Yeah, I grabbed Kittenburg. And Aeon Trespass did one too, forget what that was.
Oh, I backed that game, and totally forgot about it, as I usually do.
I wonder if it will ever come, and if it does will I even play it, or just sell it? Hmm…
Well, it actually happened. Leviathans, a Battletech-esque game of flying WWI-era battleships released (and subsequently abandoned) waaaaay back in 2012 is finally getting another try-the new Kickstarter launched earlier today. I kind of love the original.
But this new campaign something of a mess, IMO- there was no announcement on BGG, or even really on their website (www.monstersinthesky.com)- on the latter there’s blog posts talking about it, some of the changes, etc., but no actual link to the KS. The game is 90+% unchanged, and they say all of your old stuff will still work, but there’s two factions included in the KS… and one is one of the factions from the original (The French). So between those two things, I have no real reason to want to buy a new starter set (so much duplicate content, including ships). There have been multiple requests for some sort of ‘Upgrade’ pledge tier with just the new hardcover rule book and new cards/counters, and they say they’ll look into it. So I’ll just hit ‘remind me’ and come back in a few weeks to see if they’ve got it sorted.
But despite all that, they had a pretty respectable start to the campaign (hit their goal and first couple stretches pretty quick). Pretty good for a niche game that’s been oop for over a decade.
Well, Leviathans has added a pledge tier for those of us with the original set- it comes with the hardback rulebook, tokens, and a single fleet (Germans, Italians, Russians have now been unlocked, I think, that you can add on to any pledge, too). Now I just need to decide if I want to spend money on a game I’ll seldom play. Hoom.
On another KS note, there’s a game that was Kickstarted a few years back, Vampire: The Masquerade: Chapters, that I didn’t back at the time, but late-pledged last year when they were supposedly close to shipping. Then they announced they weren’t even close to being finished. Well, they recently posted that they’re pretty much done, aside from, you know, getting it all actually printed and shipped and whatnot. Apparently they were demoing it at Gen Con over the weekend, and someone wrote up their thoughts over on BGG.
A few excerpts (it’s long) :
First off, this sucker weighs in at 24 pounds…and it felt it! Moving the table, it almost tipped it over it’s so packed full of goofiness. A huge box, just for the core game. Components wise, all top notch. I won’t go too much into the rules. As with most games of this genre, each player has an asymmetric character from one of the Vampire Camarilla clans. Each has a their own character sheets with stats, some of which start with some advances… As per a typical dungeon crawling, campaign style game, you’re moving your figures around on a map, interacting with things in the environment, and encountering NPCs and creatures. Nothing too much out of the ordinary here.
There are 66 ‘chapters’ in which you’re acting out a scene in the overarching story. The designer repeatedly told us they are looking to preserve the story-telling aspect of the VtM experience, and it showed. It’s built around a complex web of choices,
Each scene has a timing mechanism, which we had to keep our eye on. As we spent more time interacting with the environment, the game pushed us to a resolution, creating a sense of urgency as events started happening. But not in a way that just drained your resources to force… In our brief 1-hour demo we probably had to make a dozen different choices, each taking us to a different event in the scene that we had to read from. It didn’t feel linear at all or that we were just ticking off boxes of things to do. Instead, it felt like a dungeonmaster was reacting to the what we were doing and re-shaping our options based on what we decided… At some point, the chapter ends based on one or more conditions you may have uncovered… What you do here, has far-ranging impacts on future chapters…you may skip (purposefully or accidentally) entire scenes. Again, the designer stressed this is central to the game, and it creates a ton of re-playibility… all this and we didn’t fight a single thing. And we all were ok with that.
etc. I have no idea if I’ll ever actually get this to the table. But now I’m actually looking forward to it.
Well, well, well, Mythic games. They asked for a shipping contribution to be paid before August 1 for Darkest Dungeon. They wrote (then) that the Wave 1 is packed and ready to ship.
So we paid. It was supposed to be shipped on August 15.
Yesterday came the new update called “Unexpected Delay”. It appears that not everything was packed and ready to ship. The Touch of Darkness add-on (a pre-wash for the minis) is not ready. They decided to wait a few weeks until the minis are ready.
I guess they want to fill the container completely before shipping, but hey, they should have told us that the add-on is not ready. Maybe they were told by the manufacturer that it will be ready before August 15. But it is not. Mythic games made it look as if everything is ready in order to collect the additional shipping contribution.
I have a feeling that Darkest Dungeon, the game, already has started. We all are already playing it.
Remind Yourself That Overconfidence Is A Slow And Insidious Killer.
Many Fall In The Face Of Chaos, But Not This One. Not Today.
Just got an email from Failbetter that they’ve made the call to push back release on their next game, Mask of the Rose (the Fallen London dating sim sort of thing) to April 2023. From the email:
Lately, we’ve been seeing signs of an over-tight schedule: mounting stress levels, team members becoming reluctant to take time off.
In this situation, there are three things we could do in principle. We could ask our team to put in significant overtime to meet the current schedule, but it’s important to us to provide a good workplace where everyone has time for personal and family life. We could cut features and parts of the story, releasing a game that didn’t fully meet our intentions and ambitions. Our sense, though, is that our players and backers would rather get the game later in its best state, rather than sooner in a worse form. So that leaves us with the third option, moving back the schedule.
We don’t expect to move the release again, and we’ll have a specific date for you in the next few months. We hope you’ll bear with us for a little longer.
And 10 years later, the Spaceventure guys are finally close to pulling it off. It’s releasing to backers first on the 16th of September:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-spaceventure-by-the-creators-of-space-que
Hollowbody:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headwaregames/hollowbody
First project I’ve backed in a long time, but I liked their previous game Chasing Static quite a bit, and I can’t resist some survival horror.
Holy shit. I just got my reward email for Two Guys Spaceventure, the 5th successful Kickstarter that I backed.
In June.
By the prophets.
Was it worth the wait?
Not sure yet. I may wait for the first patch, which should hit by 2028.
It’s out.
I actually have it! I have opened the cards and sorted and stored most of the stuff, looking forward to working through the tutorial later…
Aw man, that’s sweet. I’d love to hear some impressions - I won’t be getting mine until next year, went with the single bundle shipping.
I can’t find any way to buy the game anywhere. I guess it’s only available to kickstarter backers?
2nd ed of the fantastic Kids on Bikes TTRPG system is now Kickstarting with lots of neat goodies!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/huntersbooks/kids-on-bikes-second-edition?ref=57bozh
Doh. Wrong Kickstarter. :)
Space Venture is supposed to come out on Steam.
Q: When will the game be on Steam and possibly other online stores?
A: Hopefully soon, but we don’t have a specific date. That is what we will begin working on after today. We are putting together a trailer for the game and also planning to add some fun achievements that you can earn. Backers will receive Steam keys and the game will be available for purchase to the public as well.
It was a reply to justaguy’s post about SpaceVenture.