Kickstarter Collision December 2013

This month’s Kickstarter roundup was going to start off with a big thing about Heroquest, but the Heroquest Kickstarter is currently on hold due to an IP dispute. That doesn’t stop the rest of Kickstarter going strong. It is Christmas however, and I’ve been reluctant to spend as much backing projects this month. Are you feeling the holiday pinch? Is it affecting your Kickstarter spending?

As per usual it’s not fair to look at the exciting new projects without first catching up on some old friends.

• Journey: Wrath of Demons raised a whopping $425,000 managing to achieve many of its stretch goals. 
• Unfortunately Firewall didn’t make its funding which is a real shame as I think this looked like a really good little game. Sarcastic Robot has promised to re-launch the project next year and believe they have learnt what went wrong. Firewall raised only $7875 of its $25,000 total but it’s difficult to use that value as many people cancel their funding if they think a project will fail. 
• Shadow of Brimstone hasn’t long finished and made over $1.3 million unlocking all manner of weird west miniatures. 
• RARRR!!! Almost doubled its funding goal and I’m hoping this game does well enough that we’ll see it in shops. 
• Worker Placement was cancelled mere days into its project. Publisher Dyskami issued a statement stating that the by analysing the first 48 hours of the project they could determine that it wasn’t going to be a success and are going to re-launch in the new year. If you’re interested you can still check out our Worker Placement Review.

Machina Arcana 

We’ve already mentioned Machina Arcana a couple of times and I recommend checking out our Machine Arcana interview for the full scoop.

Machina Arcana is a steam-punk dungeon crawl in a dark Cthulhu ridden world. They’re well past their funding target so get on board for some of those tasty stretch goals.

Ex illis

Long before Golem Arcana got people excited about crossing miniatures games with iPads there was Ex Ellis, an angelic medieval wargame that used a computer to control the flow of combat. The game kind of died out a few years back, probably because it was a bit too ambitious for the time, but its back and on Kickstarter.

This isn’t the same game, instead of everything being computer controlled it’s now a more traditional dice powered game but it has brought the demons vs. angels mentality of the original game. There’s only a few days left but it is worth a look.

Lords of War: Templars versus Undead

We’ve already mentioned Lords of War quite a bit here on Polyhedron Collider and Black Box Games are taking to Kickstarter to fund the third boxed set; Templars versus Undead. Not only is this boxed set adding two more factions to the Lords of War roster it is also adding new game effects like moving cards, terrain and weather.

In addition there are variant rules for scenario based games and you can even add a snazzy vinyl play mat to your pledge, much better than those annoying paper maps that come with the standard boxed sets. Still not sure then check out the Lords of War Review.

Shadow Era

 

This last one is a little bit different, Shadow Era is a cross platform digital collectible card game available on all manner of platforms including in browser and on iPad. The game is currently available and is free to play and you can also purchase yourself the actual card game if you want a more tactile approach.

Shadow Era: Shattered Fates is not just an expansion with a host of new cards, the aim is also to improve the game in many ways including tournaments, guilds and an improved deck creation tool. Kyle Poole, creator of Shadow Era explains:

 “this really is more than just an expansion or a preorder. This is about bringing game to the next level. We’re a small indy game studio – we don’t have a multi-million dollar budgets at our disposal and we don’t want to overcharge our players or make it pay-to-win.”

Argent

For many years there was a great divide in the tabletop gaming world, Eurogames versus Ameritrash. One side accused the other of being plain and beardstrokingly boring the other accused of being silly games based on nothing but chance. Now people use political correct terms, like thematic game and the lines between game styles have been blurred as each side of the divide steals ideas from the other.

Argent from Level 99 Games is looking is one such game, by making an American Eurogame. Argent players take the roles of wizards vying for control a magical university, and the game starts as a worker placement where your workers are also wizard with spells and skills of their own. The twist here is that Argent isn’t won by collecting victory points but instead by influencing the secret election to vote in the next Chancellor in your favour.