Why Go Through This Crowdfunding?

I think that it is interesting, every now and again to look back at what I’ve backed. And there are a number of games out there. But the interest is often tied to how my gaming tastes have changed. What did I back on Kickstarter when I started in 2014 and what am I backing now.

It provides an interesting opportunity to see that growth. Normally, you get a game and it leaves and there is no way to track it. I could go through Amazon, CoolStuffInc, and Miniature Market Purchases, but a lot of those are more recent. Kickstarter and now Gamefound give you a history of what you’ve backed over that longer period of time.

Plus Jesse from Quackalope went through his backing history, shorter, but larger than mine, with Devon from Devon Talks Tabletop. He had something like 225 games to go through and that’s almost a five hour video. I should have known that mine would take longer than it did. I thought probably two hours would be enough, it is not.

The Drink

Last nights drink was a Negroni. Back to a classic for me. I really like the flavor and it is a good summer drink. With how large I made it, I wish I’d started streaming and sipping on it sooner, but the flavor is always good. It’s also a nice mixed drink to make because it’s a 1 to 1 to 1 ratio with gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari.

Upcoming Streams

So, clearly I have some more to talk about here with Kickstarter and Gamefound. My hope is that it’ll be about an hour and a half to finish up with no thunderstorms. So that is going to be on Monday at 8:30. Then on Wednesday, I plan on playing some more Paper Dungeons. Like I said, I want to get through that campaign. While I am working on an idea for a bigger game in the roll and write campaign space, you can see my Designer Diary here, I want to finish off the one that I already have.

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Now, you’ll quickly realize that I don’t love gore horror and jump scare horror can be done really well and I’ll like it, but I do love me some B horror. So this list might have a little of those on it, but it’s going to be a lot of more monster feature shows that really feel like Halloween to me.

Stranger Things

Got to start off with the classic, if you haven’t watched it, I will say it’s not that scary if that’s what has been holding you back. The way this type of show is described is as “Kids on Bikes”. That means that you’re dealing with almost an adventure story, but with elements of horror thrown in as the kids are trying to figure out everything that is going on. Normally there is some element of the parents not believing them and the kids being right in the end and probably a teenager who is a non-believer who ends up helping in the end. Stranger Things definitely follows a lot of those tropes, but it builds upon them in interesting ways and while a lot of the 80’s Kids on Bikes style horror or just horror in general that this is based off suffered from poorer writing, Stranger things has very solid writing. Overall just a wonderful Halloween feeling show.

The Order

This one is as much a teen drama as a horror show, but you follow Jack Morton as he gets into the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose, a secret, and magic, organization that his mother had gotten into before her mysterious death. This one is all about the monsters, the crazy magic, college aged kids, and basically anything and everything that could go wrong going wrong. This is not a serious horror show at all, but the monsters in it, the magic in it, if you want campy Halloween that somehow still takes itself seriously, this one is pretty solid for that. Don’t expect anything ground breaking, but sit back and enjoy a pretty convoluted ride.

Supernatural

If you want your Halloween show to take itself a bit more seriously, at least some of the time, Supernatural might be the right show for you. This is still monster of the week, but with CW melodrama. This ranges from a show that is straight up horror as it goes through it’s monster of the week to one that is extremely self aware and back again to horror. There’s a lot of this show, so if you wanted to wrap it up before Halloween, don’t plan on sleeping.

Ghost Hunt

This one is a bit different because it’s an anime. This one, as the name suggests is all about hunting ghosts. Teenagers hunting ghosts to be specific, but it does a good job of blending some wonderful horror elements together with some pretty fast and witty dialog in it as well. This has an interesting feel to it as well because being anime, the horror elements are more Japanese which is something that we have a vague idea of because of things like The Ring or as was hinted at in Cabin the Woods, but even those are an Americanized version of that. If you don’t know if you like anime, but you do like horror this is less “anime” in the sense of what people generally would consider.

Helix

Finale one for the list, and I do like to highlight some different ones, even though Stranger Things and Supernatural should always show up. But Helix takes horror in another direction. Playing off of the vibes of the The Thing, this Sci-Fi channel show is all about surviving in the Antarctic when something is going horribly wrong at the scientific outpost. It has a lot of those, who is or isn’t infected aspect of it going on, and overall, I enjoyed it when I watched it a while back. It’s one that I want to revisit as I know I never completely finished it that second season. If you want something that is more true horror and less Halloween horror, Helix definitely leans into that.

What are some other ones I could have or should have mentioned? I can think of a lot of them, and maybe next year I’ll do a massive Halloween show list or put out some sort of bigger list with a ton of different shows and types of Halloween shows so you can pick the ones that look best to you to watch.

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10 – Good Omens

I like some humor in by books and this one has a good amount of it. Good Omens is the story of an Angel and a Demon who are working together because they don’t really want to see the apocalypse come around. Unfortunately, nothing is really working like they think it will and can you actually avoid the apocalypse? Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman do a great job with this story and it’s a fast and really enjoyable read.

9 – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

More humor, this time even more absurd as Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy asks you the big questions in life as you fly around on a crazy space ship that just doesn’t quite do what you think it will. And you’d think that the universe would have some normal parts, but that’s very questionable. Douglas Adams is an author who’s writings I generally enjoy. The other Hitchhikers books are fun, though not as good. And Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency is a new side of crazy. If you’re up for something completely absurd, anything by Adams is worth checking out.

8 – Daughter of Smoke and Bones

You’ll also see a fair amount of fantasy on the list, and Daughter of Smoke and Bones is the first one to kick it off. And it’s very different in terms of fantasy. It’s not your normal knights on horses riding off with the wizard to slay the dragon. No, this takes place partially in a modern world. The story is interestingly woven together, and while there are some stumbles in writing where it dumps backstory for too long, it’s very enjoyable. It also feels so different from standard fantasy. Laini Taylor does a good job on the story and a good job creating a world that feels unique.

7 – Swallows and Amazons

This is a series that I grew up on. We read through it multiple times growing up and it’s just a ton of fun. It’s a kids style adventure story, almost kids on bikes, but because that was really the common term for the genre. It follows three families of kids as they go exploring the lake country of England, camping under the stars, and having crazy adventures. Good wholesome fun for the whole family. Arthur Ransome really can tell a tale of adventure. Now, I will say that there is some from the times that shows up in the writing, considering they were published in the 1930’s and 1940’s, mainly in Missee Lee, and while that one is a fun romp, it is skippable in terms of the story as a whole.

6 – Stardust

Back to another story by Neil Gaiman, this one again leans into the comedy, but also a lot of fun world building. What happens when the normal world and a world of magic collide. Stardust is an absurd story of that. It has high stakes adventure, romance, and so much going on in the story. If you’re looking for something that is just a fun romp, Stardust is that, and you can blow through it quickly. Again, one that leans into that British absurdity in it’s humor like Good Omens and like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

5 – Harry Potter

I wish JK Rowling would just go away at this point in terms of her world. She’s ruining the world that she created by continually trying to fill in holes in her world and just in general, but I won’t get into that further, because the series itself is still enjoyable. Yes, there are massive plot holes, but for a series, it builds over time and they are almost always enjoyable. I like how the stories grow up with the characters, the first one is a pretty light and simple romp and story, but in the last one, they are dealing with much weightier things. I still recommend the series for kids who need something to read, and since I’ve read them a few times now, it’s something that I can breeze through quickly.

4 – The Reckoners

Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors. The man is a machine when it comes to turning about books, and while I like some of his epic fantasy stuff better, you’ll have to find out what it is, I love the Reckoners series. It’s a good young adult superhero book where it isn’t just your normal superheroes out there saving the world, the powers affect the heroes negatively so that if you have powers, you are a villain, and the Reckoners are a group of people who are taking down the worst of the worst, but you have to find out the weakness of those with super powers. Really well written, some heavier things to think about, and a ton of fun.

3 – It

Only Stephen King book on the list, though, I do enjoy a lot of his stuff, and I really need to read some of them again like Dreamcatcher. But It is a book that I can just read over and over again. He does a great job of creating the horror and the tension in the book while also having a kids on bikes adventure feel to it, almost like you get in Stranger Things. Pennywise is a great villain, and there’s a lot of depth to the story. It’s a big book, but it tells such a good tale that if you’re thinking about reading some horror or want to see what Stephen King is all about, I think that this one is a great starting point.

2 – Stormlight Archive

Second Brandon Sanderson series on the list, this is a massively epic fantasy series, I mean massive. The third book in the series, the audiobook for that is over fifty hours, it’s insane. But the story in it is amazing. Sanderson weaves together several different characters into a story about the end of the world, but also about how it could be saved. There are spren, creatures that embody everything, there are wind spren that you can see when it’s windy outside, light spren, dark spren, death spren(?), and more that people research, and it’s just a unique twist to the world. I feel like there are a lot of fantasy tropes, but also so many amazingly different things that make the series worth spending the time on.

1 – The Dresden Files

I really enjoy urban fantasy which Daughter of Smoke and Bones is in some ways, and Neverwhere, which just misses the list by Neil Gaiman, is as well. But the best urban fantasy that I’ve found has been The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. He weaves a masterfully grand tale and always world ending events that keep the stakes high, but without feeling silly like so many massive series can. Harry Dresden is just a well created character, you know he’s going to win, but it’s going to be hard along the way. Nothing ever comes to him easily, and that’s fine, and he’s never going to be a perfect character, he’s written well with flaws and that makes him seem such more real, as do all of the characters in the series. Definitely a big series, definitely an easier series to read, one to checkout if you’re having trouble finding good urban fantasy.

Now, I’ve mentioned a few other books that I like as well that almost made the list, Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency is just out there and weird but really enjoyable. I have liked Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan is massive and enjoyable. Classics like Dune, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia all just miss the list as well. How about what, what are some of your favorite books? Have I sold you on checking out any of my favorites?

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Let’s get into the pros and cons.

Pros

• Cooperative
• Based off of a successful RPG
• Previous fulfilled kickstarters from the company
• Alternate timeline

Cons

• Art is just okay, in my opinion, doesn’t seem fully consistent
• Game Play Information is lacking

Thoughts on the Page
So, you’re making a board game, what’s the #1 thing that you should explain on the page, how the game works. If this is a dry euro game, I might not be happy, if this is a dice chucking ameritrash game, I might not be happy. We get none of that on this page. The page is missing some images for stretch goals or something that differentiate them, too much text, and somehow in all that text, I don’t really feel like I understand the game.

Also, consistency in artwork is important. The cover artwork for the RPG is just beautiful. It has that Scythe like quality to it, and Scythe is considered to be one of the prettiest games out there. You get transported into this alternate past of the 80’s, but when you look at the game itself, it just doesn’t seem nearly as polished. It seems like it had a different art direction, which is disappointing.

Back or Brick
This is a Brick for me as much as I want it to be a back. An alternate version of the 80’s with a kids on bikes feel to the game, that sounds awesome. But, I don’t know what the game is, is it going to be a crunchy game, is it going to be story driven. Are the scenarios going to be all that replayable or are they going to be one offs, I just don’t know. Half way down or so we have a print and play and some videos, but that’s not how I want my information, I’m not going sit down and watch a video, or two, to see how the game is set-up and how the game phases work. It feels like this was something that might have been put together in a rush because of the Amazon show coming out and hoping to capitalize on that and increase the brand awareness for the RPG.

So how about for you, is this game a back or is it a brick?

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