It’s a busy week on Kickstarter! Besides the launch of Legendary Creatures, there are a few other projects that have shown up. Here are a couple you may want to keep your eye on.
Action Cats!
Action Cats! is a silly little card game that Keith Baker and Jenn Ellis made to cheer up friends over the holidays, and now they’re bringing it to the rest of the world. It combines cute photos of cards with funny make-your-own sentences.
Each card has a cat on one side and two halves of a sentence on the other. The judge puts a cat photo in front of the other players, who each use two cards from their hands to make a sentence that they think best fits that cat. Grey words can be changed, Mad Libs–style, to better fit the photo. The judge picks their favorite, and the winner gets the cat card as a reward.
It’s a simple game, but it’s funny and my kids enjoyed it. I normally don’t play a lot of Apples-to-Apples–style games because they’re so subjective, but the appeal of this one is from the adorable cat pictures, plus the fact that the sentences are a lot like Chuck Norris-isms. That, and it’s kid-friendly, unlike some other black-and-white Apples-to-Apples–style games that you may be familiar with.
Bonus for you cat owners: if you back the game, you can also submit a photo of your cat to include in the game!
Epoch: The Awakening
I reviewed Epoch: The Awakening when it launched in June, but designer Marc Neidlinger pulled the project and decided to rework the campaign based on some feedback. The new campaign has lower shipping costs and a lower funding goal. Neidlinger has also refined the gameplay, though I haven’t had a chance to see those new changes myself yet. Read my original review, and take a look at the new campaign!
Beasts of Balance New Edition & Expansion
You may remember Beasts of Balance from my previous write-ups: it’s a dexterity stacking game that combines plastic creatures with digital play—you scan the pieces with the plinth, which then tells the app what you have, and then you’ll score points and create new creatures as you balance them in a precarious tower. The expansion will come with three new creatures: the anglerfish, chameleon, and flamingo. (Plus if you back in the first 24 hours, you’ll get an extra ghost crab for free!) There’s also a new Legendary creature, MAGMAAARGH the Cantankerous.
The expansion also adds competitive mode: each player takes control of one of the regions (Land, Sea, or Sky) and tries to fill their region with beasts by smiting and stealing from their opponents. There will be battle cards that can be scanned by the plinth for special abilities.
If you like stacking games, be sure to take a look at this one—I’m excited for what it will add to the experience!
Ducklings
Finally, I’ll end with Ducklings, a 4-player-only game that I just discovered today while cruising the tabletop section of Kickstarter. It’s a team-based game about getting your ducklings across a dangerous path to a new home. Fair warning, though: it looks like the sort of game that may be emotionally devastating, because you’ll have to make choices when your ducklings are threatened—do you sacrifice yourself to protect your ducklings, or protect yourself so that you can get the rest of your family to safety? Yikes! But it also sounds fascinating: a board game that really makes you think about the moral consequences of your decisions.
