When Zombicide was on Kickstarter the first time, they offered special, optional add-on characters. There were only four in total, which is relatively tame compared to the 17 that got released for Season 2. But here’s where things get weird. The original add-on characters all dove into the deepest part of the copyright infringement pool and were able to come out unharmed. Not everyone here survived in quite the same way.
Two of the figures got changed from the original prototypes, which are fine by me since I knew I was buying them based on prototypes, not finished products. Ivy and Claudia emerged unscathed, but Marvin and Eva underwent some visual modifications.
From a post on Kickstarter, we were told this:
At Miramax’s request, Guillotine Games made some modifications to the costumes for Eva and Marvin – if you ordered them and don’t like what you got, we’ll be happy to take them back, just drop us an email.
For me, the changes weren’t much. Marvin looks a bit less like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. His hair is bigger, his tie is missing and he has a beard – that’s it for changes. Sure, the card shows him in a brown suit but a coat of paint makes him any color I want him to be! Eva was changed about the same amount. Her original design as the Bride from Kill Bill got shot down and her new figure is well disguised… by her wearing a jacket and a hat. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: add-on, arena, claudia, eva, ivy, kickstarter, marvin, review, zombicide, zombicide season 1
Kickstarter is quickly becoming a favorite place for us here at Castles and Cooks to mine for our next great game or piece of cooking equipment. While the risks are well established, the chance to discover something truly unique is one of the things that keeps us coming back for more. From time to time we’ll aggregate our favorite Kickstarters here and tell you why they are worth supporting.
Methodology: We do not actually back every project listed in this round-up (though we do specifically indicate those projects we have helped fund). The projects that we choose are based on several factors, but we tend to gravitate toward projects that have low risk, great value, and where there is excellent communication about the economics. It also helps for the product to just be awesome, something that we would want to play or use.
Transhuman: Eclipse Phase Player’s Guide
What is it: A player’s guide for Eclipse Phase (check out our review for more information) providing alternative character generation, expanded rules for tricky morphs and backgrounds, and lots of new player options to fill needed gaps in the existing rules.
For fans of: The Eclipse Phase sci-fi RPG, or of gritty sci-fi horror roleplaying in general.
Why we love it: Eclipse Phase is an awesome setting which does not shy away from difficult concepts or take the easy way out of a theme. There are plenty of elements to the game universe that make you scratch your head, and this sourcebook has answers to a lot of the trickier questions.
Where are memories stored in a gestalt swarm of mechano-bugs? How different is an uplifted chimp’s psyche from a human’s? What rights do bodiless infomorphs have? The alternative caracter generation is also a great addition for when you don’t want to tackle the complicated-but-detailed standard generation method. This is especially good for new players but probably the biggest sell for GMs in need of fast NPCs.
In addition to the original content of the book, the Kickstarter has been run extremely well. The stretch goals (almost all of which have been met so expect more soon) are really compelling and interesting for backers, and are actually improving the whole game, not just this sourcebook. Also, much of the material is being openly playtested at the Eclipse Phase forums so the fans are really getting a lot of input into this book.
BACKED BY CASTLES & COOKS Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: drunkquest, Eclipse Phase, exalted, ketchup, kickstarter, maple syrup, miniatures
I’ll admit it, the thing that first piqued my interest in Relic Expedition – a Kickstarter from Foxtrot Games – was the set of animal Meeples. Just getting a set of Meeple snakes and Meeple monkeys would have been enough. Yet, after having an opportunity to play the game, my level of interest has broadened considerably.
At first blush, the game appears to be an amalgamation of mechanics we’ve seen used elsewhere. There’s the discovery and treasure troving of Forbidden Island and the random map building/exploration of Castle Ravenloft and Carcassone. There’s a strong focus on PvP and the game does a number of things to ensure that players will actively impact and affect each other’s decisions (more on that in a moment).
Gameplay is decidedly simple, as players compete to find 4 identical treasure relics in the jungle, then escape via helicopter before their competitors. On their turn, each player rolls two dice, one with numbers and one with animals. The numbered die determines how many actions that player can take on their turn and the animal die determines which animals move. The animal movement takes place before the player actions. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Board games, kickstarter, Relic Expedition
One of the things about gaming that I enjoy most is helping to bring new people to the hobby, introducing them to games and teaching them the rules and strategies of others. However, I’ve yet to try doing this with little kids, but it sounds like that would be difficult. Luckily for all of us, the game designers over at Funto11 are working on doing just that with their latest Kickstarter endeavor, Fairy Mischief.
Fairy Mischief is a card game from Funto11, makers of Miskatonic School for Girls and Flame War. The game is aimed at trying to get kids, specifically young girls, to make the transition from simple games, like the card game War, up to tabletop games by introducing them to new gameplay types, simple strategies and mechanics. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Fairy Mischief, Funto11, Gaming, kickstarter
Kickstarter is quickly becoming a favorite place for us here at Castles and Cooks to mine for our next great game or piece of cooking equipment. While the risks are well established, the chance to discover something truly unique is one of the things that keeps us coming back for more. From time to time we’ll aggregate our favorite Kickstarters here and tell you why they are worth supporting.
Methodology: We do not actually back every project listed in this round-up (though we do specifically indicate those projects we have helped fund). The projects that we choose are based on several factors, but we tend to gravitate toward projects that have low risk, great value, and where there is excellent communication about the economics. It also helps for the product to just be awesome, something that we would want to play or use. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dwarven, Fairy Mischief, Gaming, kickstarter, Relic Expedition, Shore Soup, zombicide
Kickstarter is quickly becoming a favorite place for us here at Castles and Cooks to mine for our next great game or piece of cooking equipment. While the risks are well established, the chance to discover something truly unique is one of the things that keeps us coming back for more. From time to time we’ll aggregate our favorite Kickstarters here and tell you why they are worth supporting.
Methodology: We do not actually back every project listed in this round-up (though we do specifically indicate those projects we have helped fund). The projects that we choose are based on several factors, but we tend to gravitate toward projects that have low risk, great value, and where there is excellent communication about the economics. It also helps for the product to just be awesome, something that we would want to play or use.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dragon's Hoard, Dungeon Roll, Gaming, kickstarter, Story War, Sweet & Salty
With the new Ascension Online Kickstarter in full swing (but ending Thursday at 9 pm), Stone Blade Entertainment has turned it into a preorder-stravaganza as well! After Rise of Vigil was accidentally leaked, SBE is now previewing the upcoming set – which you can preorder through the campaign!
Rise of Vigil is looking to be a new block that expands Ascension in a different direction. Chronicles of the Godslayer and Return of the Fallen introduced core mechanics, Storm of Souls and Immortal Heroes brought us events, soul gems and trophy monsters. Now Rise of Vigil drops events and soul gems for treasures and energy.
Those probably need some explaining. According to SBE:
Treasures are cards that do not take up space in the center row. Whenever a treasure card enters the center row, you continue to place cards on top of it until you hit a non-treasure card. Whenever a player acquires or defeats a card with treasure under it, that player also acquires all of those treasures.
The Energy Shards are treasures, and they generate a resource called Energy and draw a card whenever you play them.
Energy is a new resource in Rise of Vigil. Unlike Runes or Power, Energy is not spent. Some cards have Energize abilities which turn on when you reach a certain Energy threshold. The Energize text on a Hero, Construct, or Monster reward is active if you have gained energy equal to or greater than its Energize number that turn.
So what does this energy do? Absolutely crazy things! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ascension, ascension rise of vigil, hero, illiya, kickstarter, monster, oziah, preview, promo, rise of vigil, stone blade entertainment, treasure, zombie
The world of Kickstarter is rife with opportunity and tragedy. The independent crowd source funding site has gained widespread attention and popularity for the staggering money that developers across industries have raised by appealing directly to consumers.
Yet for every Double Fine Adventure and Zombicide there are dozens of projects that barely raise any money at all, and fall well short of funding goals. According to a study by Ethan Mollick of UPenn in 2012, only 3% of projects that fail get even 50% toward their goal. With all of the odds seemingly stacked against projects that don’t take off, it seems crazy to think that a company would go back to Kickstarter a second time after failing.
Enter Evil Intent, the first project from Kraken Games, a small Houston based gaming company currently operating out of a home office. In it you play as an evil mastermind with plans to takeover the world. Trouble is all of your opponents have the same idea. Players take turns trying to accumulate resources and assets to achieve their secret evil scheme all while trying to prevent their rivals from doing the same. The game calls for 2-6 players and scales in duration based on the number of players.
Evil Intent first was posted to Kickstarter in the latter half of 2012. It had a funding goal of around $55,000, but by the end of fundraising it hadn’t even reached 50% (the final tally was $23,439). Many people would have given up, perhaps moved on to other projects. Instead Kraken Games re-tooled, fueled by feedback from backers, and returned to Kickstarter with a vengeance – and a funding goal that was cut by more than half! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Evil Intent, Gaming, kickstarter
We love Ascension here at Castles and Cooks. Personally, I play the game a dozen or so times a day and am eagerly waiting for Immortal Heroes to come out on the iOS version (speaking of which, expect a full review of that expansion this week).
But a lot of people wanted Ascension on Android – and now is your chance! This super limited Kickstarter (it ends 2/28) has something for everyone – even those who don’t have a Droid device. It also doubles as a preorder for the new Ascension expansion, Rise of Vigil! The goal of $125,000 is a big one, but hiring a new programmer or two isn’t cheap. And they are working on a PC port too!
The levels of support range from simple ($10 for all expansions in digital form) to absurdly awesome ($10,000 to become a god in Ascension). If you haven’t played Ascension, it is one of the best deck building games on the market and it is even better in digital form. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ascension, ascension online, kickstarter, stone blade entertainment
I finally did it. I Kickstarted something. Seems like the internet has been abuzz with Kickstarter for a while but I wasn’t sure how to get started. However, White Wolf‘s new electronic distribution arm the Onyx Path has been doing a series of Kickstarter campaigns to finance the production of new sourcebooks and I’ve been getting really excited about this business model. The first project I backed has finally come out and it’s pretty amazing: Mummy: the Curse.
A lot of people probably see the title and think it’s either A) a joke game, B) suited for just one story, or C) both. I’m not going to lie, there is less room for breadth-of-play here than with other World of Darkness Games but it’s still pretty amazing. I’ll let the Introduction get you excited instead of explaining myself:
Inhuman immortals—some called the “Arisen,” others “Shuankhsen”—walk these crowded streets, as they have since before Rome ever paved her own. They are the last remnants of a bygone age and empire, refusing to let slip their grip upon a world that has long since moved on. They are at once ancient and terrible, innocent and proud, isolated, tragic, and obscene. And at their very core, they are relentless.”
Genre: Occult horror
System: New World of Darkness
Potential Library: Small (just the core book so far but six sourcebooks planned)
Publisher: White Wolf / Onyx Path
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Arena Review, kickstarter, Mummy the Curse, World of Darkness
