Purple Pawn

Kickstarter Game Highlights for the Week of May 14th

First, I should mention that since the last Highlights article, we launched on a brand new “Kickstarter” page a crowdfunding discovery tool for game projects. Updated about once-a-week, the Kickstarter page provides a full list of tabletop game and game-related projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, along with brief descriptions and details on their current funding and time remaining.

Finished and Finishing

Puzzle Strike successfully funded this week with $74,118, or nearly 5 times the project goal, even though it was for a 3rd edition of an already published game. Then again, Ogre Designer’s Edition, also a previously published game, which was to be produced anyway, closed at $923,680, 46 times its goal.

Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics successfully funded at $111,258, 5½ times its goal.

Serpent’s Tonge – Become Magi closed this week with $195,101 of funding. The publisher, however, is now taking preorders on its website and still offering the “Kickstarter exclusive bonuses and rewards.”

Closing in the next week but not yet funded are Off Your Rocker and Titans of Industry. Off Your Rocker I’ve talked about before. We played it here and it was a lot of fun. The project needs $2,000 in the next 3 days. Titans of Industry is a worker-placement game from Gozer Games. It needs $12,000 in less than 72 hours.

Prismatic Art Collection, which I actually missed when creating the big list, is a library of illustrations for fantasy roleplaying games. Its goal is to promote diversity among the characters that show up in such games by recruiting paid artists to release their work under a Creative Commons share-alike license. With 3 days remaining, Prismatic Art Collection has already reached its funding goal.

Ace of Spies, which I did mention last week, was canceled by its creator. Albino Dragon’s announcement blamed itself for overpricing the game and underpricing shipping.

The Good, the Bad, and the Strange

Another canceled project was Tentacle Bento, this one amid quite a bit of controversy. What at first glance appears to be a simple, anime-styled card game was described by Kotaku as playing at rape, albeit with a veneer of alien abduction. Tentacle Bento was well past its funding goal when the furor erupted. Kickstarter cancelled the project but its creator, Soda Pop Miniatures, promises to publish it without the service.

A Knights Quest is an adventure game with a three-level board and a strong trading element. But what’s interesting is that I discovered that the creator has duplicate projects for the game posted on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. When I asked why, his answer was:

I thought I might increase orders so that I can make a minimum order. I was hoping Kickstarter would be further along by now! I guess it’s not going to happen anyway. So please make a pledge. As you know it does not cost you anything unless I reach my goal which is a million miles away!

True, he’s only raised $347 on Kickstarter and nothing on Indiegogo, so there doesn’t appear to be much danger of overfunding. But still, the practice seems deceptive to me.

Eugene Schaeffer claims to be a professional game designer but on Kickstarter he’s asking for $180 to help him print Yu-Gi-Oh play mats.

Bucketo is a yard game where the players throw plastic chains in to a bucket. It’s creators are asking for $5,000.

Non-Trivial Quest is a roll-and-move trivia game, where the questions are supposed to be about important information, rather than trivia. Its creator is asking for $20,000 to fund a second print run, where he’d change the name to “Non-Trivia Quest” (no “L”—because Hasbro objected to his original trademark), and to fund development of a mobile app.

Do not despair, though. There are a few projects that I really liked…

Dice Chuckers aims to produce a documentary film about roleplaying gamers and their hobby. The project has recruited a number of industry notables, but so far has garnered less than 10 percent of its $41,000 goal.

12 for ’12 (3.0): Dangerous Games Novels is a fiction project from Matt Forbeck. The book will be a murder mystery taking place at Gen Con.

Rappan Athuk and Nystul’s Infinite Dungeon are both large, classic-style dungeon crawls for the Pathfinder RPG.

And last but not least, Tahiti is a light, introductory-level pickup-and-deliver game, and a place I’d love to visit.

Stuff From Around the Web

An article on Mashable Business outlined the author’s 9 Essential Steps for a Killer Kickstarter Campaign. If you’re looking for that kind of advice, though, don’t forget our How to Succeed or Fail on Kickstarter.

Chris Pramas posted a list of Top Five Reasons I Won’t Support Your Kickstarter.

Categories: Game News

Boy Scouts Launching Game Design Merit Badge

Plans are in the works by the Boy Scouts of America to launch a game design merit badge at the 2013 Jamboree this July. Not many details are available at this point, however the Bryan on Souting blog has revealed that scouts will be able to focus on either electronic games, athletics/sports, tabletop games (including board, card, and dice games), or roleplaying games. To get the game design merit badge, scouts will be expected to create and test a playable game.

[via Games & Grub]

Categories: Game News

GAMEX 2012 in LA

Memorial Day in the U.S. marks the traditional start of the summer season, also considered convention season for gamers. And to start the season off right, Strategicon’s GAMEX will take place over the holiday weekend (May 25-28) at the LAX Sheraton Gateway Hotel. Events and activities include a Settlers of Catan Championhip pre-qualifier, a Warmachine tournament, a large dealer room, a steampunk masquerade, miniature painting, and live-action roleplaying. Special guests include game designers Richard Borg and Tom Jolly. Sunday is Family Day, with a pass for the whole family only $50.

Categories: Game News

2012 Game Chef Winner Announced

The winner of the annual Game Chef competition was announced this week. Game Chef is a event in which authors are challenged to develop a playable draft roleplaying game in 9 days and based on a specific theme and using a particular set of ingredients. The theme this year was “last chance” and the ingredients “coyote”, “doctor”, “lantern”, “mimic”, and something randomly generated from forum posts.

The Game Chef competition is also known for an environment of mutual support and its cooperative judging model—where everyone who submits an entry is expected to review the submissions of others and some people submit games for review even though they don’t contain all the elements to qualify.

The winning submission this year was Ninety Minutes, a game by Matteo Turini in which one person plays Time and a father and son have their last chance to talk.

Categories: Game News

Dungeons & Dragons Fashion

Fashion isn’t something that I usually follow or write about. This Tumblr, however, I thought you’d appreciate. Dungeons and Fashion is a selection of outfits inspired by D&D monsters and character classes.

Categories: Game News

Game Bandit—Stewing Over Games Edition

Sign up for the Gnome Stew blog’s email list for a chance to win DriveThruRPG gift certificates and two RPG ebooks.

Select PDFs from Kenzer & Co. are on sale for 15-30% off.

For the next week everything at Noble Knight Games is at least 10% off. (Well maybe a little less than a week. I think they sent me the email yesterday.)

Scallywags from Gamewright will be debuting at Origins Game Fair in a beginner-level tournament. Prizes will include copies of the game before it’s available in stores.

Avalon Games’ e-book products will be half-off on May 21st.

Everything for sale on Chaosium’s website is 30% off through the 28th.

On Amazon, LEGO Ramses Return is available for only $3.11 and Qwirkle for $17.94.

Father Geek is giving away Dark Horse from Knight Works.

Thanks, Mail Carrier is giving away Classic Battleship Movie Edition and a KRE-O Battleship Combat Chopper set from Hasbro.

My Four Monkeys is giving away Distraction from ThinkFun.

Categories: Game News

Relaunching Purple Pawn’s List of Kickstarter Game Projects

Crowdfunding has become a major trend in the tabletop games industry. It’s allowed both startup and established game-makers to produce products that otherwise they could not have. And it’s given consumers a forum for voicing their opinions and voting with their dollars before resources are committed to manufacturing.

Discovering what projects are out there, however, has become an increasingly difficult process as the numbers have increased. Many of you, I know, looked forward to our weekly Kickstarter roundup, and some expressed disappointment when it recently lapsed. To be honest, maintaining it takes a lot of work. But we love the games!

So now we’re proud to announce the relaunch of our comprehensive list of all Kickstarter and Indiegogo game projects. We’re going to keep it on its own page (see up top where it says “Kickstarter“), to make it easier to access at any time. Check it out. I think you’ll like all the added features. You can now search the table, as well as sort by project name, dollars raised, percent funded, or closing date. You can even export the data or download a spreadsheet with more information.

If you like it, tell your friends.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest Winner

We completed eight rounds of playing Off Your Rocker, so I got out my trusty eight-sided die and rolled… 8. The winner is Anthony.

Thank you, everyone, for participating. I had a great time! I hope you did too.

And don’t forget to back Off Your Rocker on Kickstarter! The campaign ends in a little less than a week and we want to see this game funded.

Thank you also to Stratus Games for providing the prize.

Categories: Game News

Scotland Yard Coming to iOS

Ravensburger Digital will soon be releasing Scotland Yard(Also known as Mister X) for the iPad and iPhone as a universal app. The game is for 3 -6 players playing locally, over wifi, or over bluetooth. The game also features a single player mode, HD graphics for devices with retina display, and has a new setting for London by night.

I’ve actually never played Scotland Yard, so this looks like it’ll be the perfect opportunity for me to give it a whirl.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest Ends Today

We’re in the last round of playing Off Your Rocker and still having a great time! Don’t miss your chance to win this fun party game. Or you could back Off Your Rocker on Kickstarter.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest, Round 8

Round 8 of our Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest begins now. As your patients, the other Pawns and I have a quirk. Ask your questions in the comments below to figure out what it is.

UPDATE: The final round goes to Anthony. The patients are terrified of each other. Later today I will announce the winner of the game, randomly selected from among the winners of the individual rounds.

Categories: Game News

Transforming Robot Chess Set

Chess sets are pretty common test pieces for 3-D printers. But Joe Larson has gone one better with his specs posted to the MakerBot community site, Thingiverse. The pieces of Joe’s Action Chess can be assembled in to a fighting robot—checkmate.

[via Digital Trends]

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest, Round 7

The other Pawns and I are your patients. See if you can figure out what our quirk is. Ask your questions in the comments below. Round 7 of our Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest begins now.

UPDATE: Ken got it again. The players believe they have extra arms and legs.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest Roudn 6

Round 6 of our Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest begins now. The other Pawns and I are your patients. See if you can figure out what our quirk is. Ask your questions in the comments below.

UPDATE: Ken returned as the winner for round 6. The patients can’t spell. Round 7 will start later this afternoon.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest, Round 5

This is round 5 of our Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest. As your patients, the other Pawns and I have a quirk. Ask your questions in the comments below to figure out what it is.

UPDATE: Round 5 goes to Axel, who correctly guessed that the patients think today is Christmas. That was quick! So let’s start round 6 right away.

Categories: Game News

Kickstarter Game Highlights for the Week of May 7th

Purple Pawn has been on the forefront of covering Kickstarter game projects for some time. With the explosion in both the number and scope of projects, however, that coverage must evolve. We hope to bring back shortly our comprehensive list of projects. In the meantime, though, we’re going to test a weekly roundup of Kickstarter game news that highlights interesting projects, major achievements, sneak peeks, and related stuff from around the web. Please let us know what you think of this approach.

Finished and Finishing

Zombicide successfully funded on Sunday with just over $780,000—39 times its goal! Ogre Designer’s Edition is at $715,000 with about a day-and-a-half left.

Interesting Projects

Ace of Spies is a spy-themed card game set in the 1920s. It’s the first project of new game publisher Albino Dragon, a venture of sometimes contributor to Purple Pawn, Richard Bliss (also currently an advertiser). Watch their intro video. It’s my favorite so far.

Another project with a connection to this site is Off Your Rocker from Stratus Games. It’s a party game, which honestly is not usually my thing. However, we’re currently running a giveaway of Off Your Rocker for Stratus, and as part of that have been playing a version of the game over on our Play page. It’s been a lot of fun!

Polynesian Adventure is the project of a recent business school graduate and Hawaii resident. It’s supposed to teach Polynesian culture but is just roll-and-move—or more precisely, draw-card-and-move, like Candy Land. [Reminds me of a story I did 4 years ago.] It’s passed the 50 percent mark but only has 7 days left to go.

Gen Con or Bust is fiction author Patrick Stutzman’s attempt to finance a trip to Gen Con. He’s been before but can’t afford it this year. He’s asking for $2,250.

Lots of people talk about the difficulties of dealing with sexism, classism, racism, violence, and historical realism in fantasy games. The Farewell to Fear project is trying to address that with a sophisticated “progressive post-fantasy roleplaying game”. Not simply changing the skin color of NPCs, Farewell to Fear presents a medieval-style setting undergoing social revolution.

Think punk rock meets fantasy. Bad Religion meets Tolkien, boot to face.

With the Global GameSpace project, creator Curtis Lacy is hoping to develop a cross-platform, virtual-tabletop application for playing board games over the internet. He plans to give away the software when it’s finished but needs $40,000 to make it happen.

Interesting projects show up on Indiegogo too. One of them is Sharks With Lasers, a game in which the players’ secret agent trainees must dodge sharks, and their lasers, on the way to an island.

Stuff From Around the Web

Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, talked about crowdfunding on a Gamerati Google+ Hangout and teased about a possible Kickstarter project launching soon. Could the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo from Goblin Works be what she was referring to?

On BoardGameGeek, one user is maintaining a GeekList of the top 10 most funded board game projects on Kickstarter.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group announced that it will announce next week (really) a Kickstarter project for a new Savage Worlds RPG setting.

On Troll in the Corner, Nick reminds donors to be cautious with crowdfunding, noting that there’s no guarantee of quality for supported projects.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest, Round 4

This is round 4 of our Off Your Rocker Quirky Contest. As your patients, the other Pawns and I have a quirk. Ask your questions in the comments below to figure out what it is.

UPDATE: Ken wins round 4. The patients believe they are talking on the phone. Round 5 will begin right now.

Categories: Game News

Chess News Roundup

The city of Evansville installed a new life-sized chess board (in the hopes to get people outdoors and more active). Columbus already has one. But St. Louis has them both beat with the world’s largest chess piece—14½ feet tall.

Matthew Fishbein won the Maine State Chess Championship but is only 14 years old.

The president of the World Chess Federation held diplomatic talks with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad (perhaps at the request of the Russian government) and asked him not to retaliate against rebel regions of the country. In contrast, a 10 year old Tunisian refused to play against an Israeli opponent in the World School Chess Championship.

A World Chess Championship title match opens Thursday between defending champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel. The contest will take place in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia and proceed for 12 games over 3 weeks.

The 2012 U.S. Chess Championship and U.S. Women’s Championships started Tuesday in St. Louis. In the former, 12 players are competing in an 11 game round-robin tournament. In the latter, 10 players in a 9 game round-robin.

Categories: Game News

Game Bandit—Us Too Edition

Last week I mentioned a few sites giving away games from Minion Games. Fortress AT is another.

Wired’s GeekDad and Schemer (social activity recommendation service?) are giving away five sets of five games.

To get 75% off closeout titles from Out of the Box Publishing use the code, “DEALS”. Also, the company is running a contest to give away Faux•Cabulary Expansion 1.

Preorder the new print-run of Get Bit direct from Mayday Games for 20% off.

And last, but definitely most important, check out Purple Pawn’s very own Play page for an opportunity to win Off Your Rocker from Stratus Games.

Categories: Game News

Off Your Rocker Giveaway Reminder

Come visit our Play page and join us in a game of Off Your Rocker. Guess our quirks for a chance to win a copy of the game. Plus, figuring out what’s wrong with us has been a lot of fun!

Categories: Game News