Designers: Giorgos Eleftheriadis (Fired Up! Eternal Moments), Theofilos Koutroubis (Fired Up! Eternal Moments)

Artists: Mihajlo Dimitrievski (Architects of the West Kingdom, Coloma, Dig Your Way Out, Margraves of Valeria, Raiders of the North Sea, Valeria: Card Kingdoms, Villages of Valeria, Zoocracy), Niko Rovakis (Say Whaaat?!)

Publisher: Drawlab Entertainment (Project: ELITE, Sherlock: Last Call, When I Dream)

Genre/Mechanisms: betting/wagering, dice rolling, fighting, miniatures, simultaneous action selection, sports

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Fired Up is almost fully-funded, and should reach funding by the end of the Kickstarter campaign.  In fact, pledges currently total 89% of the funding goal with 6 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 2-5

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About:  A re-design of FIRED UP! Eternal Moments, an arena fighter where players are spectators, betting on & influencing the potential winners; with new art by The Mico & Niko Rovakis.

How It Works: Games last 4 rounds, and each round includes the Influence Phase and the Battle Phase. During the beginning of the Influence Phase, players select 2 of their 4 Highlight cards, then roll the Influence Dice. They can re-roll any number of the dice one time. The player must then use at least one of their rolled dice, either taking the depicted action, or discarding it. Play continues clockwise, with each player re-rolling all of their dice each turn, and then executing one die action. Dice actions include: Buffing a Fighter, Increasing a Fighter’s Morale, Increasing a Fighter’s Speed, Changing a Fighter’s Target or Locking or Unlocking said Target, Doubling an Action, or saving an Social actions to be used at the end of the phase for Betting or Multitasking (flipping a die). During The Battle Phase the Fighters execute all of the dice actions that have been assigned to them a la programming, and these actions are executed in order of initiative. Players Highlight cards contain 2 or 3 win conditions, with the more difficult ones paying out higher rewards. At the end of the 4th round, or once all fighters have been eliminated, end game scoring occurs and the player with the most victory points wins.

Comparisons: Gameplay boils down to dice rolling and competitive programming actions. I’m having a bit of trouble coming up with a solid comparison, but Dice Throne has players using dice rolls paired with player abilities in combat. Fired Up feels a bit like Dice Throne combined with the programming and combat of something like Robo Rally.

What Should I Pledge?:
$61 Front Row Seat: includes the Kickstarter version of the game, the modified Kickstarter box, the Agility Expansion, and Game Trayz.
$91 VIP: the Front Row Seat rewards, plus the Monster Expansion, the Neoprene Dice Tray, 10 Premium Enamel Fired Up Tokens, and 3 velvet pouches.
$135 Premium Front Row Seat: the Front Row Seat rewards, plus all 8 included fighter miniatures come pre-painted.
$196 Premium VIP: the VIP rewards, plus all 12 included fighter miniatures come pre-painted (4 of them are from the Monster Expansion only included at the VIP pledge level).

Add-Ons:
$25 The Monster Expansion

KS Exclusives:
The Kickstarter version contains the Agility Expansion, which includes 2 extra fighters. It appears the retail version will only include 6 fighters.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $196 for the Premium VIP Pledge plus $18 in shipping for a total of $214.

Fired Up completes its Kickstarter on Wednesday, September 18th and tentatively ships in April 2020.