What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

southernman wrote: Kingdoms Forlorn .

Game looks neat, but I hate that they just made up the word "soloperative". They even put a TM next to it. Nope.

But what if they have a superlative solooperative mode delivered solely in soliloquy?

I got in on the Mind MGMT campaign right before it closed. Excited to play that one after having read the graphic novel.

I’m curious about Kingdoms Forlorn but wary of backing it before having played Aeon Trespass (strange timing on the Kickstarter, to the point that it *kinda* raises red flags).

Frohike wrote: ...
I’m curious about Kingdoms Forlorn but wary of backing it before having played Aeon Trespass (strange timing on the Kickstarter, to the point that it *kinda* raises red flags).

To be fair AT:O has been delayed, like most every other KSer in the last two years, by over a year so it is highly possible they were planning to start in about this time (they say they started designing it before AT:O) or even earlier ... they're a small company and won't be able to let staff sit around doing nothing just to keep KS watchers/judger happy.
They have been very open and up front with AT:O, kept the price down and only just raised it for very late pledges (you get a lot of content in the core pledge for the price) and with no shipping increases asked for so I'd like to think they haven't done anything up to now for people to point fingers at.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cowriegames/ab-con-game-bundle

51st State is up for another new edition, same gameplay just even more fancy components. The pricing is generous given it includes four expansions including the upcoming No Man's Land (which adds an area control element), extra fancy bits, all the extra factions and every promo item to date thrown in. Great time to get onboard with this game, it's by far my favourite tableau builder.

I personally prefer the Master Set pieces to the screen printed ones on offer here so just going in for the new faction. With shipping it works out ten or fifteen quid more than it'd likely be at retail but also comes with a playmat, another new faction and whatever promos they throw in during the campaign, all of which I'd end up trying to get anyway.

gamefound.com/projects/portalgames/51st-...ection/project-story

Yeah I already have everything for 51S:MS so I only went in for No Man's Land

Backed the Advanced box set for Old School Essentials. I have two of the individual books already, but they aren’t selling the individual books anymore, so I’m double dipping a little here. Definitely my favorite old school ruleset, but the product line has gotten so confusing.

The stretch goals include a lot of extra classes and stuff that will be included in a Zine and pdfs. Also I get a t-shirt so I got that going for me.

I was thinking of backing the new 51st State collection on gamefound, but 105euro is significantly more than I'm interested in paying for that game. Working out a trade for the Master Set instead.

Edit: there seems to be a trend for reprint campaigns costing as much or more than the wildly inflated secondary market prices for the OOP original game, and I hate it. If wanted to pay $120+ for one of these games I could have done that years ago.

Value perception is all largely subjective though innit? I love 51st State and have clocked up a few hundred plays so it’s a bargain for me despite dropping over a ton on it over the past few years. Oath (and some others) cost roughly the same amount, couldn’t get anyone to play it so sold it, but other people are getting their money’s worth for sure.

Regardless of all that, it’s absolutely a fair price in this case given that it includes four expansions and all the promos and fancy bits, all of which would be well over a hundred euro at retail regardless of what’s happening on the secondary market. Whether it’s worth the money on a personal level is a totally fair challenge though.

I got in on it just for the new expansion because I already have everything else for the current edition and am not interested in a new one just for wooden tokens or whatever. But, yeah, it is kind of a steep price but also about what the original game plus all of those expansions would cost. Portal is also still kind of a minnow in the board game world, so they just don't have the exposure and production/shipping scale that would probably make it easier for them to peg the price back a bit. Every game I've ever played from them (Neuroshima Hex, Theseus) has been brilliant, though, and 51st State is my favorite engine builder so their games have always been worth the price.

AB Con’s games bundle is live.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cowriegames...dle?ref=project_link

The Marching Order Kickstarter finished with just enough funding to unlock all of the gameplay content. It's okay if I'm the only person here excited about that. I'm very excited about it.

Checking the last Marching Order update also reminded me to follow up on the Thunder Road Kickstarter, which... what a wet fart of stretch goals. With the exception of the dice-rolling app (...), they should have just included those cards in their respective boxes from the start. This smacks of a complete product that they ran out of ways to divvy up into stretch goals and makes me feel like the choice to crowdfund it was just a bald-faced ploy to garner an interest-free loan to produce the game. I stand by it looking hella overpriced and I'm kind of down on Restoration Games for it.

Virabhadra wrote: This smacks of a complete product that they ran out of ways to divvy up into stretch goals and makes me feel like the choice to crowdfund it was just a bald-faced ploy to garner an interest-free loan to produce the game.

Yes, this is every Kickstarter.

Gone are the days - if they ever truly were - where a company would add stretch goals on the fly. Everything is already calculated as part of the pledges (the real funding goal, not the stated one), the goals are there to generate excitement. The goal posts are flexible depending on how the funding is going, to entice more engagement if the expectations are not being met.