Tabletop Games Crowdfunding Roundup - May 25th, 2022
Does your inbox fill up every Tuesday with Kickstarter emails? Well, mine does - so I decided to start writing my thoughts on new tabletop gaming Kickstarters every Wednesday. Keep in mind, most of these are based on initial impressions and looking at the Kickstarter video.
This week is one of those obligatory "there's a lot of big campaigns going on" kind of weeks. There's new campaigns from heavy hitters like Leder Games, CMON, and even Monolith Games, so let's get to it…
Brand New Zoo
Even with all the big guns coming out this week, I still felt it important to try and throw in a smaller campaign. No video for this campaign, but it only has one pledge at $4. Not really that surprising since it is a print-and-play roll and write game. Guess what? It's about a zoo, thus the "Brand New Zoo" name. Roll and writes have gotten big into the "create your own <blank>" genre, but to my limited knowledge I haven't seen a zoo one yet.
Premise is simple: you roll two dice, then make decisions on how to use those dice to expand your zoo. Do you hire more zookeepers? Build more enclosures? Or actually get some animals? With all the talk about Ark Nova recently, I hope that this campaign gets some attention. If Ark Nova is too heavy for you, but you like the theme behind it and want to design a zoo, then skip a latte from Starbucks one day and back Brand New Zoo.
Heroes of Normandie: Battle for Caen
Okay, so great job showing off the game in the first 30 seconds of the Kickstarter video. However, do we really need the first 7-10 seconds of the video showing off some elaborate intro for your company Devil Pig Games? This sounds like nitpicking, but considering I had no idea who Devil Pig Games was seems a little boastful. I *have* heard of Heroes of Normandie, but without looking at this page I couldn't think of who actually published the game. If the goal was to increase brand awareness, then I guess mission success?
I've never played Heroes of Normandie, but it's been on my list of games to try out at some point. Specifically, I'd want to try Heroes of Black Reach (Warhammer 40K version) or Shadows over Normandie (Cthulhu version). Regular WWI/WWII types of games don't really enthrall me too much, but I know this game has a lot of fans. If I was a fan of the game, I'd probably be able to tell you what this game includes that the others don't. From an outside perspective, it seems like the game is just a new campaign for the game if you've gotten through all the ones so far.
Arcs
I don't back every game that Leder Games puts out, but they quickly became a company that I pay attention to when a new game comes out. Even back with the first Vast game, they've constantly put out some very interesting and innovative games. So with the announcement of a space themed game, I was already on edge to find out more. Couple that with the designer & illustrator of Root? Crap it's going to be hard to not back this one. With all the positives this game has, I do have to take off points for a long intro in the video. Too much setting up a story before getting into what the game actually is.
From just the video, it feels like the game is a type of area control game, but there isn't a lot of detail on what mechanics there are. There are apparently dice to determine outcomes and cards to upgrade your ships. The campaign does a better job of detailing out what's involved in the game, but that's not the idea behind these posts. I am intrigued by the optional inclusion of a campaign. You can just buy the game, or you can spend extra to get the components to run a campaign version of the game, which lasts only 3 games. Given how hard it can be to get the same group of people together, a smaller campaign does mean there's a greater chance of it getting finished. I really want this, but as we are getting into con season, and close to the release of a giant minis game that I really really really want to get, this might end up as a "try before I buy" type of game.
Household
CMON used to be a company I paid attention to every campaign that came out. These days, I'm aware of the campaigns but sometimes that's as far as my interest gets. They have been hyping up their latest campaign "Household" on their various social media, but I really couldn't tell what the game was. The way it was being promoted, it sounded like it was an existing property that had a fanbase, but I hadn't heard of it before. Wasn't until a couple of days ago that I realized it was an RPG that they were promoting, not a new minis game.
Apparently I was sort of right: Household is an Italian RPG that won awards back in 2019. This Kickstarter isn't even "run" by CMON directly, it's hosted by "2LM Press". I thought this might be the original developer of the game, but it turns out it is CMON's new RPG studio. Great way to sidestep the "we run too many Kickstarters at the same time" mess and just have different "companies" host the campaign. The game is about a bunch of tiny warring factions that are all inside of this old abandoned house. The vibe of the campaign video and images makes me think that this would be a great game to run for kids. It gives off a "Disney animation" feel that I think would spark Kids' imagination. That's just my initial impression, as it is not much of a theme that I am willing to dig into further.
Batman™ : Gotham City Chronicles - Season 3 and RPG
Ok, we got everything else out of the way? Good, because it's time to talk about the game that I could write multiple paragraphs about without even referencing the Kickstarter page. I'm a HUGE Batman fan, and I've wanted to get my hands on this game ever since the beginning. Back in 2019, before the last campaign that Monolith ran, I actually got a chance to get ahold of the game and play it for myself. And….I was disappointed. The game was lots of fun and had a lot of promise, but I had heard so many tales about how HORRIBLE the rulebook was, and I found out the hard way that they were not lying.
Fast forward a couple of years to me hearing that Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules had been hired to fix the infamously horrible rulebook. And when I say "fix", I mean "throw away the old one and start from scratch". Now I'm back to interested in this game. However, this time around, they seem to be focusing more on a RPG that they have created for the game. That's cool I guess, but it's not like there hasn't been a RPG where you could play as DC Comics characters before. Makes me think that they are trying to downplay the board game since they have gotten so much bad press from it in the past.
The only thing keeping me from having already pulled the trigger on this is the price (and other minis games that I really really really want). The other gotcha to this game is that I know a couple of people that would be really interested in this game, but I don't get together with those people often enough that we could get through the core game and need expansions. The addition of a solo mode and a cooperative mode instead of just an all-vs-1 style game would make it more likely to get to the table.
And its Batman………..honestly I'm proud of myself for making it this far without backing yet. *Clicks remind me later to delay the struggle*
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