Hang onto your wallets, folks! It’s time for a Kickstarter tabletop roundup.
There are always more games on Kickstarter than I could possibly review (and that you could possibly back), but I like highlighting a few that caught my attention, even if I don’t end up backing everything. After all, not everyone is looking for the same sorts of things when it comes to games. Here are a few current projects that I think are worth a closer look.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer, and visit our Kickstarter curated page for more projects we love.
Tangled Timelines
Tangled Timelines is a small set-collection game with a time-travel theme. The deck consists of 13 different alphabetically-named heroes, with 4 copies of each one (novice, apprentice, master, and legendary) representing that hero across different points in time. The hero you play lets you rescue other heroes from the timeline that match it—whether in name or skill—but then you leave your hero in the timeline, where other players may rescue it. Each hero has its own ability, too, which triggers if you have initiative for the round. It looks like a quick, clever game, and the artwork is excellent.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itbboardgames/newspeak
Newspeak
This social deduction game pits Mods against Dissenters in a dystopian world where everything is supposed to be happy and wonderful. Dissidents try to use codewords to agree on a meeting spot, while the Mods listen in to the conversation and try to head them off. The Dissidents score if the majority of them show up at the same location, but the Mods can remove locations if they catch any Dissidents. I saw a preview of this at Gen Con 2018, and it looks intriguing!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1898315323/684010611?ref=736464&token=c6e0dc20
Shake Up
Shake Up is a reverse deck-building game: each player starts with a full deck, representing a bloated tech company, and must downsize it to make it lean and profitable. I like the idea of a deck-building game that’s all about weeding out cards you don’t want to build an efficient game engine, and the theme seems spot-on.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meromorphgames/922809318?ref=643587&token=ac700f58
The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below
The Shipwreck Arcana is a cooperative logic-based game that GeekDad Robin Brooks reviewed during its first Kickstarter. I backed it because of his review, and have really enjoyed it—but it has been sold out for a while and hard to find. Stars Below is a small, 5-card expansion to The Shipwreck Arcana that adds some new mandatory effects and new powers, and this Kickstarter campaign will also include a reprint of the base game, which is great news if you missed it the first time around.
Aside from these, I’ve got a few other prototypes lined up for review that I’m excited about. Resonym Games (publishers of Visitor in Blackwood Grove) have a puzzle-based assembly line game called Mechanica, Gamelyn Games will be launching their latest Tiny Epic game, and Quality Beast (of Seize the Bean) has an abstract strategy game called Towers of the Sun. All of these will be launching in February!
