Friday, June 23, 2017

Eye on Kickstarter #23

Welcome to my Eye on Kickstarter series!  This series will highlight Kickstarter campaigns I am following that have recently launched (or I've recently discovered) because they have caught my interest.  Usually they'll catch my interest because they look like great games that I have either backed or would like to back (unfortunately budget doesn't allow me to back everything I'd like to).  But occasionally the campaigns caught my attention for other reasons.  Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Fridays, I'll make a new post in this series, highlighting the campaigns that have caught my attention since the last post.  In each post I'll highlight one campaign that has really grabbed my attention, followed by other campaigns I've backed or am interested in.  I'll also include links to any reviews I've done.  Comments are welcome, as are suggestions for new campaigns to check out!

You can also see my full Kickstarter Profile to see what I've backed or my old Eye on Kickstarter page that was too unwieldy to maintain.  Also, check out the 2017 Kickstarter Boardgame Projects geeklist over on Board Game Geek for a list of all the tabletop games of the year.

So, without further ado, here are the projects I'm currently watching as of the fourth Friday of June, 2017:


HIGHLIGHTED CAMPAIGN
Rabbit Island: Expand, Build, Conquer
  • GJJ Games Review
  • GJJ Games Backed
  • Back in February I reviewed Rabbit Island and loved it. The campaign wasn't successful back then, but now it's back with completed artwork, a few refinements to the mechanics, better quality components, a cheaper price, and lower funding goal. Rabbit Island is a great family friendly 4x style game that is super light on the eXterminate part of 4x. There aren't many good gateway 4x games, but Rabbit Island is a great one. It's definitely worth checking out this time around


Explore the island, build up your civilization, & conquer your opponents in this tile-laying modular board game for 2-4 players.

Play as one of the four Tribal Leaders and explore a new island every game in this light 4x game for 2-4 players. Build up your civilization using your Carrot Tokens and special Action Cards - can you conquer your opponents in 20 rounds? Easy to learn and difficult to master, a standard game can be played in roughly 45-90 minutes; the short version times in at about 30-45 minutes. Who will come out on top? Conquer your opponents and feast with your tribe!





Lucidity: Six-Sided Nightmares
  • GJJ Games Review
  • GJJ Games Backed
  • People Behind the Meeples Interview
  • Deciding on the HIGHLIGHTED campaign for this week was a tough choice, but I chose Rabbit Island over Lucidity for the simple fact that Lucidity has already funded and is knocking down stretch goals left and right (with a pretty cool choose-your-own-adventure stretch goal system that's letting the backers vote on what path to take). Rabbit Island needs a bit more help, but both games are totally awesome. Lucidity is a press-your-luck game with a fair amount of strategy and a great theme supported by incredible artwork. It's really an amazing game at a great price, so jump on the bandwagon for this one right now!


GameTek: The Book
  • GameTek: The Book is a collection of all the best segments from the Dice Tower's GameTek show. Each segment has been transcribed, edited, and enhanced to fit in book form. If you're interested in the math and science behind board games, this is a great collection of super interesting essays that delve into the numbers behind the games we love.


Housing Crisis
  • GJJ Games Review
  • Two and a half years ago, back in December 2014, I reviewed a little game called Housing Crisis. Back then the game was just ok, needing a bit of work to become something that was interesting after repeat plays. I was sent an updated version of the game, that included alternate game boards with plots of varying values. This adds a bit more variety to the game, but doesn't change things up too much. The larger 25 space boards do add some additional decisions to the strategies since not all plots will get filled up. This is a simple two-player strategy microgame that will be quick to play and portable; perfect for waiting for food at a restaurant or similar situation. I'm still not sole on the theme though. I still think a more kid-friendly (but not too childish) theme would work better here. But we'll see how the campaign does!

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