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

Project: Aeon’s End: Past and Future

Designers: Sydney Engelstein (Aeon’s End: Outcasts, Space Cadets: Dice Duel, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition), Nick Little (Aeon’s End: Legacy, Aeon’s End: Outcasts, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition), Kevin Riley (Aeon’s End, Aeon’s End: Legacy, Aeon’s End: The New Age, Aeon’s End: Outcasts, Aeon’s End: War Eternal)

Artists: Gong Studios (Aeon’s End, Aeon’s End: The New Age, Aeon’s End: War Eternal, Fields of Green, Tiny Towns), Justine Nortjé (Ripple Rush, Second Chance, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition)

Publisher: Indie Boards & Cards (Aeon’s End, Aeon’s End: Legacy, Aeon’s End: War Eternal, The Resistance, The Resistance: Avalon)

Genre/Mechanisms: card game, cooperative game, deck building, expansion, fantasy, fighting, hand management, open drafting, science fiction, solo / solitaire game, variable phase order, variable player powers

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: low

Summary: “Two interconnected storylines take players back in time, and hundreds of years into the future, in an exciting new expansion for Aeon’s End.

Aeon’s End is a cooperative game that explores the deck-building genre with a number of innovative mechanisms, including a variable turn order system that simulates the chaos of an attack, and deck management rules that require careful planning with every discarded card. The survivors of a long-ago invasion have taken refuge in the forgotten underground city of Gravehold. There, the desperate remnants of society have learned that the energy of the very breaches the beings use to attack them can be repurposed through various gems, transforming the malign energies within into beneficial spells and weapons to aid their last line of defense: the breach mages.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $84

All-In (w/shipping): $535

Campaign Ends: 6/24

Game Ships: Jan. 2023

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 808% with 15 days to go.

Project: Dinositters!

Designers: Joel Bodkin (Open Ocean, Winterhaven Woods), Maxwell Freud

Artist: Joel Bodkin (Open Ocean, Winterhaven Woods)

Publisher: Featherstone Games (Open Ocean, Winterhaven Woods)

Genre/Mechanisms: animals, card game, connections, prehistoric, race, tile placement, worker placement

Player Count: 2-6

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “Dinositters! is an entry weight worker placement puzzle game in which players take on the role of two teenage dino-siblings competing against the other families to keep the newly hatched babies fed and entertained until your parents return. Each turn, players will place or move one of their siblings to gather resources or add hatchlings from the nursery to their nest. Players earn happiness by feeding hatchlings their favorite foods, finding friends for them to play with, and completing lava goals. Whenever a player adds their ninth hatchling, a lava space is empty, or three nursery spaces are empty, every other player gets one last turn before adding up final scores. The family with the most happiness wins.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $45

All-In (w/shipping): $65

Campaign Ends: 6/28

Game Ships: Mar. 2023

Funding Status: Currently at 59% with 19 days to go.

Project: First in Flight

Designers: Matthew O’Malley (Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Between Two Cities, The Search for Planet X), Ben Rosset (Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Between Two Cities, Brew Crafters, The Search for Planet X)

Artists: Tomasz Bogusz (Cytosis: A Cell Biology Board Game, Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game, Subatomic: An Atom Building Game), Amelia Sales (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game, On the Origin of Species)

Publisher: Artana (Lovelace and Babbage, On the Origin of Species, Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents)

Genre/Mechanisms: aviation / flight, deck-building, industry / manufacturing, push your luck, race, racing, rondel, time track, variable player powers

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

Summary: “A push-your-luck, deck-building game about the race to early flight. Players take on the roles of the Wright Brothers, Samuel Langley, and other flight pioneers, racing to build and pilot the ‘flyers’ that preceded modern airplanes. Each player’s flyer design is represented by a deck of cards that they can steadily improve and refine, and which may include unknown design flaws that threaten their success. Flying is a blackjack-style challenge to test a design, break new records, and gain experience — hopefully without crashing. Then, players head back to the workshop to refine their flyers and improve their chances on future flights. There are dozens of available technologies, pilot skills, and friends in the field available for players to customize their own play style and strategy.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $48

All-In (w/shipping): $64

Campaign Ends: 6/30

Game Ships: Apr. 2023

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 172% with 21 days to go.

Project: The Fluffy Frontier

Designer: Björn Ekenberg

Artist: Anne Isaksson (Stationfall)

Publisher: Ion Game Design (Pax Porfiriana, Pax Renaissance, Pax Renaissance: 2nd Edition)

Genre/Mechanisms: action queue, animals, programmed movement, science fiction, set collection, space exploration, trading, variable player powers

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-low

Summary: “The animals on Earth are not what they seem. Actually they are different alien types, secretly running the space agencies right under the humans’ noses. In Fluffy Frontier you play as these animals, going on what officially appears to be a man made space mission to Halley’s comet in 2061, looking for life and gathering samples for the humans’ tests. You have collaboratively traveled to the comet in a spaceship that is now parked in close orbit above it. But there is more. You need to keep the great secret secret, not letting the humans realize that the Petsonauts are actually in charge of it all. While that charade is going on you’re trying to reach your own secret mission of retrieving certain alien supplies that your fellow aliens have sent to you using the interstellar transport system that comets actually are. Plan your strategy to find the needed supplies, smuggle these back to the ship, trade your finds with fellow animals, complete the necessary lab experiments, hurriedly competing to reach your goals before anyone else in the fluffy crew. And do it quickly, because the comet is heating up as it gets closer to the sun, increasingly releasing gas into space until it becomes impossible to operate on the surface. You have 5 weeks, make the best of it. May the fluff be with you.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $67

All-In (w/shipping): $67, same as above

Campaign Ends: 6/27

Game Ships: Mar. 2023

Funding Status: Currently at 38% with 18 days to go.

Project: Nut Hunt!

Designer: Jasper Burch

Artist: Steven Nickel

Publisher: Pine Island Games

Genre/Mechanisms: animals, dice, dice rolling, environmental, hand management, hexagon grid, network and route building, push your luck, set collection, territory building

Player Count: 1-5

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “A network or connections game where players complete runs of squirrels and squirrel nests. The game has elements of hand management, random movement, and area control. The game is played on a hex board with 19 tiles, each with unique place names. The tiles are randomized between each game for maximum replayability. What differentiates Nut Hunt is the Fox which roams the board at random. When the fox encounters squirrels, they must flee into adjacent hexes. The fox can foil plans, be used to disrupt opponents, or be worked into a master strategy scattering your own squirrels into more advantageous hexes. Every player turn has two mandatory actions: move the fox (and scatter squirrels) and forage for nuts. Then the player may take any one of three optional actions: recruit a squirrel (pay nuts to place a squirrel in a hex; hassle the fox (taunt the fox so that it moves into an adjacent territory; and scout for new objectives. Squirrel nests are created when a player controls three squirrels in the same territory. Nests are immune to fleeing from the fox. The game ends when a player places their 4th Nest. Points are scored based on runs completed (and lost for those failed), as well as number of nests built.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $46

All-In (w/shipping): $46, same as above

Campaign Ends: 6/30

Game Ships: Mar. 2023

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 121% with 12 days to go.

Project: Space Lane Trader Board Game

Designer: Jesper Bennhult

Artist: Aurelien Rantet

Publisher: Arctic Lynx Games

Genre/Mechanisms: action / event, contracts, dice rolling, economic, fighting, industry / manufacturing, market, miniatures, movement points, multiple maps, pick-up and deliver, point to point movement, scenario / mission / campaign game, science fiction, solo / solitaire game, team-based game, trading

Player Count: 1-8

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “You are playing a character in control of a cargo ship, trying to make a fortune in the newly opened up shipping trade. You buy and sell goods transporting them between planets within the Terran Federation, preferably to where demand and prices are high. The main objective of the game is to earn money (credits) faster than your competitors and return to show off your success. During the course of the game, you can fit your ship with upgrades that will make it go faster, attack harder and defend better – all with the goal to ensure that you manage to beat your competitors to the goal. You can also buy new ships with better capabilities, that can carry more goods for you, go faster or fit more upgrades. Your character will develop during the game – from the inexperienced person starting play at Terra station in the Solar system, to a grizzled space ship captain with much improved skills. You develop your character by spending Experience Points (XP), that are earned by drawing Event cards as the game progresses. The most obvious way of earning money is buying goods, transporting it to another planet and selling it there. Another way however, is attacking your competitors and take what should have been yours anyway. Winning combat against another player will allow you to either steal cargo from your opponent or take loot in the form of Debris cards. Debris cards can either give you valuable salvage that can be sold on planets, or the best equipment in the game that will improve your ship beyond the capabilities of your competitors. Not all parts of space are safe. Planets away from the most busy parts of space are characterized by a wild west mentality and the Terran Federation security forces don´t have the capacity to uphold law and order everywhere. This is reflected by two different security levels in the game – green and yellow. Green security level planets are safer, and although bad things can happen, the negative consequences are not so extensive. On security level yellow planets however, the dangers are higher but also the rewards.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $84

All-In (w/shipping): $84, same as above

Campaign Ends: 6/28

Game Ships: Mar. 2023

Funding Status: Currently at 63% with 19 days to go.

Project: Survive Until Daylight

Designers: Thomas Filippi (Kiwetin, Until Daylight, Vampire: The Masquerade – Chapters), Gary Paitre (Kiwetin, Until Daylight, Vampire: The Masquerade – Chapters)

Artists: Ben Bauchau (Until Daylight), Elsa Lamy (Until Daylight)

Publisher: Flyos Games (Kiwetin, Until Daylight, Vampire: The Masquerade – Chapters)

Genre/Mechanisms: card game, cooperative game, critical hits and failures, hot potato, push your luck, zombies

Player Count: 1-6

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: light

Risk: HIGH

Summary: “A combat-oriented survival game. Search the rubbles to gather useful resources. Trade and craft your items, and fight dumb yet powerful zombies for 6 challenging assaults. It’s the apocalypse! Zombies are everywhere. There are many sorts of them: from the weak dog walking granny to the terrible beast that no longer proves Darwin’s theory. There are also looting raiders. Bastards! And guess who was chosen to save the night? You! Play as one of the absurd heroes available and benefit from their unique perks. Every round, search the rubbles and gather resources to prepare for the wave to come. When the horde hits the fan, be ready to trade and craft items. It’s your last stand before combat. Draw and shuffle the corresponding amount of enemies to the table and start kicking some asses! Pick the right approach and brace yourself, you will have to survive 6 different waves to save the day… well the night.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $48

All-In (w/shipping): $80

Campaign Ends: 6/21

Game Ships: June 2023

Funding Status: Currently at 86% with 12 days to go.

Project: Tsuro: Luxury Limited Edition

Designers: Tom McMurchie (Tsuro, Tsuro: Phoenix Rising, Tsuro of the Seas)

Artist: Andy Hepworth

Publishers: Calliope Games (Roll for It! Deluxe Edition, Tsuro, Tsuro of the Seas)

Genre/Mechanisms: abstract strategy, fantasy, hand management, network and route building, player elimination, tile placement

Player Count: 2-8

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: light

Risk: medium-high

Summary: “The game consists of tiles with twisting lines on them, a 6×6 grid on which to lay these tiles and a token for each player. Each player has a hand of tiles. On your turn you do two things: place a tile from your hand onto the board next to your token and move your token as far as it can go along the line it is currently on, until it is stopped by an empty space with no tile in (yet), the edge of the board or colliding with another player’s token. If your token reaches the edge of the board or collides with another player’s token, you are out of the game. The aim of the game is to be the last player left with a token on the board. Strategy therefore consists of trying to drive your opponents either into each other or off the board whilst extending your own route in directions that will make it difficult for your opponents to do the same.

Your Tsuro: Luxury Limited Edition experience begins with a beautifully crafted wooden game box enhanced with vintage finishes. All four sides feature carved images depicting stunning scenes inspired by Tsuro’s past. Each piece will be individually numbered with a brass plate to commemorate your very own piece of board game history. The game’s signature plastic pawns have been replaced with eight intricate metal sculptures that can soar across your board for centuries to come. The rules sheet is brilliantly emblazoned across a bamboo scroll. Stone-textured resin tiles are individually formed with their unique path configuration. Each will be selected by players from an embroidered satin bag that accentuates the carvings on the box itself in full, vivid color. Each hand embellished tile can be rotated for various directional possibilities, providing endless strategies and extensive replayability. The durable, hemmed fabric playing surface mirrors the design of the box top and has an antique finish to offer an even more immersive experience. Finally, the dragon tile has been replaced with a shining gold statuette of the dragon and phoenix in an elegant dance. Each game will include a Certificate of Authenticity signed and numbered by the designer, artist, and publisher.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $428

All-In (w/shipping): $428, same as above

Campaign Ends: 7/1

Game Ships: Sep. 2023

Funding Status: Funded; currently at 205% with 22 days to go.