We’ve got the whole spectrum of games on the menu today. From massive, sprawling space epics to tiny, cute, 10-minute fillers. Let’s see how they’ve fared at the table…

Sidereal Confluence (Remastered Edition)

1 Play

Holy space cubes, what a barnburner of a negotiation game!

Trust me when I say that I am the first person who runs and hides from a bland cube pusher.  Century Spice Road?  I’m out.  Terraforming Mars?  Wake me up when it’s over. Through the Ages? No thanks!

Sidereal Confluence is one cube-swamped game that you have to play to believe.  I am blown away by the thought and care that went into the creation of this game.  And I am SHOOK by how much fun I had trading cubes, spending cubes, and earning cubes like some kind of unrestrained cube addict.  This master-class design takes the addictive simultaneous trading loop of Chinatown to the next level for people willing to sit through a longer rules explanation.  Fortunately, this version provides an invaluable 1-sheet teaching guide that makes the teach much easier for both instructor and listener.

The plentiful converters and fascinating asymmetry of Sidereal Confluence combine into a perfect blend of negotiation stew.  I’m tickled by the ability to trade or loan cards to other players, as this feels like a bottomless well of strategery that we merely dipped our toes in on our first play.  On top of that, these alien races all seem wildly unique and lovingly crafted for engaging replayability and dynamic interactions.

This remastered production is a knock-out from head to toe. The cubes are satisfyingly heavy, the rules are blessedly clear, and the graphic design is thoroughly thoughtful.  The insert is great, yet I’m eager to seek out a custom insert that hopefully separates the cubes and factions for even faster setup and teardown.  This is one design that I’m dying to play over and over and over again.

Current Rating: 10/10

Sequoia

2 Plays

Sequoia uses dice allocation and area majority to good effect in this quick, simple, pretty game.  This is a decent way to kill 10 minutes of time.  The game is played simultaneously as players roll 5 of their own dice and secretly form two pairs.  The revealed pairs determine where your two tree tokens go for area majority as players compete for first and second place points after 10 rounds.

The tiebreaker phase is perhaps my favorite part.  Any ties are resolved by playing extra rounds with the first person to place another tree token on the card claiming it.  While that is in some ways just a roll-off to see who gets the right number first, I found myself having to decide between one tie and another.  Which tied card do I put off for another round and hope that nobody else swoops in and claims?  

Sequoia is an all-around solid filler that should amuse anyone, but we don’t play fillers nearly enough to justify owning and playing this one over other more interesting options.

Current Rating: 6.5/10

GPS

1 Play

GPS provides a nifty concept for a filler with the main attraction being the spinner.  Wherever the spinner lands, players will select one of their satellites (numbered 1-12) to place or move there (or in the next open space in either direction if they already have a satellite there).  This is all in an effort to be the first to line up your satellites in numerical order in a clockwise direction around the board.

It’s definitely more fiddly than we’d like, as the satellites don’t quite fit around the board.  Because the satellites are a bit wider than the spaces they are supposed to line up with, things get crowded and messy when multiple spaces in a row are filled.  This issue is compounded with the slight movements of the board that frequently occur while spinning the rocket.  There were times where it was hard to tell which space a satellite was supposed to be in.  While it’s not a huge effect on the game outcome, it does dampen and distract from the fun a bit.

As far as strategy and meaningful decisions go, they are pretty few and far between.  The best move is almost always obvious.

For a 10-minute filler, it’s hard to give weight to any of these complaints, and you can certainly do a whole lot worse.  This one seems best with a loud, light-hearted group who cheers the eye-catching spinner onward. Although I can see things getting even messier with more players.

Current Rating: 5.5/10

Mountain Goats

1 Play

Mountain Goats is a game of king of the hill with multiple hills being contested.  Dice allocation is used to get a player’s goats to the top of the hills where they can start raking in points until another player knocks them off those hills.

There’s certainly some fun to be had here, but decisions are fairly predictable as there is only so much you can do with your dice rolls.  It also seems like adding more players to the game will simply increase the playtime by another 5 minutes per player, as goats are more frequently knocked back down and have to spend multiple rounds climbing back up.

I just don’t see myself opting for this filler for 2-4 players when for an extra 10 or 20 minutes we can get so much more bang for our buck with the likes of an Oink Game, For Sale, High Society, Love Letter, a solid roll & write, a whole slew of killer 2-player games, and more.

Current Rating: 6/10

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

1/2 of a Play

When I first looked into Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy, I saw the BGG weight (3.5) and expected a reasonably straightforward game.  Yet I wasn’t prepared for the sheer scope of Eclipse and the way it boldly spans across both time and space.  This is an epic war game and a rare design that made me lust for a larger table and longer chunks of free time to satisfy its demands and bask in its payoffs. Likewise, we don’t have the playmat, and it certainly isn’t required to play and enjoy Eclipse, but it’s definitely something I intend to pick up eventually because of game of this ambition is worthy of such vanity.

The game required two entire tables of space just to keep everything within reach.  And even then, I don’t see this game ever getting played at our home again until we upgrade to a much larger table.  The biggest issue was that the expanding map of tiles quickly encroaches on player areas if players explore outward.

Despite me being the space banker who had to constantly retrieve components from our second nearby table, the gameplay justified its sprawling size and extra effort. Players can claim any research tiles they want, provided they can meet the required cost. Ship upgrades are even more sandboxy, as you can customize and specialize your fleet however you please. Every aspect of the experience has been carefully thought out and ironed down to make the play as smooth as possible, courtesy of Game Trayz. Passing the research and upgrade trays around like they are appetizer platters is a constant and luxurious affair.

The lure to explore and expand outward is ever present, with more discovery bonuses and population squares always within reach. The catch is that spreading yourself too thin in a quest for dangling carrots will simply make you look more appetizing to the predatorial foes of the galaxy. This is a war game, after all, and goodies are generously awarded to those who seek destruction and domination.

With the streamlined experience and (relatively) condensed playtime, I don’t see any other epic war game dethroning Eclipse from my collection.  Unfortunately, our first play of it was stopped short when one player was called into work mid-game, but we were all fully invested and enjoying ourselves up until then.

Current Rating: 9/10

Babylonia

2 Plays

If you’re a glutton for Knizia tile layers, like me, then you really should be getting yourself a copy of Babylonia.  This one feels like a hybrid between Samurai’s tense tile majorities and Through the Desert’s dangling carrots and snaking connections.  The big differences here are that points are constantly/instantly awarded, unique abilities/bonuses are up for grabs, and decisions have a much wider ripple effect.

While the game provides a constant flow of juicy decisions, it lacks the dramatic moments of Tigris & Euphrates and Ra, so I’m not about to put it above those.  Nevertheless, there are several interesting strategies here that one can lean into for lucrative points.  The relative values of these strategies all hinge upon your opponents, making this a highly dynamic game.  So while Samurai feels more cutthroat and opportunistic, and Through the Desert keeps a clean state and smooth tempo, Babylonia forges its own path by providing subtly critical choices that ripple throughout the arc of the game.  Therefore, none of these games cannibalize each other within my collection.

While the game board suffers a bit from a lack of clarity, the wooden tokens and racks (at least of the latest printing) are a nice touch, so I guess the production is a wash?  It doesn’t really matter.  At the end of the day, we’ve been favored with another killer Knizia.  That’s why this game was categorized as a Lover in my recent revisit of the best board games of 2019.  Now, who wants to play?!

Current Rating: 9/10

This concludes another episode of Candid Cardboard: my first impressions of new releases! Have you tried any of these games yet? What are your thoughts on them?

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

The post Candid Cardboard – New Release 1st Impressions (January 2021) appeared first on Bitewing Games.

“This your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Morpheus – The Matrix

It all started when I stumbled across Wavelength on social media. Talk of the game lead me to its active project on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website that I had heard much about but never actually delved into. Wavelength’s colorful, psychedelic art design drew me in like an unsuspecting Alice. I clicked play on the campaign video, and down the rabbit hole I fell.

Mad props to whoever made that video, by the way. If anyone needs a case study in how to hook potential backers and reel them in like a fish, just check out that whole page. After combing through the entire pitch, I wasn’t just excited about the concept, I was compelled to help bring about its existence.

This is the crux of Kickstarter… when a person or group dream up an incredible idea, pitch it to a crowd, and they collectively pledge their resources and efforts to make it a reality. This is old news to many backers and creators who have been using crowdfunding for years. We’ve even reached a point where many desensitized backers call Kickstarter a pre-order system, especially in the tabletop games category.

While that’s not entirely false, there is still something magical about joining a community of passionate dreamers and embarking on a journey of creation. When you support an exciting project and it fully delivers on its lofty promises, there is no better feeling. Fortunately for Kickstarter, Wavelength hit a homerun (just read my review of the game), and I’ve kept more projects on my radar ever since.

Projects that Earned My Pledge and How They Did It

Captivating Videos — Wavelength

Let’s talk a bit more about Wavelength’s campaign video. If you clicked the link above and watched it, you’ll notice something incredibly unique about it compared to most other campaign videos. How much time was spent showcasing or explaining the game? Practically none. You hardly even see a single game component in the entire video, yet it has a laser focus on what makes Wavelength special.

Instead of explaining to us how the game plays, the creators of this video opted to show us the game through the players’ emotions, reactions, and interactions. It paints a very clear picture to its viewers of what they can expect to experience with their family and friends. Most importantly, it briefly and succinctly shows the viewer the exact outcome they want from this kind of game and then leaves the rest of the project page to fill in the details of how they’ll get to that outcome.

Contrast this to many other campaign videos that quickly lose me… Usually they get caught up in fancy thematic narratives with fluffy animations and take far too long to get to the point of why I should back their project. In my opinion, if your campaign video is the first thing people see on your project page, then it should absolutely feature the hook of your concept and nothing else. Let the rest of the page take care of the details, once the hook is set.

I had never even visited Kickstarter.com before encountering Wavelength, but that campaign page had my pledge within minutes because it knew how reach me on a personal and emotional level.

Low-Risk Rewards & Credibility — Tussie Mussie / Sprawlopolis / Seasons of Rice

Wavelength was my form of taking the red pill and falling down the rabbit hole into Kickstarter Wonderland. Button Shy’s affordable, low-risk wallet games kept me hanging around for more.

I initially heard of all three of these games in unique ways:

• While enjoying our recently acquired copy of Wingspan, I heard that Elizabeth Hargrave’s next published game (Tussie Mussie) was on the way with another presentation that would appeal to my wife. Tussie Mussie was also the winner of the 2018 Gen Can’t design contest.
• Separately, I watched Tom Vasel’s raving review of Sprawlopolis that put it on my wishlist.
• Finally, I listened to the Board Game Design Lab’s episode with Corry Damey about How to Win a Design Competition, and of course the competition winner (Seasons of Rice) piqued my interest.

These above encounters were critical for getting these projects on my radar. Each game had an underlying credibility to it that allowed me to put my trust in a design I had never played. Perhaps more importantly, the pledge levels were all at a reasonable price ($10 per game) that gave me little reason to hesitate when clicking the pledge button.

Quality & Consistency — Dice Throne Adventures & Season 1 ReRolled

I was already an owner of Dice Throne Season 2 when this project went live. Having been blown away by Season 2’s character variety and production quality, there was little resistance left within me when Roxley tempted me with more Dice Throne goodness. But there is something to be said for making each little detail of a production a premium feeling experience. When publishers display a high standard of consistency and quality from one project to the next, backers will notice and they’ll return for more.

Alluring Presentations & Illuminating Playthroughs — Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods was Kickstarter’s biggest challenge yet in successfully acquiring me as a backer. The $70 base pledge is a tall order coming from a publisher and designer that I have no prior experience with. On top of that, this is a style of game that I have never even played before. The art and presentation are certainly alluring, but the pessimism was strong within me.

How am I supposed to know whether I like a storybook adventure game? Won’t this just feel like a more clumsy, fiddly version of a video game, book, or movie? What if I start playing and quickly discover that I blew $70 + shipping on a game that is clearly not for me?

I had plenty of reasons to stand my ground and let this campaign ship sail, yet I ended up backing Sleeping Gods. Ryan Laukat, you sly dog. So how did he do it?

Well, that dang artwork and concept was so well imagined and executed that I wanted this unique game to work for me. I think this kind of thing happens all the time to us gamers. Just look at something like PARKS, Camel Up, Horrified, or plenty of others. Strip away the gorgeous artwork, the inviting theme, the killer components, and much of what makes those games shine is lost. PARKS becomes a generic resource collector, Camel Up becomes a luck-infused dice roller, Horrified looks like an off-brand Pandemic copy-cat . Moral of the story: don’t underestimate the value of a unique theme, quality art, and thoughtful production.

The stellar presentation of Sleeping Gods wasn’t enough on its own to get me to bite. I still needed to find something within the gameplay that made me say, “Ooo, this looks fun!” Who helped me to uncover that fun? None other than Rahdo, himself.

Oddly enough, my opinion on games hardly even aligns with Rahdo’s. Usually when he says, “Too mean,” I say, “Just right.” Yet, I’ve found Rahdo’s run-throughs to be extremely valuable in communicating the puzzly tension of certain games. It took me a lot of deep digging into the project page and beyond, but Rahdo is exactly what I needed to push me over the edge on both Sleeping Gods and the next game I backed, Calico.

Alluring Presentations & Illuminating Playthroughs — Calico

Like Sleeping Gods, Calico is game that tempted me initially but required more effort to earn my pledge. I could tell it filled a similar niche as Azul and Sagrada, which have been big hits with my wife. But on the surface level, I had no way of knowing whether this one would measure up to its competition and justify its place on our game shelf.

Once more, it was Rahdo’s runthrough that uncovered the excruciating tension lurking within Calico’s gameplay. Before watching his play-through, this was just a cute puzzly quilting game with cats, and I was mildly interested. After watching his play-through, this was an agonizing feline challenge with colorful, crunchy decisions, and I was a backer.

These kinds of video previews that not only show how a game plays but how a game feels to play are often critical factors in earning a dip into my wallet.

High Standards & Hot Streaks — Loot of Lima / GPS / Sequoia / Mountain Goats

Perhaps the most important thing a publisher can do for long-term success is maintain a high standard of design from one title to the next. A mediocre game can often do more harm to a small publisher’s library than its short-term sales are worth. When I catch onto a publisher or designer that is on a hot streak, I will preorder and pledge to every title they throw at me until they lose my trust. If I’m burned by a design team, it’ll take a lot of convincing from critics to get me to take another chance on future games.

My current list of auto-purchases include any Capstone Games’ light-medium weight titles, any Cole Wehrle design and/or Leder Games titles, and games published by BoardGameTables.com. I’ll also seriously consider every new game put out by Matagot, Roxley Games, Stonemaier Games, Facade Games, Reiner Knizia, and Osprey Games due to their several hits of the past few years.

BoardGameTables.com have proven themselves with both On Tour and QE. I appreciate their attention to detail and love of quirky designs. My fingers are crossed for their next batch of games coming soon including Loot of Lima, GPS, Sequoia, and Mountain Goats.

IV Marketing — Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile

If you’ve ever been an in-patient at a hospital, you’ve likely had an IV in your arm drip-feeling your body fluids and medications. An IV (intravenous therapy) is a highly effect route of medication. It delivers drugs directly into your blood stream, bypassing any need for absorption or digestion. In the board game industry, if drugs equate to hype and medicating a patient equates to marketing, then companies like Stonemaier Games and Leder Games have perfected the IV Marketing technique.

When I started following these companies on social media, I noticed a pattern in their techniques. Leder Games publishes regular posts on their designer diaries leading up to a game preorder or Kickstarter launch. Stonemaier Games does the same thing on their website as well as creating Facebook fan pages for each game. Through regular updates and social media posts that tease out more juicy information and tantalizing images, these companies drip feed hype directly to their fans and potential customers. By the time the pledge/preorder button goes live, many people are eager to click it.

Meaningful Upgrades & Add-ons — Railroad Ink Challenge

Horrible Guild got me good with this one. It started out simple with a nice pair of roll & writes with a new coat of paint, improved gameplay, and unique variants. But things quickly got out of hand with more expansion dice, epic boards, and giant box to fit everything into. I often roll my eyes at the endless extras that publishers try to cram into their project, but I couldn’t resist these extras.

Often, these crowdfunding campaigns will try to milk their backers by merely offering fancier components, meaningless variety, and questionable add-ons. When I see a publisher trying to tempt backers to purchase 20 colors of player components for a 5 player game, I begin to question their judgment of customer-focused value.

With Railroad Ink Challenge, Horrible Guild kept offering me more of precisely what I wanted. With roll & writes generally being a low-interaction genre, I look to variants and expansions to give me more replayability and keep my brain on its brain-toes. Thus, I can’t resist new challenges within this familiar favorite.

Reliable Brands & Try Before You Buy — Bristol 1350

If you’ve played any of Facade Games’ Dark Cities titles before, then you already have a solid idea of what you are going to get with Bristol 1350. That’s exactly what makes this series so reliably solid. Facade Games has a playbook that their fans love and they have no reason to stray from it. While their productions continue to get prettier and more polished, a Dark Cities game will always be a Dark Cities game.

To help matters further, I had the opportunity to play Bristol 1350 several times as it was being developed. When a publisher knows they have a solid design on their hands, there is no better way to sell it to potential backers and earn their loyal support than giving them a chance to try it before buying it. This often happens through Print & Play, Tabletop Simulator (or equivalent software), or live demos. After having a blast playing a cheap, ugly version of Bristol 1350, you can bet I was absolutely ready to fork over some cash for a gorgeous, polished version. I even went so far as to write a preview for the game because I believed in it that much. The best evangelists are firsthand witnesses, so why not let people get their hands on your game?

Listening & Responding to Backers — Kemet: Blood and Sand

Kemet: Blood and Sand had a controversial campaign journey, to say the least. Loads of backers had seemingly dozens of different complaints as the Matagot’s campaign trudged from one problem to the next. These complaints included confusion about pricing and value, questionable graphic design and iconography, awkward miniature figures, theme-breaking expansions, and more.

These many problematic ingredients seemed like a recipe for crowdfunding disaster. While the campaign was messier than intended, Matagot weathered the storm well. Each major complaint was met with proposals, polls, adjustments, and solutions as Matagot listened and responded to their backers. While some backers abandoned ship, many more chose to ride out the waves or even join in on the crazy journey after seeing the commitment and care from the team behind Kemet. The end result was a nearly 1 million dollar campaign and a game that is much more likely to reach its full potential.

The Importance of a Hook — Whale Riders

Whale Riders has been another interesting project to follow. I’ve recently become a huge fan of Reiner Knizia’s designs, so this one was easy for me to get behind. The part that has caught me off guard is how little support this game received on Kickstarter. The game quickly funded and hit the $20,000 mark, but it seemed to plateau after that and was barely crawling higher every day since (until the typical last-minute bump).

Grail Games’ project seemed to have the complete package for a mega hit (at least in my naive eyes). It combines a legendary designer with an exceptional artist and a proven publisher. The game is accessible, the theme is whimsical, and the price is reasonable. I’ve also come across plenty of advertisements for it in the usual places. I would have placed my money on this game at least hitting six figures. Yet that didn’t turn out to be within reach.

As I’ve thought about it more, I can only come up with one reason why the game hasn’t received more support. The one thing that Whale Riders seems to be missing is a hook. Don’t get me wrong, Whale Riders looks like a solid game on all accounts; that’s why I backed it. But for comparison’s sake, let’s try to find the hook of the above mentioned kickstarter projects:

• Wavelength: That big, beautiful plastic device that allows for grand reveals and dramatic moments
• Button Shy’s Wallet Games: Pretty-looking, dirt-cheap games that pack a punch and fit in your pocket
• Dice Throne Adventures & Season 1 Rerolled: A premium production of a remodeled season 1 and a cooperative expansion to a beloved Yahtzee combat game
• Sleeping Gods: An epic, hand-crafted cooperative story-book adventure
• Calico: A colorful, Azul-like puzzly game with recessed player boards and cats!
• Loot of Lima: A clever deduction game with interactive player shields
• Oath: A quirky strategy game with a gorgeous production and an innovative system
• GPS / Sequoia / Mountain Goats: A bundle of fancy 10-minute filler games that are easy to teach and addictive to play
• Railroad Ink Challenge: The ultimate roll & write package with dozens of custom dice, maps, and objectives
• Bristol 1350: A thematic social deduction racing game that plays 1-9 players and fits into a compact book box
• Kemet- Blood and Sand: A mega hit game reborn and reimagined with improved gameplay, art, and components

Whale Riders has solid gameplay and fantastic art, but the above mentioned games contain all of that plus more. They stand out in at least one major way, while Whale Riders struggles to differentiate itself. Whether its a novel component, fresh concept, killer production, convenient feature, or something else entirely, the more hooks a project has, the stronger its campaign will be.

Jamey Stegmaier understands the importance of a hook. If you are wanting to pitch a game design to his company, the hook is a must. This philosophy has helped Stonemaier games to become the indie publisher juggernaut that it is today.

Just to be clear, I’m not just saying that I want our games to have an interesting theme or a unique mechanism. Being interesting and unique are interesting qualities, but they’re different than the hook. The key to a great hook is that it grabs your attention. It stands out in a crowd.

Jamey Stegmaier

Rabbit Hole Review

Kickstarter projects have used many effective tools to earn pledges from myself and many others. These tools include:

1. Get straight to the point with your campaign video and page. Why should I be excited about your project becoming a reality? (Wavelength)
2. Low-risk rewards and strong design credibility makes the pledge button easier to click (Button Shy’s wallet games).
3. Quality and consistency earns attention and loyalty (Dice Throne).
4. Alluring presentations and illuminating playthroughs are critical to influencing hesitant backers (Sleeping Gods, Calico).
5. High standards and hot streaks are the fastest route to super fans (GPS, Sequoia, Mountain Goats, Oath).
6. Meaningful upgrades and add-ons are the best shovels for digging deeper into my wallet (Railroad Ink Challenge).
7. Reliable brands and try-before-you-buy is a great way to earn unsolicited volunteers and proactive supporters (Bristol 1350).
8. Listening and responding to backers will gain the trust of current and prospective supporters (Kemet: Blood and Sand).
9. A solid game will be successful (Whale Riders), but a solid game with a hook will flourish.

This concludes my series on How to Win Backers and Crowdfund Projects – A Case Study. Thanks for tuning in! Do you have any personal examples of how a Kickstarter project won you over? Share below!

Article written by Nick. He is inspired by the stellar work of all the individuals involved in the Kickstarter campaigns mentioned above. He is looking forward to playing these games plus many more (including those on his most anticipated games of 2020 list).

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