News Collider: Chainsaw Warrior, Cave Evil, Ascension Apprentice Edition and The Doom That Came to Atlantic City.

There’s a touch of evil to this week’s selection of board game news as some of the scariest, most horrific and downright wicked things are emerging from the world of tabletop gaming. Whether it’s a scary demonic gate opening in New York city in Chainsaw Warrior, a release of the evilest board game ever; Cave Evil or the announcement of the dark gods of Ascension preying on new comers in the Ascension Apprentice edition starter set its horror all round. But scariest of all is when a Kickstarter goes wrong and we have a roundup of the latest news from the Doom that came to Atlantic City.

Chainsaw Warrior

 Do you remember Chainsaw Warrior, an obscure 80’s board game from Games Workshop where you take the role of a tooled up ex-special forces meat head as you try to save New York from a demonic portal? It’s the kind of the thing you would have remembered if you had seen it. Well Auroch Digital is bringing this obscure solo game to iOS and PC.

The one defining feature of Chainsaw Warrior, apart from it looking like Arnie had been given the role of Snake Pliskin, is it was hard, bloody hard. But maybe it’s because the game revolves around hacking up hundreds of monsters with a chainsaw it’s easy to see the appeal. To me this seems like the ideal game to be bringing to an iOS device, it’s already solo so you don’t have to worry about multiplayer and apparently you’re going to die really quickly so games will be short.

 

 

Cave Evil

Most games are about being the good guy but sometimes you just want to let out your evil side. Looking like the album sleeve for a Scandinavian death metal band and allowing you to fulfil your evil wishes is a reprinting of Cave Evil.

There’s a promo video you can watch which is kind of nice, if you’re a fan of dodgy latex masks and lots of squelchy sound effects. Who am I kidding its bloody awful, but I think that’s the point. Cave Evil has you controlling your minions, as you dig tunnels, fight your opponents on the search of the Pits of Infinite Shadows. Reviews on the Boradgamegeek page suggest that this game is rather good and contains some of the most brutal combat seen in a board game.

 

Apprentice Edition: The Ascension Starter Set

Stoneblade Entertainment, purveyors of the Ascension deck building game have let slip on the Ascension Online Kickstarter page that they will be releasing a new starter set Ascension Apprentice Edition. Don’t worry you won’t have to wear a toupee or play the game on an Amstrad computer, no the apprentice edition is a two player introductory version of Ascension with a reprinting of many of the cards to bring them in line with the later expansions.

“…the Apprentice Edition is the first time we use our all-new card frames that will become the norm for Ascension sets moving forward. We revisited all of our cards to give them a fresh new look, and to ensure that it's easier to tell things like Heroes and Constructs apart. The card borders are even different colors for starting deck, center deck, and always available cards to make them that much easier to sort at the end of the game.”

The 110 card starter set is currently being touted at special price of $9.99, at that price it’s going to be worth it just to try it out and is a genius move by Stoneblade.

 

The Doom comes to Kickstarter

In June 2012, he Kickstarter project about Cthulhu based Monopoly, The Doom that Came to Atlantic City, smashed its modest goal. Originally looking for $35k, The Forking Path managed to raise over $120k something that should definitely be applauded. However things have come crashing down this week as Erik Chevalier the chief of Forking Path announced the project has closed.

“This is not an easy update to write. The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled. After much deliberation I've had to make this decision.” 

Wrote Eric on the update this week, announcing the cancellation. He also alluded to some of the issues leading to the decision:

“Every possible mistake was made, some due to my inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications. No matter the cause though these could all have been avoided by someone more experienced and I apparently was not that person.”

As can be expected many backers are up in arms, especially at Eric’s comments that appear to say that he spent backer’s money on setting up a company and moving house.

“After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting software licenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return.”

 

More worrying information is starting to come out of the woodwork. Keith Baker, one of the co-designers of the project has come forward and stated that he has not been paid for any of his work on the project and was just as confused about the cancellation as backers.  There is also an interesting comment from a backer of the project that this may have happened before.

“Erik was a part of Joystick Labs - an independent game development incubator in Durham, NC - which formed five companies (mine included). Erik formed a company called Inari, Inc. and got $20,000 in seed funding to build a social pinball game. By the end of six months, the money was gone and there was nothing to show for it. Erik's investors for Inari got completely burned. From what we saw, most of the money went towards buying stuff on Amazon.”

No doubt more information will be revealed over the coming days and weeks, a refund has been promised and Keith Baker is working hard on a print and play version. As Kickstarter backers we should all be prepared that this could happen but the fact that this kind of story comes up so little is a testament to the hard work being conducted by so many project creators. The debate over whether kickstarter is a store or a venture capital system rages but don’t let that stop you from backing the games you like.