Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Two Kickstarters In Need of Some Love

So far, I've been very lucky on Kickstarter.  Most of the projects I have backed have made their goal, and most of those have managed to actually ship their product.

I am currently backing two projects which are both second attempts, as both failed to make their goal the first time.  One is a board game and one is an RPG. And both are looking questionable as far as making it this time, either - which is a shame. Because I don't back products I don't want (including Synnibarr).

The board game is called Twin Tin Bots.  It looks to be a lighter, faster-playing bot programming game with a few commonalities with Robo Rally.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love Robo Rally.  I bought it when it first came out and have all of the expansions for it.  It's a great little game.  But it is rather ridiculously time-consuming and can be an extremely frustrating game.  Twin Tin Bots doesn't have terrain effects to worry about.  It doesn't have random hands of cards to frustrate you, either.  Instead, you have a set pool of order tokens.  Each turn, you can play one token, remove one token, or clear all tokens.

I don't know, yet, how the timing effects work - if there is a First Player and you proceed clockwise or if you just take your turn and go.  Part of the "not knowing" is because the game isn't out, yet, so I haven't seen the rules.  I just watched the video.

As of this writing, the game is about two-thirds of the way to its goal if $15,000.

The RPG is called Invulnerable.  As the title implies, it's a superhero RPG.  There is a "Year One" edition available on DriveThruRPG.  I backed this the first time around, too.  Because it's clear that the designer has thought through some of the implications of being a super hero.  His updates #5 and #12 talk a bit about the setting.  And the more I read, the hungrier I am for this game.

The backer levels are reasonable, too.  For $25, you get a softcover copy of the book (after it's finished, of course).  The sample art which has been included so far has been good, and the mechanics look stable (which is an issue with far too many superhero games).

I've picked up the Year One edition. His goal with the Kickstarter is a new cover, more art, and better editing and layout.

As of this writing, the game is at about one third of its goal of $4,000.

If you have a few nickels to spare, both of these projects would love to have them.

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