(or here’s a list of what launched yesterday that might deserve a closer look)

Project: AracKhan Wars

Designers: Mickaël Bour, Robert Palmer

Artist: Robert Palmer

Publisher: Nothing But Games

Genre/Mechanisms: area majority/influence, area movement, betting and bluffing, card drafting, card game, card play conflict resolution, fantasy, grid movement, hand management, moving multiple units, novel-based, variable player powers, wargame, zone of control

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “AracKhan Wars is a tactical card game where 2 players battle for dominance in epic duels. Take control of a province of AracKhan and defy your opponent on the battlefield. Launch the assault with your army of 23 cards. Cast spells. Place your cards wisely and counter the plans of your opponent. Your skills as a strategist will be as critical as the value of your cards. There can be only one victor at the end of 9th and final round.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $58

All-In (w/shipping): $133

Campaign Ends: 6/30

Game Ships: Feb. 2022

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 165% with 20 days to go.

Project: Battle of GOG

Designer: Vitali Minin

Artist: Vitali Minin

Publisher: Crazzybox Inc

Genre/Mechanisms: abstract strategy, area majority/influence, command cards, dice, dice rolling, events, fantasy, grid coverage, grid movement, income, king of the hill, modular board, moving multiple units, mythology, worker placement with dice workers, zone of control

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “A light strategy, area control and resource management board game with heavy player interaction. The game challenges all family members to find 5 sacred scrolls as they battle over the ancient land of Canaan. The bottom of the box is used as the game board. The map of the game can be assembled in numerous combinations, so each game session plays differently.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $59

All-In (w/shipping): $124, also includes GOG 40 cm statue

Campaign Ends: 7/15

Game Ships: Feb. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 19% with 34 days to go.

Project: Blooming Industry

Designer: Zach White (Bushido Breaker)

Artists: not credited

Publisher: Hill Goat (Bushido Breaker)

Genre/Mechanisms: farming, grid movement, pattern building, puzzle, tile placement, transportation, worker placement

Player Count: 2-6

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “The tulip industry is booming and being that you are a tulip farmer, it’s time to strike while the iron is hot. Your goal is to harvest, transport, and sell tulips from your farms to the market. You have to sell them quickly though. Tulip prices decrease as tulips of the same color are sold, so the quicker you can sell your tulips, the better.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $48

All-In (w/shipping): $48, same as above

Campaign Ends: 7/8

Game Ships: Dec. 2021

Funding Status: Currently at 24% with 27 days to go.

Project: Deliverance: The Game of Spiritual Warfare

Designer: Andrew Lowen

Artists: Yoann Boissonnet (Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Mansions of Madness Second Edition), Dan Maynard

Publisher: Lowen Games

Genre/Mechanisms: action points, adventure, campaign/battle card driven, card drafting, cooperative game, dice rolling, fantasy, fighting, grid movement, hand management, miniatures, modular board, religious, role playing, scenario/mission/campaign game, storytelling, tech trees/tech tracks, variable player powers

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “Deliverance is a cooperative tactical adventure board game about angels, demons, & the saints caught between. Take on the role of elite angelic warriors and discover the mystery of the demonic obsession with the small town of Fallbrook. Deliverance has a rich theme intricately woven into the gameplay, and offers a story-driven campaign and a highly replayable skirmish mode.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $68

All-In (w/shipping): $158

Campaign Ends: 7/8

Game Ships: July 2022

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 429% with 27 days to go.

Project: Edict: Solar Contention

Designers: Edward Mitchell, Allistair Mitchell

Artist: Dmitry Veseliy

Publisher: Rookstone

Genre/Mechanisms: economic, end game bonuses, events, movement points, moving multiple units, narrative choice/paragraph, ownership, race, resource to move, science fiction, space exploration, tech trees/tech tracks, territory building, variable player powers

Player Count: 2-5

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “A competitive strategy game where 2-5 players lead powerful organizations tasked with exploring and exploiting the solar system in the name of humanity.  To achieve victory, you must develop your capabilities in engineering, infrastructure, and management, as well as researching future tech and delivering resources vital to Earth. Granted a 4E licence by the United World Bank under the aegis of the Edict, these organisations represent powerful real-world factions, possessing unique abilities and strengths that give each a particular tactical edge. Edict is a non-combative 4E game (Explore, Exploit, Expand and Export) where your goal is to build a commercial empire to dominate the solar system.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $92

All-In (w/shipping): $149

Campaign Ends: 7/8

Game Ships: Jan. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 16% with 27 days to go.

Project: Jackpot Payout

Designer: Chip Beauvais (Chroma Cubes, Smoke & Mirrors, Universal Rule)

Artist: Michael T. Schroeder (The Abandons, Seven Bridges)

Publisher: Puzzling Pixel Games (The Abandons, Seven Bridges)

Genre/Mechanisms: card game, deck building

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

Summary: “Jackpot Payout combines the wild swings of fortune of slot machines with player-driven choices of deck-building games. Hit a jackpot by matching symbols on all three cards in play. Cards are worth their value in coins, but each card can only be scored once. Once a player receives 12 coins, the game end is triggered and a final round takes places where players have an opportunity to chain jackpots together!”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $46

All-In (w/shipping): $69

Campaign Ends: 7/2

Game Ships: Mar. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 19% with 21 days to go.

Project: Overstocked

Designer: Mandela Fernandez-Grandon (Glasgow)

Artist: Archie Edwards (Sarah’s Vision)

Publisher: Play For Keeps

Genre/Mechanisms: card game, commodity speculation, hand management, layering, pattern building, selection order bid

Player Count: 1-6

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “In Overstocked, players must stay up to date with the latest 90s toy crazes, filling their warehouse with the most in-demand toys, and avoiding stocking the least popular. Each turn, players place cards into either their personal warehouse, increasing the number of each toy they have to sell, or into the central demand, which is shared by all players and represents how many people want each kind of toy. At the end of the game, once everyone has played all the cards in their hand, players score points for the stock in their personal warehouse. The more demand there is for a toy, the more points it scores. However, the toy with the most demand scores negatively, so avoid overstocking at all costs.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $32

All-In (w/shipping): $32, same as above

Campaign Ends: 7/8

Game Ships: June 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 73% with 28 days to go.

Project: Skeptics

Designer: Jonathan Usiak

Artist: Jonathan Usiak (Coma Ward)

Publisher: Usiak Games & Designs

Genre/Mechanisms: cooperative game, dice, dice rolling, horror, murder/mystery, time track

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “Skeptics is a cooperative dice rolling game where players explore potentially haunted locations to prove the existence of ghosts. Players take on the role of Investigators gathering evidence of the paranormal. Investigators race against the clock exploring rooms and rolling dice to match icon sets to Search, Reveal, and Solve Clues. Each Clue will lead Investigators one step closer to revealing the Ghost. Environment Cards are drawn every hour, which may have hazards and conditions that will impede the Investigators’ progress. Investigators win if the existence of the Ghost can be proven in time, but Investigators fail if time runs out.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $66

All-In (w/shipping): $66, same as above

Campaign Ends: 6/29

Game Ships: Feb. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 57% with 27 days to go.

Project: Traps

Designer: Emre Kocahasan

Artist: Matt Maggio

Publisher: Koca Games

Genre/Mechanisms: action/event, adventure, animals, card drafting, catch the leader, chaining, dice rolling, roll/spin and move, that that, turn order: role order

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “In Traps, players take control of a team of two unique adventurers. Each team is desperate to escape the jungle the first. You’ll use a variety of cards and special abilities to make it happen. Draw from hundreds of unique cards to help you make your escape. Use your characters’ special abilities to incite game changing moments. Plan your perfect strategy (and a few backup strategies) to stay one step ahead.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $52

All-In (w/shipping): $52, same as above

Campaign Ends: 6/29

Game Ships: Feb. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 13% with 18 days to go.

Project: XYZ Quarks: Season 1

Designer: Robert Fisk (Bait & Switch), Adam McCrimmon (ArchRavels, Borderlands: Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party, Cultivate, RobotLab: The Card Game), Joe Slack (King of Indecision, Kingdom’s Candy: Monsters, Relics of Rajavihara, Zoo Year’s Eve)

Artist: Darryl T. Jones (Dobbers: Quest for the Key, Freshwater Fly, Lions of Lydia, Zoo Year’s Eve), Lauren Rutledge (Bait & Switch), Rochelle Steder (ArchRavels, Cultivate)

Publisher: XYZ Game Labs, Inc. (ArchRavels, Inoka, RobotLab: The Card Game)

Genre/Mechanisms: bluffing, semi-cooperative game (Bait & Switch), abstract strategy, card drafting, card game, connections, end game bonuses, tile placement (Cultivate), bluffing, hand management, push your luck (Zoo Year’s Ever)

Player Count: 3-9 (Bait & Switch), 1-4 (Cultivate), 2-6 (Zoo Year’s Eve)

Solo Mode: no (Bait & Switch, Zoo Year’s Eve), yes (Cultivate)

Complexity: light

Risk: medium-high

Summary: “Bait & Switch is a two-part social deduction game for 3-9 players. Each round players will have to decide which crew to join to pull off a heist. After the heist, they’ll either keep their alliances and split the loot, or try to double cross the crew and keep it all for themselves. Played over 5 rounds, the winner is the player closest to 25 points without going over.

Cultivate is a spatial card-laying game for in which players draft succulents, house plants, and cacti, then arrange them in their gardens. During the game, they’ll create their personal gardens by laying and tucking cards, buying and placing trinkets, and covering all those pesky bugs. Score points by creating sets of plants with similar growing conditions and carefully arranging your plot.

Every year the animals at the Miller County Zoo have to watch the zookeepers party all night long on New Year’s Eve while they’re stuck in their enclosures. This year the animals are crashing the party. Penguins, elephants, monkeys and giraffes are determined to get into this party, while the lions and snakes do what they can to ruin the fun. Each player starts with 3 cards and takes turns attempting to sneak their animals into the party by playing those cards face-down. If someone calls your bluff, you take an extra card. If not, they’re in. The first player to get rid of all of their cards wins.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $21, one game

All-In (w/shipping): $39, all three games

Campaign Ends: 6/30

Game Ships: Apr. 2022

Funding Status: Currently at 39% with 20 days to go.