Interesting Kickstarter Projects

Jealousy crisis averted: my Dreadball package arrived today.

The rulebook is indeed pretty -- I'd been paging through the PDF version happily, but the actual physical artifact is very nicely printed.

Also, goddamn is that a lot of miniatures.

Despite the various bitching on Mantic's forum and the Kickstarter comments, I'm really happy with how everything looks, especially the MVP figures.

Glad to hear Dreadball worked out so well for you guys. Pretty great bang for the buck on that one.

Yeah, the package is pretty jam-packed, and there's more stuff coming next year.

The sad thing is that I'm now thinking about whether I want to order one of the fancy MDF or acrylic pitches...

I have an acrylic one. It has a small break - one of the scoring zones - but happily it all fits so snugly it doesn't matter as long as I don't lose the piece. I can see the whole thing being fairly brittle though. Nice of them to send a PDF of the game cards as I won't be getting my extra pack until next year, so I can host 3 games at once as per my previous plan.

My mini complaints are as follows:

1) They're talking shit about the whole "15 minutes to set up and go" when it comes to putting these models together. The VeerMyn in particular are fiddly as hell.

2) The hex bases (which were an extra) are, imo, a necessity. Some of the models (VeerMyn again) simply won't stand up on their own unless you glue them to a base. I suppose you could weight them down with something if you needed to.

Right now I'm considering a fancy magnet solution for being able to swap team numbers around on the models.

Yeah, I've spent at least 15 minutes just cleaning mold lines off of my Forge Fathers and haven't even started on the other teams yet.

They always underestimate that, though -- they make a big deal about how quickly their sprues of Kings of War figures can be put together, but it's really a "takes 15 minutes per sprue if you've put together 20 sprues of them before and don't mind if it's not all that perfect" thing.

This is also pretty Mantic-standard. Dwarf King's Hold, which is in other ways an awesome game, has the same problem with its figures. In order to be able to play without everything falling over all the time you pretty much have to buy an extra couple packs of the square KoW plastic bases.

Oh yeah, this just occurred to me: When did they send out the cards PDF? I don't think I got one.

The 14th. Did you order an extra set?

Feedback? OK: Why are you spamming the tabletop Kickstarter thread with news of the ugliest and most annoying iOS game ever?

I hope you paid someone a lot of money to produce that video, and a lot more to license that clipart and music, because I want you to have a lot less money.

His first question is the most important one to answer, btw.

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/policy-regarding-self-promotion-kickstarters-etc.3753/

You didn't even read the self-promotion policy, did you?

No, of course not, because you don't give a shit about this community other than as a tool to market your awful-looking mobile game.

You couldn't even be bothered to find the right subforum here. What part of 'Traditional Non-Video Gaming Gaming' was unclear?

I've been following the Up Front stuff throughout the Kickstarter and decided to re-up at the $40 level. I actually found someone who wants to play, and there's no way to untangle the legal stuff that Valley may or may not be involved with. The only thing I know for sure is that they are paying people right now to develop new art for the game, and it looks great. All of the stretch rewards are now unlocked, so for $40 you get 1,614 cards (I counted) and a canvas bag. Or nothing, if they get their money seized, but at least if that happens I'll sink on a boat holding nearly 2000 other suckers.

The Russians and Japanese would be great, but I'll get them separately at CSI or whatever instead of forking over full retail for them. My guess is that this is going to be a debacle with all the art they have to do for it, so it's probably moot.

$35 shipping to the UK is painful :(

Holy crap, Rivet Wars looks awesome: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars

I love the art direction, and it's from the same folks who did Zombicide and Sedition Wars. Definitely keeping an eye on this one. They've already blown through most of the preliminary stretch goals on day one.

In like Flynn on that one.

There is no possible way I can avoid pledging for that.

For the miniature wargamers among us:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2037958218/beyond-the-gates-of-antares

Rick Priestley (Games Workshop legend) and his new sci-fi minis game. Worth reading the whole spiel, they're putting a lot of effort into this and into forming a community.

I'm torn on that one. It could be cool, but it also sounds really really ambitious, so I'm tempted to wait and see how it turns out before dropping real money on it,

Some of the mini designs are very 2e/early 3e 40k to me, specifically the Bottom two in each of the two batches of four pictures. Not that that's a bad thing.

It's a pretty interesting project, enough to get me tempted as a non-miniature-gamer. I particularly like the way they're giving you credits to pick an army rather than handing you one, although it'll be a bit of an administrative nightmare for them, I think. It's also pretty ambitious so I'm not sure about it myself.

Yeah, I'm steering clear for now. Wish them all the success they get but I don't have room for another high-modelcount minis game as it is.

I donno why it took me this long to do this.

For anyone concerned about the primary goal of the Kingdom Death sculpts and whether or not it's just a few pinups that look weird but the real goal is an awesome game packed with great monster minis, just do a GIS for Kingdom Death.

Once you find his Deviantart page, you'll understand that it's all about the lore! And the naked Samus Aran sculpts.

Yeah, the lengths nerds will go to in order to be able to pretend that there's nothing creepy about their hobbies is amazing sometimes.

Yeah man, those fuckin' nerds.

I can't defend this on the merits but I am prepared to feign offense at a violation of the Geek Social Fallacies I hold dear.

Give it a try:





Video 2 notes:
4:30: KILL ME NOW.

14:40: I think this is supposed to be a childbirth image but it's not making masses of sense. What is with her hip, for a start? Why is his right foot on her pelvis? Why is everyone running around in panic?

End: he appears to have at least one Japanese resin girl figurine. That explains a few things.


Turns out you were right.

I was initially intrigued by the concepts, and it does have some cool miniatures ignoring the 'sexy times' ones. The videos have left me unconvinced. It looks like a mess of complicated and semi-complicated systems bolted together without the structure to support them all. Additionally, having multiple potential miniature configurations without providing miniatures that can easily be reconfigured is a a bit rubbish. I suppose most mini manufacturers do that (and magnets/pegs exist) but I don't think any are going for the MH-level excesses of gear, particularly as they seem to be running the WYSIWYG miniatures rules.

Yeah, I was put off a little by some of the minis / artwork, and massively by the lack of rules and no clear picture of what the game would actually be like.

Test game!

Aw, dang. Now someone's going to go and steal the Rivet Wars IP out from under them. And now they've spoiled all the surprises in the game for us. What are these guys, amateurs?

(For those who haven't seen the BGG thread, the Kingdom Death guy claims he won't release the rules because he doesn't want someone stealing his ideas, and he doesn't like to talk about the mechanisms and playtesting because doing so will ruin the experience for everyone. I have less than zero confidence in his game design abilities.)

Kingdom Death really looks like it ought to be digital, not a boardgame. I actually like some/most of those features, although the whole "glue your current loadout together" idea makes no sense whatsoever. I also loved how he explained how everything was meant to be QUICK and SIMPLE even though it clearly isn't.

Also, Baker, you're going to hate Rivet Wars - that string of dice rolls at the end of the test game must have had you in tears :)

I agree, it should be digital as it is basically three videogames bolted together.

Rivet Wars looks like Advance Wars. A lot like Advance Wars.

Kingdom of Death? What a terrible name. Did he auto-generate it? Rivet Wars looks neat - hurry up, oldest son, get older, quicker, so I have someone to play with!

It's telling that Brain Damage is an actual stat in the game.

Ha! That video did put me on the fence, but they handled it about as well as they could have. I often prefer systems where you throw defense dice of some sort, but that would put the number of rolls and result checks into Purely Insane territory so I'm glad they didn't do that here. The system they came up with to improve your odds is elegant, though the odds weren't transparent to me so I had to calculate them. You only hit on a 5 or 6, so when you're throwing 1d6 you have about a 33% chance. Up it to 2d6 and you have a 55% chance. 3d6 is about a 70% chance. It should come with an odds chart because calculating the chance of getting a 5 or 6 on 3d6 ain't intuitive at all for math idiots like me, but I like how they ramp up without adding complexity (and that the results can be read instantly no matter how many dice you throw). These guys know their business.

I also like what they've done with the action cards and the mission objectives. It appears to be a fun little beer-n-pretzel game that got polished like the Queen's silver. Why didn't these guys do the components for The Ares Project, which actually deserves them and would be glorious with loads of minis?

It's worth revisiting his explanation of the artistic choices in question, and perhaps catching a whiff of what some in the BGG community are cooking in terms of WMRATH. That's why I mostly stick to technical issues there, I think.

heh

Admirable, a clear demonstration that he's thinking deeply about every aspect of his boob board game.

So, I don't know how many of you might be in the Duluth area, but a good friend of mine and her husband are trying to start up a tabletop gaming convention over there. They've got a kickstarter up, so if you're interested or just wanna help out, then here's the link

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1947923695/berserkon-deathless

I know it's not for, y'know, a game, but it is sorta related.

Edit:

Okay so I clicked the link for that and i don't know what disturbs me more; the fact that he has literally no idea how breasts work, or the fact that he's got a fucked up hand fetish. O_o

The latest word from Ace of Aces is that he hasn't heard from his artist in over a month.

So.

Yeah.

I'm never getting this goddam game.

Storyrealms, on the other hand, got hit with a C&D and have since changed their name to Storm Hollow.

I'm wishing I'd put that money toward Zombicide and Sedition Wars. At least then I could have resold them for giant piles of cash.

I still have a pretty good feeling about Storm Hollow. I know they're disappointed, but I think the new name is a little better.

Rivet Wars closed on $582k (they asked for $25k). I decided not to go for the extra $50 Battle of Brighton expansion, because it's at least a year off and I'm not that certain about the game that I want to be pushing my final total over $200 with shipping.

I ended up grabbing it, because I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to game add-ons.