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

Project: Grind House Season 2

Designer: Jon Cohn (Ghostbusters: Blackout, Grind House, Munchkin Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Artists: Boris Polonsky (Big Trouble in Little China: The Game, Grind House), Ivan Shavrin (Grind House, X-Men: Mutant Insurrection)

Publisher: Everything Epic Games (Big Trouble in Little China: The Game, Grind House)

Genre/Mechanisms: card game, dice, dice rolling, horror, mature / adult, player elimination, team-based game, voting

Player Count: 2-6

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: light

Risk: medium-high

Summary: “Grind House is a narrative horror game where you would be considered lucky if survival only costs an arm and a leg. While survival is the ultimate goal, each player has a classic archetype with a secret motive. Some characters like the Doctor may try to keep everyone alive, while the psychopath with surely attempt to split everyone apart. Others, like the Pianist, just want to keep their hands intact. For those unfortunate souls who do perish in the house, the game is not over. Players may return as ghosts to haunt the remaining survivors as they try to make it through the Grind House unscathed. After exploring all 5 randomized rooms in the house, any survivors left total up their score to determine the winner.

Season 2 features eight all new Episode Packs to expand the narrative & mechanics: Abduction, The Coma Ward, Contest of Champions, The Host’s House Party, The Kids Game, Trap or Treat, Scythes Out, and Secrets of the Lost Tomb.

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $72

All-In (w/shipping): $230

Campaign Ends: 11/3

Game Ships: Oct. 2023

Funding Status: Currently at 94% with 13 days to go.

Project: Just Run: A Game of Horror, Betrayal & Escape

Designer: Warren Shaver

Artist: Warren Shaver

Publisher: The October Factory

Genre/Mechanisms: cooperative game, deck building, fighting, horror, maze, tile placement, zombies

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-low

Summary: “A medium-weight, card-driven, tile-placement board game, with both cooperative and competitive scenarios. You are survivors of the zombie apocalypse, trapped in an abandoned, treacherous, and unfamiliar building. Somewhere in front of you is safety. Right behind you, a growing horde of the undead. So quickly gather whatever gear you can find–and run. In the first game phase, you compete with other players for item cards in a panic-inducing timed round. You can use each item in very different ways, including combining it with another card to create new and improved gear. In the second game phase, each survivor has two actions to do things such as investigating and revealing new room tiles to build your path to escape; searching for even better gear or, if you are unlucky, a catastrophic event; using your gear in novel ways to get out of sticky situationsl; and fighting zombies– and sometimes other survivors. The zombies, meanwhile, keep spawning and keep coming. Just Run has six scenarios, ranging from cooperative search-and-rescue missions to everyone-for-themselves sprints. And you can play scenarios individually or combine them to create more challenging missions. Winners must complete the scenario’s mission, escape with at least one health point, and reach the rescue chopper before it fills up.”

Base Pledge (w/shipping): $72

All-In (w/shipping): $72, same as above

Campaign Ends: 11/18

Game Ships: Oct. 2023

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