in the 19th century, lots of companies and businesses were formed at this important waterway. Moreover, additional streets and railways were built.
In Oranienburger Kanal, you erect new industries and shape the infrastructure by building pathways, streets, railways, and canals. Most important of all are bridges that connect buildings. To do all of this, you have access to various actions that you select in the right moments.
At the end of the game, the player with the best industrial area and the best infrastructure wins.
Oranienburger Kanal also includes a solo game!
Welcome to Cytress. You play as a rebel merc who has zeroed in on one goal. To get into Stratos – Earth’s largest sky hub. It is in this sky colony where you will find Earth’s most powerful, wealthiest, and most influential individuals.
These people enjoy having the largest portion of the pie, not to mention toying with the lives of everyone else on Earth – the Underbelly, as the inhabitants of Stratos love to call it. But you are not the type who tolerates these kinds of apathetic, arrogant attitudes. You must challenge these oligarchs and get into Stratos; you consider this action to be a show of defiance, proof that the leviathan city is not exclusive to the powerful few. But first, you must establish a name in the Underbelly, a strategy that will help in getting you and your crew into Stratos. Unfortunately, this is a journey that's not free from danger. Stratos has tight security, and authorities have their eyes on the gates 24/7. Anyone caught entering illegally is subject to instant termination without trial.
Fortunately, you have found a way in. The Tubes – vertical shafts that serve as the city’s waste chutes. The Tubes will be your one-way ticket to wonderland, your only chance of acquiring a large portion of the pie. Of course, you will need the help of your crew to get in. So hone your skills, upgrade your abilities, and procure as many supplies as possible to achieve your objective.
You must employ cunning strategies and pick the juiciest missions among the lot. Regardless of which faction you choose, remember to use their key abilities to your advantage. That’s how you can outwit the competition and eventually win the game. So do you have what it takes to become a part of Stratos’ elite citizenry? Or do you want to live a continued oppressed existence in the Underbelly?
Your ancient alien civilization is leaving its dying planet in search of a new homeland. The promised land is represented by Gaia, which is home to the magnificent human civilization of Atlantis. But beware, other Houses (factions) of your civilization also have the same goal and only one will be able to dominate Gaia!
Anunnaki: Dawn of the Gods is a 4x eurogame by Simone Luciani and Danilo Sabia, set in an ancient dystopian past, where mythology and science-fiction come together. Each player represents a different House whose rulers are viewed by terrestrial population as gods. Players build bases, recruit troops, embody gods, explore the territory, develop their own technology, sign trade contracts, defeat local dominions and other players' armies, trying to conquer Atlantis, which owns huge treasures.
Different actions will provide a certain number of immediate Victory Points. Moreover, random setup goals will provide you with sizable Victory Point rewards at the end of the game, based on specific conditions. In the end, the player with the most VPs will be the winner.
In addition to having a strong dose of controllability (the luck factor is minimal), the game features an innovative starred action-selection-system that confronts players with interesting choices: players can reincarnate their gods by performing their actions in a precise sequence, on pre-established paths of their starred player board, or they can give up some deities, jumping freely from one action to another of their board, to choose from time to time the situationally best actions.
Cover Art by Paolo Vicenzi & Jara Zambrano
In the game Dunhuang: Pearl on the Silk Road, the players shall play as the landlords in Dunhuang region of Northwest China, experiencing the creation of splendid art pieces in the form of frescoes and sculptures of Mogao Grottoes, as well as the prosperity of the Silk Road in Tang Dynasty. In the game, there are 12 setup packs for different play styles. For each game, 3 of those setup packs are selected, thus adding replayability with various combinations of the packs. The mechanism of the game is focused on worker placement with variable worker abilities. The key to success in this game, is how players allocate suitable abilities to their workers!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grandgamersguild/the-artemis-project-satellites-and-commanders?
With barely a foothold in the snow, your squads of Stabilizers have brought new technology that allows for the continuation of The Artemis Project. The launching of geosynchronous platforms called Chariots, which orbit Europa and influence the development of the colonies below.
Simultaneously, an elite group of women and men, forged under Europa's harsh conditions, have emerged to assume greater leadership roles. These Commanders have assumed a prestigious rank with great power and authority over the growing colonies.
With one harsh development cycle under your belt, you look to expand your colony and compete again to establish the most successful outpost on the resource-rich Europa. The Artemis Project continues...
The Artemis Project: Satellites & Commanders is an expansion that adds two new major opportunities for strategic play to the base game. Satellites are off-board locations which players can access and influence the action on the moon’s surface below in subtle yet powerful ways. Commanders are a new category of colonist that can act as any colonist type, lend their power to dice you send to various locations, and assist in end game scoring.
Face your own friends in a merciless battle to decide who will be the next Master Hunter, creatures and traps await you in this quick card game where only one can survive!
Each player will have their own character cards that they must keep alive. On each turn, the player decides which threat card on the board to explore, he will use the dice to overcome the creatures or traps he finds. All players will compete for the same goal: to survive and become a master hunter. During the game, everyone will be able to hinder the hunt of others by means of cards from the deck. The player who survives the threats and his friends will be the winner.
Set in the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand, the century-old floating market swarms with merchants moving from one stall to another in their own boats. Water markets were centers of economic activity, and now you can relive the experience of one of those ancient merchants.
Phraya is a commodity-speculation, pick-up-and-deliver game in which players trade from stall to stall while trying to get the best prices, make offerings in the temples to win Buddha's favor, buy their own stalls to do business, and even approach the king's barge.
Castles by the Sea is a puzzly sandcastle-building game for 2-4 players. As a group of tiny folk called "shorelings," your goal is to build and populate a seaside kingdom.
Each turn, you'll place blocks and meeples on the map to earn victory points. The core gameplay is similar to abstract strategy games like Santorini, in that players must optimize three-dimensional placement on a shared grid.
Hazards are the only source of randomness in the game, and even those depend on player choices. Each turn, you must choose your placement carefully, optimizing your score while interfering with your opponents' plans.
The game ends after a set number of turns. Few castles will remain standing after a final onslaught of hazards, but the the kingdom with the most sand dollars can claim victory.