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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This, however leads to a problem. There are a ton of games on Kickstarter, in fact they make Kickstarter millions of dollars. And now Gamefound is in the mix and that is where all the Awaken Realms games are and they are getting a lot of other really big games. So how do you decide what to back.

Only So Much Budget

I did a series of articles on Kickstarter 101. You can find the first one there and then I went into more details about what I look for. I generally follow my guide when it comes to backing games or talking about them in my Back of Brick Series. But one thing I don’t talk about is budget, or at least I don’t talk about it much.

Right now that is my biggest issue in getting board games, which is a good thing in a lot of ways. If I didn’t have a budget I would just have my game room stacked up with even more board games and no where to actually play them. Plus, there is only so much time to play board games in my life right now. I’d love to play more, but I’m generally playing once a week with people and once a week while streaming.

But That Means Hard Choices

As the header says, that means that I have to make hard choices as to what I back. Early in the year I tend to be a bit more free. By that I mean, if it looks really cool, I’ll back it and not think about it. But now, in the middle of the year, my budget is drying up, and we are getting a lot of cool games on the different crowdfunding platforms.

Just what I know is coming up, there is Lords of Ragnarok from Awaken Realms, Divinus from Lucky Duck Games, Slay the Spire from Contention Games, and those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Plus there is Middara acts 2 & 3. There is a Dune game based off of the Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game system, not Kickstarter from what I know. Plus I could still late back Deliverance or Witcher: Old World, and I’m actively backing Valor & Villainy, the cooperative legacy version that is out there now.

So how do I go about picking? Do I keep backing Valor and Villainy because it’s a known game? Do I save for other things that are coming in later? How much do I care about the CMON Masters of the Universe Game?

So How Do I Pick?

Compare to the Collection

Firstly, I think it’s important to look at the games in a vacuum. Well, kind of a vacuum. I don’t want to look at everything I know is coming to Kickstarter or Gamefound. It’s hard to compare games that are active to games that are coming. If a game is active and it looks amazing except for one little thing, I won’t be able to accurately compare it to the ones that have almost no information on Kickstarter or little on Gamefound.

Instead, I should look at it compared to what I have in my collection. So with Valor and Villainy, it’s a campaign and a legacy game. I have two unplayed Legacy games, well, 3 actually with Pandemic Legacy Season 0 that I just remembered. And I probably have 6-10 unplayed campaign games counting what is currently backed on Kickstarter. So do I need more games of that type? But also, does this one look better than the games of that type I own?

Who Would I Play It With

Is this a game for a small group? My campaign group? The board game club group? The game night group? Me? Or is it a game for a group that doesn’t exist yet?

If it’s the latter, do I want to put the effort into finding a group or a person to play it with. Let’s look at some things I’ve backed, Project L and Tiny Tubro Cars are for the small group and game night group. Primal is for small group, board game club group, and campaign group. Aeon’s End Legacy might just be for me. But does a game fit into any of the groups. If not, I have to put in the effort to get it played, and will I do that?

Retails vs Crowdfunding

Another thing I consider is, can I get it later. A crowdfunded game is a little bit of a risk. I’ve gotten a few when they came in they weren’t as good as I had hoped. Lost Woods was a simple game that wasn’t what I was hoping. Bring Your Own Book is a cool idea but doesn’t work as well as it sounds. Now the only way to get Lost Woods was via Kickstarter, but Bring Your Own Book went to retail. So I could have waited, gotten an uglier copy that was the same thing, or waited for reviews.

But there’s more to that, I could have gotten Marvel United at retail, but I’m glad I didn’t. So it’s the flip of Bring Your Own Book. With Marvel United I got way more characters because I backed it on Kickstarter. And basically none of the expansions are going to retail, so I’d have missed out on all of that content. So, is the value there to take the risk on the game on the crowdfunding platform?

So What’s Coming Up?

Out of everything I talked about coming up, I am confident that I’ll back Lords of Ragnarok. I like Lords of Hellas a lot and Norse mythology. Slay the Spire is also likely because I love that video game. CMON’s Master’s of the Universe game, probably not, it’s not a theme that I love as much, though the minis look amazing. Divinus, probably, though Lucky Duck Games also do come to retail.

How do you balance what you back or don’t? Do you just ignore Kickstarter or Gamefound? Or do you do less retail because you get most of your games are coming in via Kickstarter?

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Like PJG’s previous title, Lost Woods (which we’ve written about before), Gnomi was made possible via Kickstarter, and has recently been backed. It’s not available for retail purchase just yet (PJG was gracious enough to send us a pre-release copy), but it will be very soon!

Gnomi is a super-portable, quick-playing game with simple rules that are easy to pick up. You start by drawing seven cards–four mushroom cards and three gnome cards. The mushroom cards can be used to steal additional cards from other players, and the gnome cards have different abilities you can activate to affect other players’ cards or your own. When you use a card, you must flip it upside down–with a mushroom card, this means it’s been composted; with a gnome card, you’ve made the gnome go to sleep. To win a round, you have to be the last player with at least one card that is still right-side up.

The gameplay is simple, and each round takes just a few minutes to play through, but you’ll still need to use plenty of strategy to win. There’s a touch of luck involved in terms of the cards you draw at the beginning of the round, but mostly, you’ll need to find the best interplay between your gnome and mushroom cards in order to beat the other players. And the more you play and get to know the cards, the more you’ll be able to optimize the hand of cards you’re dealt each round.

When trying this game out for the first time, we did find that it seems a little unbalanced with just two players. Since some of the abilities on the gnome cards affect all players at once, when there’s just two players, your opponent takes the full effect of cards like this instead of the effect being spread out across a group of players, which can make these cards too powerful. However, it’s pretty clear that this would greatly improve when you start adding in extra players. Because of this, we recommend playing this game with three or more players when you can, and we’re looking forward to trying it out with a larger group soon.

Beyond the features of Gnomi gameplay, my favorite aspect of the game is the design–the cute, fairy tale-ish aesthetic is a lot of fun, and I love the artwork for the colorful mushrooms and the many gnome characters. Best of all is the box–unlike being made of thin cardboard as with lots of card games, the box for Gnomi is thick and sturdy enough to handle being bounced around in a bag or backpack. It opens up and folds out from a magnetized flap on the side, so you don’t have to fight with (and inevitably rip) a fold-in top. The cards themselves are tucked into the hollow of the box, and when you lift them out, you reveal a picture of a wily little gnome tending some mushrooms underground.

All these little design details exemplify one of my favorite things about games funded through Kickstarter–because of the way the process works, the game creators are often able to put extra thought into adding creative features to the game and making it a cool-looking object in its own right. This seems to happen with crowd-funded games much more often than with mass-marketed ones, and it adds yet another special element to the experience of playing these games.

True to the creators’ promise for this game, Gnomi would be easy to stick in a pocket or purse and pull out to play during road trips, waiting in line, or hanging out with friends outside. It’s an easy one to teach, so you can jump right in, which could make it a great choice to start off a game night, or a nice one for when you’re in the mood for some gaming but don’t have much time. It’s approachable enough to play with a group of kids, but requires enough strategy to keep older gamers interested too. While it may not attract more hardcore gamers, it’s a great low-key gaming experience, and is a delightful little game that’s sure to please!

Overall Grade: B+

Casual Grade: A+

Gamer Grade: D

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Lost Woods is one of a few board games that Peder (semi-)recently procured via Kickstarter, and it seemed so appropriate to play in a lake cottage that we had to bring it along. This was our first time playing it, so there was a little bit of prep in the form of popping out lots of little cardboard pieces — which is an activity I happen to enjoy almost as much as popping bubble wrap, so I was definitely okay with this.

In Lost Woods, you play as one of a few courageous adventurers (who, as I understand it based on what the game implies, are a bunch of kids playing dress-up in the woods). The premise is simple — the game is played until one of the players makes it out of the woods, and the winner is the player with the most gold at the end of the game (regardless of whether they were the player to escape the woods first). You build the board as you go (in a way that’s reminiscent of how you explore the house in Betrayal at House on the Hill) by drawing cards that take you north, south, east, or west.

Each time you lay down a new card, you must draw a tile from the tile bag and act according to what you’ve drawn. You might draw a weapon you can use — anything from pretty normal items like a broken baby bottle to fantastical objects like unicorn horns — or a gold piece. Or you might draw a monster that you’ll then have to fight. If you don’t defeat the monster, on your next turn you’ll have to either try again or move in a different direction to escape it. As you go, you can also draw cards that lead to magical fountains, which let you learn a magical spell to be used as a powerful weapon against monsters. But use the spell once, and it’s gone for good — or at least until you make your way back to the fountain again.

To make it out of the woods, you’ll have to be the one to lay down the last card from one of the directional card decks — but even then, you’re not out just yet. To complete your journey, you’ll have to defeat the Guardian. To do so, you’ll have to roll better than the Guardian does three times in a row — once you do, the game is complete. Next, it’s time for everyone to count up the gold they’ve collected during their travels through the woods — the player with the most wins the game.

Lost Woods is a simple little game, but an enjoyable one. There’s very little strategy involved, and though there’s a fair amount of luck, the game is primarily a race against time. It’s definitely not a game for serious gamers, but it’s a fun, lighthearted game for when you want something short and don’t feel like investing a lot of brainpower into a complicated game. It’d be a great one for starting off a game night, and would be an even better one to play with the kids in your life (if I had to put a number on it, I’d say anyone from about 8 and up would have a good time with this one).

Overall Grade: C

Casual Grade: A

Gamer Grade: D-

Have you played Lost Woods? If not, would you give it a go?

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