It’s been awhile since I wrote about the games I kickstart. All of these games are games I really want to play, but it’s hard to get them to the table. Someday, though, someday I’ll have time to play them all.
One Hit Heroes by Wiggles 3D
The Australian singing group with those infectious tunes is at it again? Nah, not those Wiggles. I backed their first project, “5 Minute Dungeon”, years ago. It’s a fast paced, timed game where you and anyone you can rope in have to play cards as quickly as possible to beat encounters before the timer runs out. It’s really fun.
Their currently live-on-Kickstarter One Hit Heroes is a game where you and your adventuring party have just one point of health between you. (They said no! Impossible! Give them at least three points of health! But they said they can make this work!). Every run is a challenge run, and things that don’t kill you make you stronger by unlocking new card packs after each boss is defeated. So not only is this a challenge, you can only play this game entirely through… once.
They do have an expansion and a solo mode to continue the fun. The expansion contains a super boss that will take all the skill of all the players to make it through without ever taking a hit.
PLANE: Teleporter Operator Simulator
This is a solo journaling RPG, developed by a local game developer, so that’s reason enough, really. These sorts of games have you writing stories based on prompts.
In Teleporter Operator Simulator, you are the Chief Miles O’Brien of an organization that teleports unusual people to unusual dimensions, who then return to tell you their stories. Maybe someday, you’ll be the one stepping into the teleporter.
The game provides situations, characters, and prompts. You provide the story. It could be fun, though my record on actually playing the journaling games I have backed in the past is not good. I’ll try to be better, this time.
Mystery under Magi-Mart
This one looked too cute to pass up. It is a point and click adventure game… in book form. Mystery under Magi-Mart uses video game iconography to make a game that is as fun to look at as it is to play.
I am backing this for my grandkids, but I think I will probably play it a couple of times before I wrap it up for them 🙂
Diceomatic Retro Dice Spinner
Now that I am actually playing a real life game of Dungeons & Dragons — with other people, this time — I’m always looking out for ways to get the best looking dice at the table. The Mystery Dice kickstarter that delivered a couple of months ago helped a little, but a dice roller that looks like those old handheld manual adding machines for shoppers that my grandmother had? Yeah, I think that is something I might want.
(Picture on the left is the thing I was trying to remember).
The Diceomatic is a flat little box with a button and two dials. Pressing the button spins the dials. Lifting it up stops them. The dials spin at different rates so you don’t always get the same two numbers. You can open up the Diceomatic and insert different dials to simulate different dice — the Kickstarter campaign allowed you to get a wide variety of dials.
Me, I think it’s just going to be a fidget thing for me. I’ll bring it to work. “(spinnnnn spinnnn spinnnnnn)”. I’m gonna drive everyone insane.
Worth it.
The Red Dragon Inn Allies: Melvyn vs Marah
It’s Red Dragon Inn. It’s a party game that everyone, kids included, can play and have fun with. Those bigger game nights when we’re not doing D&D and we’re not playing Terraforming Mars, we’re usually playing Red Dragon Inn. I have a LOT of characters for that game.
For those new to RDI, in Red Dragon Inn, you play as adventurers who have just returned from adventure and are relaxing at the namesake pub, where you gamble and play drinking games to see who can be the last one standing. Each character has their own deck of unique actions, so every game is very different, and even the base game adventurers still have tricks that can win the game from the more formidable expansion pack adventurers. You can also play as villains, as heroes who become villains, cooperate in boss battles instead of competing against each other, and a bunch of other things. It’s a hilarious party game.
Melvyn vs Marah is the latest expansion pack for the game. Marah is the magic school professor gone bad. She makes people feel really bad through her mocking, derisive commentary. And, she casts deadly curses.
Melvyn is the kind school librarian. He’ll show you convoluted artifacts that you don’t understand, and beat you at convoluted games you don’t understand.
More Terraforming Mars
I say all the time that we play too much Terraforming Mars, but I really only have myself to blame. This new Kickstarter adds neoprene playmats for four new maps, including a special, larger edition of the base map with more hexes to support more people. We generally play with five people, and the board can get pretty crowded pretty quick. Which is nice for certain strategies, bad for others.
The campaign also includes more project and Prelude cards to further improve the game. When Fryxgames and Stronghold Games comes out with new Terraforming Mars stuff, I just automatically back it. I know for a fact that it will get played, and that’s the important thing.
Beyond Shadowgate
Okay, just one more. Back in the old days, there was this computer game, Shadowgate, a cross between a point and click adventure and a full RPG. It was out for every system back in the day; I think I remember it best on the old classic Macintosh, but you could play it on anything.
The simple gameplay was addicting. The puzzles made sense.
The original developers have come back together after all these years to make an all new game in the series, Beyond Shadowgate. But although decades have passed since the last game, they’re not going to update a thing. We’ll get a new story in all the old 8-bit glory.
And there’s a demo!
I’ve been trying to tone down my Kickstarter addiction by focusing on smaller projects with an eye toward making sure the games I back will be games that actually get played. There’s a lot of interesting games waiting to be found out there and I really can’t wait to play them.
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