Designer: Tom Butler (Patriots & Redcoats, The Pirate Republic)

Artists: Nicolas Avallone (Quartermaster General; Quartermaster General: 1914; Quartermaster General: Victory or Death- The Peloponnesian War); Jeff Brown (Doomtown: Reloaded; Fallen; Gardens of Babylon); Asia Kryczkowska (1066, Tears to Many Mothers; Gloom of Kilforth)

Publisher: Green Feet Games (Patriots & Redcoats, The Pirate Republic)

Genre/Mechanisms: deduction, dice rolling, miniatures, partnerships, point to point movement, resource management, time track, variable player powers, worker placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Paradise Lost is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 2.5x the initial funding goal.

Player Count: 2-5

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About: A deduction game (not unlike Clue) featuring characters from fairy tales and fables, worker placement mechanics, miniatures, and plenty of card play.

How It Works:  Over the course of the game, players must determine which Villain the Water Witch has summoned, and which Weapon will defeat them. But unlike a game like Clue that is based on pure deduction, Paradise Lost uses worker placement spaces to gain various resources and trigger various actions, as well as methods to gain information using both resources and card draws.

Comparisons: Tantrum House compares it to Clue meets Tokaido with a fairy tale theme. I suppose you could make a case for Paradise Lost being an evolution of the deduction game (with additional mechancs) in much the same way that something like Shadow Hunters is a next-step for social deduction games. There’s a lot of extra “stuff” in this deduction game, from the added mechanics to the minis; and in the Collector’s Edition, steel miniatures. While some may see these additions as excessive for the genre, shouldn’t deductions enthusiasts be able to have a blinged-out game in a world where we’re seeing a never-ending conveyor belt of blinged-out dungeon crawls and blinged-out dudes-on-a-map games?

What Should I Pledge?:
$59 Core Box: includes the Core Box & all unlocked stretch goals, and free shipping to the U.S.
$89 Collector’s Edition: includes the Core Box pledge, plus 8 unique steel miniatures, 30 metal coins, 5 laminate boards & markers, the Holographic Water Witch Envelope, a logo-printed cotton bag & 2 plastic resource containers, an extra Fable with miniature & steel miniature, exclusive hero, villain & weapon cards, and free shipping to the U.S.
$129 Gift Giver: this is a full Core Box pledge and a full Collector’s Edition pledge combined, with free shipping to the U.S. You’ll be getting 2 copies of the game, but only one will be the Collector’s Edition.

Add-Ons:
$21 Neoprene Mat with 3 new Fables, cards only.
$16 Collector’s Add-On: 2 new Fables, including miniatures.
$25 Core Box Add-On: all 3 new Fables, including miniatures.

KS Exclusives:
Seemingly none.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $89 for the Collector’s Edition, $21 for the Neoprene Mat, and $16 for the Collector’s Add-On, for a grand total of $126.

Paradise Lost completes its Kickstarter on Friday, May 10th and tentatively ships in November 2019.