It’s been a busy couple of months for tabletop crowdfunding! I’ve had a string of titles to review in September and October, and on top of those I keep seeing even more fantastic projects that are either running now or launching soon. Here’s a quick look at the current slate, which includes some great blasts from the past, as well some innovative new ideas.
New to crowdfunding? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Dale of Merchants: 10-Year Anniversary Edition from Snowdale Design
I’ve written about this fantastic deck-building game before: there were three small sets, as well as large-box collection that stored everything, featuring animalfolk merchants setting up their market stalls. Each animal had its own play style, and every time you play you can use a different mix of animals. Well, for the 10th anniversary of the initial release, Snowdale Design is doing a big overhaul of the game, with re-worked cards (and artwork), redesigned storage solutions, and even more animalfolk added to the collection. If you already own any previous Dale of Merchants titles, you can even get a discount on this one! But don’t dilly-dally: this project closes tomorrow!
The Lord of the Rings: King’s Gambit from Restoration Games
Okay, chances are that if you’re interested in this one you’re probably already backing it, judging from the $1.9 million (as of this writing) that they’ve already raised so far, but just in case you hadn’t, here’s the scoop. Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit was originally published in 2000 and was a highly rated game featuring simultaneous battles from The Phantom Menace, but it’s been out of print for a long time. (Used copies cost upwards of $400.)
Restoration Games, which licenses out of print games and brings them back to life in new forms, has taken the multi-battlefield mechanics and applied them to The Lord of the Rings. It’s no wonder this has been so highly anticipated, and Restoration Games has a good track record of delivering excellent quality components and adding excellent tweaks to beloved games.
Portland Oregon Trail from 9th Level Games
If you’re from my generation, you probably played a lot of Oregon Trail as a kid, dying from dysentery and foolishly attempting to ford rivers. Here’s an RPG that dives into that nostalgia, but with a modern twist: you’re trying to get to Portland, Oregon, and along the way you’ll face diseases and rivers, but mostly capitalism. It’s a one-shot storytelling game that doesn’t require a GM, and uses an interesting Polymorph system where your specific polyhedral die represents your character.
Period Party from ThunderDay Games
It’s a trick-taking game featuring mythical creatures and … menstruation? Yep! This is a game that takes an often taboo topic and puts it front and center: it acknowledges the messy realities of periods but also makes you laugh with the juxtaposition of a manticore having a rough time or Medusa shopping for tampons. The fact that so many cisgender men grow up without understanding or being able to talk about periods is atrocious, so I’m happy to see games like this getting funded: perhaps it can be just one small part of starting some much-needed conversations. Plus the game itself looks pretty clever!
Defenders of the Realm: Definitive Edition from Greater Than Games
Defenders of the Realm was first published in 2010 by Eagle-Gryphon Games—it’s a sprawling cooperative fantasy game that I never managed to get my hands on, though it’s been on my “want to play” list ever since then. Greater Than Games worked the designer Richard Launius to completely rebuild the game from the ground up, and it looks very enticing. One surprising thing about this campaign is that the $60 tier gets you all of the gameplay, and the higher pledge tier is strictly for upgraded components, which cuts back on the FOMO if you can’t splurge for the deluxe stuff.
Nights of King Ludd from Jim Dietz
Okay, this Kickstarter campaign already ended, but you can still do late pledges through the publisher’s website here. It’s a cooperative game set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and you play as Luddites—the secret societies working to rage against the machines of capitalism. This one is a subject that I find fascinating: I’ve long known the term “Luddite” used as a derogatory nickname for people who are hesitant to adopt the latest technology, people who are behind the times or stand in the way of progress. But over the years as I’ve read more about the actual history, I find myself agreeing more and more with the Luddites, who opposed the way that human labor was devalued by those who held the capital. Nights of King Ludd looks like a really intriguing way to delve into the subject.
Bride of Spooktacular from Level 99 Games
Spooktacular was one of our top 10 games last year—you play as movie monsters, terrorizing moviegoers with your special powers. Bride of Spooktacular brings 10 more monsters into play, and Double Feature adds 20 new boards for the original monsters so you can have even more variety in your gameplay. If you love monster movies, you should get a ticket for this creature feature!
An Infamous Traffic: Second Edition from Cole Wehrle
An Infamous Traffic is another well-regarded game that deals with a difficult subject: the opium trade in 19th century China. Designer Cole Wehrle is known for his ability to create games that allow players to engage and wrestle with the subject matter, rather than just celebrating or glorifying the actions. I haven’t played An Infamous Traffic myself but I’ve heard about it and it’s definitely on my list to try at some point. The original was published by Hollandspiele and was a limited print run using print-on-demand publishing, and this edition will feature better components and reworked gameplay.
ARCTICA by This Way
A couple years ago I wrote about ICE, a board game about digging through layers of ice to search for relics from an ancient civilization. The layered hex tiles make for a visually stunning game, and was a great way to represent the players delving down through the ice. ARCTICA, their latest title, is about developing your Arctic ecosystems. This time, the innovation is a gear-driven player board, where you’ll place tokens and then turn the gears to represent time passing. When an animal token drops down, that means it’s been born and can be placed into the world. I haven’t played this one but I’m definitely interested to see how those gears work in actual play.
DECKO: Pistachio from Gem Games
I mentioned DECKO in my crowdfunding roundup a year ago, and if you didn’t back it then you might be kicking yourself, because it has turned out to be one of my new favorite games. It’s a mash-up of poker and deck-building games that may remind you a little of the videogame Balatro, though it really is its own thing. Each player starts with the same small basic deck of 14 cards in the hopes of taking home the most chips by the end of the game. Along the way, you’ll buy cards from the market with game-breaking abilities, as well as jokers tied to specific actions like calling, raising, or folding. This new campaign, launching tomorrow, includes both a reprint of the base game as well as the Pistachio expansion, which adds a new market deck and jokers. I have no regrets about backing the original and I’m excited to see what this expansion has in store!
Tidal Blades 2: Wardian Sky from Druid City Games
The first Tidal Blades game was a competitive worker-placement game, a tournament where players were competing to become the next Tidal Blades, defenders of an island community on the edge of a monster-spawning rift. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders was a totally different type of game, but set in the same world. Each of the characters has its own action deck, which gets upgraded and customized over the course of the cooperative campaign, and the gameplay involves playing cards to your own 3×3 grid, activating rows or columns to move and fight enemies. Some of the scenarios are straightforward battles, but there are several other types of missions, too, from escorting merchants to leaping across dangerous acid. The campaign format also allowed for a deeper story, and each of the characters has their own story arc to follow.
Tidal Blades 2: Wardian Sky is an expansion that adds 10 more scenarios and a new hero and continues the storyline. It’s launching tomorrow on Kickstarter. My gaming group played through the first campaign (about 18 missions) in late 2024 and we had a blast with it. I’m excited to revisit the world of Naviri!
Dice Throne Nexus from Roxley Games
We’ve covered several of the Dice Throne titles here at GeekDad—you can check out the original here, which was funded on Kickstarter a decade ago! Since then there have been several expansions, including characters from the Marvel universe and even an expansion that turned it into a cooperative campaign. This Kickstarter campaign is for Dice Throne Nexus, and it moves the franchise from the high fantasy setting to technofantasy. There will be four new characters introduced in this campaign—so come back tomorrow and check this one out!
Ordinary Magic from Unstable Games
We’ll close out with this one: it launches next week on October 20, and features three games designed by Marceline Leiman, set in a cozy magical world. You can check out announcements of the three titles: The Curious Little Bookshop, Lifted Spirits, and Happy Heart Cafe. Arrange books on a shelf, help customers get to the right floor on the elevator, and serve up tasty treats in your cafe. Unstable Games always has really adorable artwork for their games, and these three are the first titles from their new Ordinary Magic game studio. They look to be family-friendly games that play in under an hour.
Arctica
