What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Shellhead wrote: I hope that Enormity won't be the kind of game where I am expected to permanently deface the components with stickers and destroy the replay value after one game.

Removable stickers.

There's a few good previews of Enormity out there now, a good playthru at 'Meet me at the Table'

Can't find where it is said, but the game will have reusable stickers to mark persistent changes to the map. That video is long but terrific btw.

More Bullet is coming to Gamefound. Kind of underwhelmed by Paws and Palette from the latest campaign, but a complete storage solution is pretty desirable at this point.

Just noticed that I'm down to a pretty low level of crowdfunding/pre-orders.

On KS, I'm in on the Oath expansion and Tiny Epic Dungeons Adventures (which is supposed to be an ongoing series of some kind.)

On Gamefound, I'm in on the Star Trek: Ascendancy expansion, which adds three new factions (Tholians, Gorn, and Terran Empire), and rewrites the rules to a more modern approach. Haven't played this game in forever and I'm not even a huge Trek fan, but I've loved every game of it that I've played.

I've pre-ordered Cthulhu: Dark Providence from CMON (way, way behind schedule; surprise!) and a game called Shakespeare's First Folio, which I'm not even sure how I found, but is being created in concert with the Globe theatre and foundation in London. The lead designer just confirmed that the prior deadline for art that was 12/7/24 has now become 4/7/25, Was supposed to be a Q1 2025 delivery. With design not even complete until next month, I'm thinking there's no way this sees anyone's hands until Q1 2026, at this point. Am an undying Bard fan, though. Oh, also pre-ordered GTG's Compile Main 2, which is the second main box for that game. That's been one of the best 2-player card games I've found in recent memory.

That's it. Still have way too many things to play already, so am somewhat gratified to be down to this level of future arrivals.

I'll be curious to see how CTHULU DARK PROVIDENCE stacks up against A STUDY IN EMERALD. While the 2nd edition of ASiE was....OK, it was too diluted for my tastes. Part of the charm of ASiE was its weirdness and look/feel. I glanced at DARK PROVIDENCE and it looks like they basically ported over the Arkham Horror universe characters as well as the graphic style.

Same. Study in Emerald, 1st Ed. was weird and interesting. 2nd Ed. was an exercise in game mechanisms. The reason I signed on to Dark Providence is because it was going to bring actual story back to the concept.

Steamforged has put up their 6: Siege pre-order after acquiring the license from Mythic. As someone who pledged for the game from Mythic, but opted to NOT pay the additional ransom, I have been offered a deeply discounted pre-order price. So here's what I'm looking at....

I spent $199 on the original KS. A lot of money, I know. That money is long gone. I absolutely made the right choice to NOT give Mythic more money.

I can pre-order the core game for $46.35. This is very inexpensive for what you get. Of course, shipping is some unspecified amount.

I can get the all-in bundle which is technically more stuff than I pledged for before, for $132.44. Yes, I can get more than I wanted, for less than I paid.

I can also just say fuck it and walk away again. I really like the game, having read the rules and played a demo at Gen Con years ago. That said, it's mostly a 2 player affair, and something that greatly benefits from repeat plays to really dig into it. Do I have someone like that currently? No, I do not. I'm also likely moving to a new city in the coming months, and will have even less people to play with.

Right now I'm leaning towards doing nothing at all, but I may go in for the core box. I just can't see me appreciating the all-in, since it's a ton of operators I have never even played with in the video game, since I quit playing it many years ago on account of being old and slow.

I would recommend against getting more than just the core box if you decide to buy it.

I'd compare it to Guards of Atlantis 2 - do you feel like you really need extra hero sets for that game? You would have to play both games regularly to really need or want more options than already offered.

But maybe you shouldn't listen to me, it's the only crowdfunding game I've gone all in on (well, gameplay, not extra niceties). Ended up buying all of the operator packs and maps when they briefly appeared for sale after delivery. I even bought the new stuff from this Steamforged preorder. I will probably never use any of it. I've played it four times, all in one of the two base maps and using the same exact set of operators.

A solid opinion. I have all the Guards stuff, and I've still not used any of the new characters. I have played my copy of Guards 2... I think twice. I can't get it to the table, despite absolutely loving the game.

I have plenty of time to decide, but if I do it I'm sure it will just be the core box.

I only have two outstanding Kickstarters right now, but I am possibly going to stop kickstarting anything after this. I kickstarted the patch kit and some expansions for Vampire: Chapters about a year ago, and they still haven't even shipped yet. Enormity seems to be proceeding at a very good pace, except that the recently opened Pledge Manager has been plagued with problems, starting with login. And it seems that the shipping costs for Enormity are much higher than anyone expected.

I still haven't received my link to the pledge manager for Enormity. I emailed their support team, and they responded within minutes with an automated response. It was lengthy and detailed, to address a variety of potential issues. But ultimately, I may be waiting up to two business weeks just to get a link to the pledge manager. I'm really sick of the Kickstarter business model. It's fine in theory, but in actual practice there are so many things that can go wrong, and it is a disastrous alternative to walking into a retail store and buying something.

Shellhead wrote: I still haven't received my link to the pledge manager for Enormity. I emailed their support team, and they responded within minutes with an automated response. It was lengthy and detailed, to address a variety of potential issues. But ultimately, I may be waiting up to two business weeks just to get a link to the pledge manager. I'm really sick of the Kickstarter business model. It's fine in theory, but in actual practice there are so many things that can go wrong, and it is a disastrous alternative to walking into a retail store and buying something.

Just try going here and entering your e-mail: https://gameflight.com/request-password-change

I tried the password reset, but that still didn't get me the crucial email lnk to the pledge manager. Then I did a search of my email using the words "pledge manager" and found the email in my junk folder. I actually saw that email days ago, because I often give my junk folder a quick glance in case something important slipped through. The email was sent by some completely unfamiliar sender but happened to be the actual pledge manager link for the Enormity kickstarter. So I managed my pledge and all is good now.

I've been doing really well this year so far ... in not backing any new ones since Enormity and Lands of Evershade late last year
I have looked at a good number but always found good reasons why not to back - having soooo many unplayed games plus 5.5 kickstarters still to arrive are always the top two reasons.
I was initially very interested in the Reichbusters Reloaded project to get some updated rules and extra scenarios for my existing game but for nearly €100 to get the smallest/cheapest upgrade pledge that is not going to happen, and after reading the rules I think I prefer the original rules with a few designer sanctioned house rules anyway.
There is also the new reprint of This War of Mine coming up, I again have the original kickstarter but getting a new copy with fixed and expanded expansions may be a draw (I can always sell my current copy) - but I'm thinking the price is going to be high as they bling it up so I likely will just keep my existing copy (it has a lot more plays in it yet anyway).

And on the subject of boardgames produced in China .... Trump has really ensured that the age of cheap boardgames, slowly disappearing for everyone, has just evaporated for US residents.
Monolith are reviewing how much extra they are going to have to charge US backers (they, last week, said they would cover 10 of the 20% tariff - I don't know why as they don't cover any other countries taxes and such) but this week is a completely new world for boardgame producers !
And Ares Games have already produced an update this week for their game that is about to be delivered addressing this
www.kickstarter.com/projects/ares-games/...egends/posts/4356895