Create A Compelling Crew Or Devastate Enemy Tanks? July 11th, 2024 Crowdfunding Roundup
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 week. Keep in mind, most of these thoughts are based on initial impressions and looking at the Kickstarter video.
I "Wandered" around Kickstarter looking for campaigns. Looking at the "Starscape" of games, when suddenly "BOOM" - I found these contenders. Don't be "Yellow", take a look
One bit first - I wrote this prior to DC Heroes United launching. I debated waiting and including that as well, but that game really doesn't need any promotion and meanwhile I'm sure these campaigns could use the extra eyes on them.
5 Acts: The King in Yellow RPG
Alright, I'm a sucker for anything Cosmic Horror/Cthulhu themed. The King in Yellow is often used in those types of games given the maddening play that the stories are based off of. In 5 Acts: The King in Yellow RPG, you play as "unreliable narrators", all of which have read the cursed play and now are going insane…or are they? Maybe the players are right and the world is insane? The game claims to be fairly quick to learn to play, designed to be a one shot type RPG adventure to play with friends.
The artwork in the book looks pretty cool, and apparently said artwork plays a role in playing the game. The campaign says that players will have to interpret images in the book as instructions, a mechanic that's very interesting to me. From the little bits on the campaign page and the video, I get the sense that this game is more of a GM-less style RPG where players take turns narrating their bits. At $30 for the digital version, it's a pretty interesting sounding game to play when you can't get everyone together to run your normal RPG campaign.
BOOM Patrol - Superstar Tank Battling Action. Arcade-style!
Let's see: Cats on the Box? Check. Tanks? Check. Smirk & Dagger - a publisher great at "take that" style games? Check! Well that's everything I needed to know about this game. For everyone else, BOOM Patrol appears to be a tabletop miniatures style of game that uses cards & cardboard tanks instead. While the artwork would lend itself to some cool looking minis, keeping everything as cardboard means that they can sell the game for just $35.
Watching through the gameplay, I get a lot of Robo Rally vibes. You place cards down to "program" how your tank is going to move and when you are going to fire. You just have to hope that when the time comes to execute said cards, you are where you thought you'd be and didn't get thrown off course! There's special powers, "terrain" that you can accidentally hit, and 3 other tanks to worry about, it's pretty easy for plans to go awry.
Starscape
Quick, name your favorite sci-fi media - book, movie, or TV show, it doesn't matter. Did you pick The Expanse? Maybe Firefly/Serenity? Or even one of the various Star Trek shows/movies? Regardless, the one thing that all of these properties have in common is that what made those stories great: the interactions of the crew onboard. Having a set of characters that are dynamic and have differing motives and personalities is what made these sci-fi stories so impactful, even decades after the series/movie came out.
Starscape is the second campaign of Golden Lasso Games (you can check out an interview I did about their first game here), and their first standalone RPG. Using the Powered by the Apocalypse RPG system, this game is about creating that starship crew and all the bumps in the road that they will face as they come together. At $20, you can get the game in digital format or for an additional $10 you can get it in softcover format. The "crew" behind this game has tons of experience in creating RPG adventures, so if you are a fan of Powered by the Apocalypse games (or sci-fi games in general), then this game will be worth having on your shelf.
Fantasy Map Maker (Improved Edition) & Map Pack
To be fair, when I saw this next campaign, I thought it was simply a tool for making maps for RPGs. If you look at the filled out sheets on the campaign page, each one of these could be easily used as a setting for your next D&D game. However, Fantasy Map Maker is a roll and write board game that reminds me a lot of Cartographers by Thunderworks Games. While Cartographers really leaned in on the puzzle nature of roll and writes and having a solid self-contained game, Fantasy Map Maker seeks to lean towards having a finished product at the end of your game, leaning towards that original thought that I had when I saw this game.
This game is purely a print-and-play game, having won 2nd place in the 2023 BGG Print-and-Play Solitaire Contest. Now, for $11, you can get access to the game and new content to help flush out your fantasy worlds even more. There's even a new mode for combining 4 sheets to make an even bigger map! If you are like me and are not very artistically inclined but love custom maps to use in your RPG campaigns, then I suggest you give this game a shot.
Wandering Galaxy: A Crossroads Game
The "Crossroads" game series has had a bit of an interesting history to it. The first game, Dead of Winter, was a monumental success that won several awards and was even my favorite board game for the longest period of time. I would also venture a guess that it is at least partially responsible for Asmodee purchasing Plaid Hat Games in 2015. However, the follow up game in the Crossroads series, Gen7, didn't release until 4 years later. Not only that, but it wasn't really anything special (it wasn't bad, just was okay). Venturing another guess (*See first part of disclaimer at the bottom), I would imagine that the Asmodee acquisition messed up the development of the game and was the reason it was so delayed and had lackluster gameplay.
However, fast forward to 2020 and Plaid Hat Games has been reacquired by its founder and publishes Forgotten Waters, a pirate themed game which combines the crossroads system with a web-based app* in a way that once again had people raving. Recently, I got to try out Freelancers, the next crossroads game, and I can say that it continues to hold up the legacy. Wandering Galaxy is set to continue this legacy, as players this time are playing as the crew of a starship (sounds like that theme is popular this week).
Note: There are also downloadable PDFs or even printed books that have all the content in the web-app, if you are opposed to having screens at the gaming table or worried about the app going away.
Wandering Galaxy appears to take the popular voice acting and narration of the Crossroads web-apps and combine it with the sandbox-style gameplay of space board games. The crew will go on missions, attempt to make the ship better, and hopefully get out from under all the debts that they have piled up. Honestly, this game feels like what Gen7 should have been, so after playing Freelancers I'm really excited to try this out. At $60, that's about average for what a board game costs these days, but based on Freelancers I'm sure there's going to be a lot of stuff packed into that box. You can even pick up the previous two games in the series at a big discount by getting all three for $130. That's a lot of gaming!
Note: I generally assume I know nothing. So if I've missed something, let me know in the comments. Or let me know on Twitter or Facebook. If you like these types of posts, consider subscribing to our patreon. Also, there are affiliate links scattered throughout this post - they go to help support the site as well.