Kickstart Your Month! August 2016
Another month rapidly approaches us and while the bright summer sunshine showers us with its rays and British people everywhere turn a healthy shade of red, we once again turn our thoughts to what games we want to be playing soon. Yes! It’s time to get excited about another fine selection of Kickstarters.
This article has been certified SPF 50.
Final Act
As I’m reliably informed, shooting tanks is all about guessing where your enemy will be by the time your highly explosive shell has finished travelling through the air. Final Act attempts to capture the essence of this in a simple system! Each player has a board of dials for their tanks, each of which tells one tank where to move. Players program this, then guess where their opponents will have chosen to move, dropping their shell tokens on those spaces. Finally the tanks move as planned, each player hoping to have correctly predicted/out-witted their opponents this round.
This simple system, even if the programming board looks a little intimidating, really caught my eye. I can picture tanks sliding around the board, changing direction to dodge incoming fire, attempting to gang up on one another. Add to that an appealing visual aesthetic with the wooden components earns this a spot in our top picks!
It’ll be the Final Act on August 30th.
Crisis
Faced with the worst economic Crisis of your diesel-punk nation’s history, you enterprising industrialists need contend not only with the usual challenges of resource management and engine building you might expect from an economic worker placement game, but also the damaging stagnation of the country’s economy. You see, the greater economic union your nation is a part of has set near crippling targets for growth, translating into victory point targets each player needs to reach! Oh yes, this is a unique one.
Having played this previously (check out my first impressions) I can safely say this is an interesting experience! The net difference between scores and the target will either boost or drag down the economy as appropriate, with the potential for an early end game if the economy ever crashes entirely! The mechanics for developing and chaining together factories are also very satisfying and there’s definitely a variety of different approaches you can take. One to check out for sure!
The Crisis is over on August 30th.
Completed Projects
Look out for these at retail, or see if you can make a late pledge!
Martians: A Story of Civilization
Goodness me, we turn our backs on space for a short while and suddenly everyone is sending rockets to Mars! At least in board game form as we now have Terraforming Mars from Stronghold Games, The First Martians from Portal games, and now Martians: A Story of Civilisation… on Kickstarter! Martians focuses on the development of the initial Martian colonies sent out from Earth, surviving a hostile environment and expanding to success… or failure.
Martians is a worker placement game, in which time is also a limiting factor on the actions that can be performed. As is to be expected, there is much resource management to be doing, there is mining from the great central array of hexes, technologies to develop, buildings to construct offering up new action spaces and experts to hire. Meanwhile, you’ll need to keep the hab and your crew in good condition and deal with Mars’ changeable weather. Martians offers both cooperative and competitive game modes to get stuck into. Hopefully no one here will need rescuing…
Martians will be lifting off August 1st.
The Walking Dead No Sanctuary
The cultural phenomenon that is The Walking Dead gets another board game, this time fully licensed from the TV series itself, so expect recognisable miniatures and, most importantly, Darrell. But surely another zombie game can’t be that good a thing? Well… here’s the thing, the success of The Walking Dead franchise is in many ways down to it not just being about the shambling hordes, but about the people, their relationships, and the drama that arises from the awful situation they find themselves in. The fact that this game seems to have captured that personal interaction is why it’s on this list!
One player will be chosen as the leader who must secretly chose one approach for the group to take that round, taking into account the cost of not taking the other approach, and the requirements to make the most of that approach, not that these choices are ever easy. Then the other players will choose a card from their hand to play, but if it doesn’t match the leaders approach, it weakens their leadership, stressing them out potentially to the point of losing control entirely. The thing is, you might not be able to match the approach with what you have available, or the action/bonus you get from the card you play is more valuable at that point in time. And thus you get a system that is so much more than a classic miniatures co-op game! Really interesting and a popular theme to boot!
The Walking Dead stumbles off screen August 2nd.
Dwarves in Trouble
You know thing’s are serious when the Dwarves are trying to get rid of gold! It seems some over zealous miner has woken a dragon, or a dragon has found the mine, or something it’s not really clear (as it might not be for dwarves in the mine at the time!) but what is clear, is that the Dragon want’s gold and is planning on eating whoever is carrying it. There’s only one chance to survive: make sure you’re the one with the least gold at the end of the game!
Dwarves in Trouble is a simple card game with basic take that mechanics and your usual arsenal of response cards so don’t necessarily look here for tremendous depth, ironically, for a mine, but instead for fast playing fun (btw, mines aren’t fun kids! Stay safe) The decision points each turn come from how many cards you want to play, and how many you chose to hold on to. You can play your entire hand but you don’t get to draw back up until the start of your turn leaving you rather exposed… Simple to grasp, quick to play, and with some stellar artwork, this is definitely worth a look!
The Dwarves are in Trouble until August 9th.
Coldwater Crown
I can’t say I’ve ever been so excited about the prospect of fishing as I have about Coldwater Crown. Oh yes. There’s no risk of this being a dry Euro game…! (I’m here all week!) Seriously though, this is a very neat game. It’s worker placement, in which you take an action when you place, then remove an already placed piece, triggering that action too, and giving you your ‘worker’ for next round. Most of these actions correspond to the different coloured pieces of bait, allowing you to remove those pieces from your bait box. If you ever remove the final piece from your box, then the colour of that piece and the section of the box determines the fish you catch from the board (just like real fishing works!)
Hopefully you can start to see how there’s a real timing and planning element to this puzzle. Adding to that, the workers when taken flip to an upgraded side, giving you a more powerful action when you place, but these then flip back once taken to their weaker side asking you another question each turn. You further have to decide when it is best to refill your bait box from the bag. And all along you need to be angling… (oh yes) for those end game prizes awarded for the best fisherman in a multitude of different categories. Definitely one to check out.
Coldwater is Crowned on August 9th.
Near and Far
Having explored Above and Below in Ryan Laukat’s previous release, you can now explore the world, Near and Far, in search of the lost city! Another gorgeous looking game featuring another book of story encounters, plus a glorious book of maps, giving 10 unique games to play, that can be linked into a campaign over which your character can develop and gain new skills. You’ll be journeying out from town to explore this world, gaining resources from the various locations, having encounters, and extending the influence of the various tribes that you’ll ally with upon your journey. Returning to town you’ll recuperate and craft artifacts, and hire new adventurers to join you on your next trip out.
These adventurers provide you with the links to the tribes, and having the most of a particular tribe at the end of a game gives you control of that tribe and scores you points for the number of camps that tribe has out on the world map. Once again blending unknown story driven events with Euro-game mechanics to create a fascinating whole, this sequel to last years hit Above and Below is absolutely the campaign to check out this month!
Get Near and Far before August 11th.
Henchmania
Ah to be a medieval Lord… having all the time in the world to scheme your advance to more power while doing your best to avoid the latest plague or pox and surrounding yourself with cronies who all seem to be carrying a few genetic defects along with them… ok, maybe its not so pleasant. Yes, if there’s one thing we learn from Henchmania, it’s that medieval henchmen aren’t nearly as cute as Despicable Me’s minions. Still, what they lack in looks, they certainly make up for in loyalty and isn’t that the most important quality of all?
Henchmania starts with a phase of henchmen-placement, with a soupçon of area control, in which you gather a hand of cards. Different parts of the city to which you’ll be sending said henchmen will give you different types of cards. Once all the henchmen have done their henching, all will get to play their cards looking to garner points, by defeating other players in duels say, or instigating a little bit of take-that, or reserving cards for later or on going benefits. In the worker placement phase you try to choose your strategy, in the card playing phase you hope to make the most of what you drew. This intriguing combination of mechanics makes Henchmania a game to check out.
Henchmania kicks off August 18th.
Fate of the Elder Gods
You’d think the Elder Gods would be quite capable of looking after themselves but it appears their Fate is in your hands! Although if you fail in your job as a cultist and get overwhelmed by pesky investigators those unpronounceable entities will, at worst, just stay asleep so don’t feel too bad. What would be indefinably worse though, would be for one of your damnable opponents to summon the greater powers and be forever rewarded! Never!
Combining elements of area control and hand management, you’ll be sending your sinisterly dressed cultists out to the various locations around Arkham and beyond for various rewards, but also to prepare the way to cast the powerful spells in your hands. Of course, you have to spend the spell cards to set up the spells you keep! And watch out! Because the more you do, the more you’ll attract the attention of the investigators who will be all too happy to raid your little lodge.
The Fate of the Elder Gods will be determined on August 19th.
This list will be updated as the month goes on and new exciting Kickstarters get announced! Be sure to check back later.
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