Well, I’m guessing a lot of you are opening gifts, but here’s one more small Kickstarter roundup to close out the year.
Field Guide to Memory by Jeeyon Shim
Jeeyon Shim is the co-designer of Wait for Me, which I mentioned back in July when it was on Kickstarter, a journaling game involving time travel. She’s back for another journaling game, this time about cryptids! In the game, your mentor Dr. Elizabeth Lee went missing five years ago and has been declared dead; your journal will be about your relationship with Dr. Lee as well as your field notes in search of mysterious creatures. The way the game works, you’ll get a prompt emailed to you each day, and by the end of the game you’ll have an artifact of your experience. Unfortunately, the tier levels that include physical goodies mailed to you are all claimed, but you can still back for the prompts and the game itself.
Vindication Chronicles Expansion by Orange Nebula
The world of Vindication continues to grow, and so does the community around it. I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: the Orange Nebula team works hard to engage with backers, and each of their Kickstarter campaigns includes opportunities to weigh in on a storyline that leads to a set of community-made components for the games. Their updates are fun to read, and the gorgeous fantasy artwork belies a propensity for silliness that shows up in the stories they tell about this world. Generally most publishers don’t launch campaigns this close to the holidays because it doesn’t make financial sense, but Orange Nebula has other factors in mind. Half of the fun of their campaigns is the journey and unfortunately this one is nearly over, but it’s never too late to hop on the Orange Nebula train: there are plenty of people who will welcome you aboard.
The other half of the fun, of course, is the game itself. If you don’t own Vindication already, you can read my review here (and it’s also available in some of the pledge tiers). For those who already have it, this expansion adds to the narrative element: when you acquire a card, you get a little story with it, giving you a choice to make that has secondary effects. You also track your character’s growth in the various attributes and can become legendary if you gain enough points of the same attribute.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxymbegun/gamers-chest
Gamer’s Chest by Wood Project
If you like fancy accessories for your game room, this one looks pretty cool: it’s a collection of resource trays, coasters, and boxes that snap together magnetically, and then store in a turret that also doubles as a dice tower. You can pick and choose the different items you’d like to include.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1818581186/otto-game-over-the-most-abstract-game-ever
OTTO Game Over from ArcaStudio
This abstract game starts off looking a bit like Tsuro, but instead of making paths, you score points by enclosing various shapes—small circles, large circles, squares, or the infinity symbol. I hadn’t heard of ArcaStudio before so I don’t know much about this Italian publisher, but I’ll be curious to see where this goes.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printandfun/12-months-12-games-winter-season
12 Months – 12 Games: Winter Season from Print and Fun
Here’s another one from a publisher that’s new to me, three roll-and-write games inspired by ’80s video games. These are print-it-yourself games, so as soon as the campaign ends (in a couple days!) you’ll be able to get playing right away. There’s a the block-breaking ArkaRoll, an asymmetric Crime at the Abbey mystery, and the side-scrolling Roll Type. This campaign looks to be the first 3 of the “12 Months – 12 Games” series, so I expect we’ll see more of these in 2021.
Standing Stones from Lagniappe Games
And here’s one more print-and-play roll-and-write game, Standing Stones, about the Picts. This one actually uses dominoes instead of dice (though if you don’t have your own set of dominoes, then you can print some domino cards out to use instead). It’s the first in a series of monthly games called Roll & Write Revolution, so watch for more of these in the months to come as well!
