Kickstarting and Screaming

So I received a component holder set from my sister, picture in the back here:

I can’t remember if the red one is from Dog Might or not, but it’s the light wood set in the back. They refer to this as CoCos in the video.

A couple of things interesting about this particular campaign from Dog Might is 1) I am not the one that actually backed it so I never followed them that closely. 2) I knew they were years later, and that I received my gift late but not actually years late which I guess makes me/us lucky and 3) They will not sell anymore of these.

So now that you know my role in it, the reason I am posting this here is it’s a 15 minute video about a successful campaign that nearly failed, multiple times, as a couple of guys and their employees tried to ramp up their production saddled by a gross underpriced products they promised in that campaign. It’s also been somewhat talked about around the web and cons, he even mentions it in the video, as this is also a company that is multiple years behind on what their backers expect AND they still release new KS campaigns. So he kind of goes into why it is the way it is.

As someone who has backed other projects in this kind of space, one of their biggest mistakes, which he mentions, is just not being upfront about the problems… from the start. They’re a pretty nice set. I considering getting more from a different company, like I said this one has no intention of ever selling these again. These days I am more on a give me wood components and stop loading me with cheap plastic. Maybe it’s an age thing, not so sure, but I am just so over plastic crap all over the place, and that includes in my games as well as accessories.

As someone who didn’t back the campaign, already received her gift… I suspect my feelings around what happened with this campaign and their company is pretty mild. My sister did explained to me that my i think it was a birthday gift which was supposed to be a Christmas gift or something a year back or so was very late. I was just charmed someone else is feeding my gaming habits these days. Both my sisters always do actually. My parents are 100% you’re so hard to buy for and my sisters are like, well this game came out yesterday so you can’t have that or hey is an fancy little thing you would probably never buy yourself for your gaming addiction.

Chronicles of Drunagor is back, with a reprint and an expansion. Seems a pretty neat dungeon crawler, though super expensive if you want everything!

Shipping July next year for the reprint, and December for the new content.

Speaking of shipping, that’s really expensive too but I guess that’s the world we live in now. :P

I hope this dungeon crawler won’t disappoint like Underworld Ascendant did.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/836367155/monomyth

Having a big demo available on day one is an encouraging sign!

Trailer:

Queen’s Wish 2 just hit Kickstarter. $20, aiming for June 2022.

Backed thanks. 7 days to go

Received my copy of Intrepid today! Looking forward to setting it up and giving it a go.

And I finally got my copy of Unsettled from Orange Nebula and it’s a wonderful little box of goodies - can’t wait to get a group together. Oh and my edition came with card sleeves and holy crap, I get it now. These particular cards and sleeves were made for each other and it’s just perfect. Yeah, still seems kind of extravagant but man, it’s nice.

Meanwhile I got a pledge from Set a Watch: Swords of the Coin. Notice I don’t say my pledge - it was a copy of Maximum Apocalypse Legendary Edition, which I already own from that Kickstarter and did not order. Somebody done goofed. Hopefully Rock Manor will get back to me soon.

I’ve played Unsettled 3 times with my wife and a friend so far. It’s been a tense affair every time.

It’s lavish, tells the story of hapless space explorers stuck on a planet they don’t understand and is quite a fun evolving puzzle to solve.

I recommend watching the Orange Nebula rules video. It does a good job of covering questions you might have after reading the manual.

That said, once you start playing, the flow of the game and the structure of a turn are easy to grasp. It sounds more complicated than it is. It’s easy enough to teach and play.

I hope you enjoy it.

If anyone is curious about the kind of story Unsettled tells, I would recommend the start of this excellent solo playthrough.

One note: if you were to watch it all, it would spoil the tiles and story beats that you will uncover during your first mission on the first planet. Nothing that would prevent you from playing it. Things would likely go differently for you. But you might want to avoid it.

However, the first 10’ or so take you through the flavour text and show off the components. The next 10’ go a bit deeper into the set up and some mechanics. The first 20’ essentially do not spoil anything that will happen once you actually set foot on the first planet.

The flavour text is great fun in this game.

Just watching that, I want to go play some more.

Anthony Burgoyne, the guy behind political simulation company 270soft, is working on a new game that folks here might be interested in. A More Perfect Union is a US politics simulator from 1772 to the near Future. This sounds fascinating, and I know that (1) I will back it and (2) I will find it too complicated for my feeble brain and wind up starting a few games and then forgetting about it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/966309371/a-more-perfect-union-0?ref=checkout_rewards_page

I was just about to post this. I’m tempted as it sounds interesting and I’ve played some of 270soft’s other games. But, I stopped doing Kickstarters a long time ago because of the shadiness of some of the projects, or just their inability to deliver. But, the company is a proven entity at least.

Guys the original game was amazing and now a sequel has been announced. Please do check it out.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacebourne/spacebourne-2

Just take all my money now. Some of the sculpts are really good, curious over the scale though.

Somewhere, some completist fan just asked his wife if they could put a shelf in the exercise room because there’s no more room for Zombicide boxes in his game room and she called her divorce lawyer.

Marvel Zombicide is down to its last day, broke $7m a few hours ago, CMON’s biggest KS campaign. I’m probably backing it at around $230 (starter box, FF 'natch, I mean what true Marvel fan doesn’t go with the Fantastic Four?, and the Sinister Six at my son’s request). Ton of stretch goal and Daily Bugle extras, more minis than I’ll ever have time to paint.

Just in case anyone is curious but is not actively following Failbetter’s Mask of the Rose, they’ve released a demo on Steam. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I am curious!

Nice! Thanks for the call-out on that. I may dabble in it, but doing so risks me kicking away the rest of February to restart another run at Sunless Skies…

If you missed out on Mind MGMT and would like to get the hidden movement boardgame Shut Up and Sit Down recently raved about, they have a reprint of the deluxe edition KS running for 8 days:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindmgmt/mind-mgmt-secret-missions

Do you have the game? If so, I’ll not bother.