Designer: Jon Merchant

Artist: Jon Merchant

Publisher: Jon Merchant

Genre/Mechanisms: 2 players, hand management, tile placement, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Squire for Hire is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total almost 14x the initial funding goal with 6 days left to go on the campaign!

Player Count: 1-2

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: light

Risk: high

What It’s About:  An 18-card card game where players use Squires to collect loot useful to their hero, with a card placement/tile placement mechanic similar to that in Ryan Laukat’s Roam.

How It Works: On their turn, players select one of the two loot cards from either side of the story card, and must place it over an existing loot card so that an item is completely covered by one of the items on the new card. The covered item can now be used to fulfill the story card’s quest. Conversely, players can also use the total item value from their exposed items to fulfill the story card. Each time a story card is fulfilled, it flips to the next story card. Once all of the loot cards have been claimed, the Squire with the post points (who has collected the most items for their adventurer) wins the game.

Comparisons:  I’ve already mentioned this in the “What It’s About” section, but the gameplay is very similar to Ryan Laukat’s Roam, a Kickstarter from earlier in the year that will be delivering soon. Also, they’re both light, fast-playing card games. And the cute creatures featured in the art also calls to mind Laukat’s Red Raven games, as well as the forest animals of Root.

What Should I Pledge?:
$10 Squire for Hire: the game, the KS Exclusive Squire Card, digital wallpaper, and digital score sheets, and free U.S. shipping.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
The KS Exclusive Squire Card.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $10 for the Squire for Hire pledge and… that’s it! The pledge also comes with free U.S. shipping.

Squire for Hire completes its Kickstarter on Monday, September 30th and tentatively ships in January 2020 .