Rivet Wars Kickstarter

Games
1

A board game that I’ve been helping design just Kickstarted this evening–check it out!

It’s a turn-based strategy game (heh) set in a cartoonish WW1-ish era of grunts, cavalry, monowheels, and tanks fighting across no-man’s land to capture strategic points. I would say the complexity is somewhere around Space Hulk or Zombicide, though plays a bit faster, with battles typically taking around 45 minutes. The armies have similar types of units but with asymmetrical abilities and heroes, providing different strategies for each.

I think it turned out really well–it’s fun to play and has great quirky look–but it’s also thrilling just to see it come together!

2

So it turns out all you need to do to shatter your funding goal is to be unbelievably professional! Who knew?

This looks super cool, Bill. I will be following it with interest, and you’ll probably get my money before the kickstarter ends. Good luck!

Oh, and, uh, REPORTED, I guess?

3

Looks very well put together. Will keep an eye on it. Good work.

4

I got the “early adopter” email. I knew I had no shot at snagging one of the slots, but I didn’t expect it to kickoff so well :)

Congrats and good luck Bill.

5

Love the look!

6

I look at the game and totally see ‘Advance Wars’, and love it!

7

This looks awesome. As a mini newbie is there a way to get minis already painted?

8

It’s a cool mini or not kickstarter. It’ll get crazy :)

One thing I can’t tell is if it’s played on a ‘grid’ like a boardgame or is it freeform like a classic mini game?

9

We wanted it to be accessible and quick to play so we avoided the freeform style of, say, Warhammer, so it’s played on a grid. But the board is made up of interchangeable pieces to allow different setups. An interesting aspect of the grid system is that each square can hold multiple units, and that mix affects gameplay and strategies.

If there’s any resemblance to Advance Wars… well, Ted, the creator of Rivet Wars, artist, and co-designer, is a huge fan. Other big visual influences or inspirations include the crazy inventions you see in 1930’s Popular Mechanics and Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso. Add a dash of steam punk and wah-la, there you have it.

The lessons we learned developing Rise of Nations was a big influence on gameplay, including the importance counter units, getting in the fight quickly, avoiding “rich get richer” problems, and making units distinctive from each other. The trickiness was keeping it simple but having depth by giving the players a lot of options and strategies.

It took me a bit to figure out what this was about–whoops, I forgot about the “no pimpin’” rule. Mea culpa, but I was just super excited about this, more excited about it than any game I’ve worked on in a while because it’s such a small and personal work.

10

Well, I was just joking, honestly. You have a bunch of posts and clearly didn’t come here just to pimp your work!

11

This is the exact opposite of my concerns about the potential “Join4ATM” issues with the rise of kickstarter/crowdfunding. I would never complain about someone who very obviously is an existing member of the forum letting us know about a project they are working. This, Cliffski’s GxB stuff, Keiron and Gary’s stuff, etc. both rock and rule.

Edit: Geez, I love that art style.

12

Funny, the art reminds me of the Rivets from Metagaming (1977):

Those were unmanned I think, but had personalities or something like that.

13

I don’t know if anyone has been following this but the Kickstarterblew past its initial goals and we’ve added a bunch of new content stretch goals. New today–the DOOM WHEEL.

So I’m pretty excited how well this has all progressed and it means that we’ll probably be working on additional expansions beyond this Kickstarter, including new platforms or using the IP for entirely new game types. For example, people have been clamoring for a tabletop wargame.

14

That’s the first thing that came to my mind too.