Watch your Back: Week September 24 to 30
Greetings, everyone. The last week of September has just enough flavour to keep us interested in crowdfunding. Let's dive in.
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If you are already familiar with Mark Tuck's small dice games (Orchard and Grove), then you may want to add Forage: A 9 card solitaire game to your collection.
In this game, you will be foraging for blackberries, chestnuts and mushrooms in the forest. Besides the usual beat-your-own-score mode, this time you have the option of playing the recipe mode which has a win/lose condition. Once again you will be placing down cards trying to overlap the same patterns. If you succeed, you place a die on the matching square. If you don't, you place a die with a mouse, and that subtracts 2 points from your score. It is launching on Kickstarter on September 25.
Personal opinion: I enjoyed Orchard when it first came out but quickly lost interest in it and don't need another variation.
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Sticking with the nature theme, we have Defenders of the Wild: a 1-4 player cooperative game in which animals defend their territory from a machine invasion.
This is by the creators behind Bloc by Bloc, and one can detect similarities between the two games. Players choose one faction each, with asymmetric abilities. Each faction has its own deck of action cards. Machines take actions on their turn as well, and your goal is to build faction camps and reclaim the territories that the machines have taken over. It is launching on Kickstarter on September 26.
Personal opinion: I have Bloc by Bloc, and quite like it. Hence, I'm not sure I need a similar game just because it has cute animals. That said, cute animals are hard to resist. I'll think about it.
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More cooperation, different theme: Aberration is a 1-4 player tower defense game in which you are trying to defend your village from monster attacks.
The main mechanism is bag building. Your heroes have tokens that they add to their bag, and every time an aberration token is drawn, the aberration tracker goes up. Aberrations may give you fear, and lots of fear will eventually lose you the game. It is launching on Kickstarter on September 26.
Personal opinion: I'm somewhat interested in this and will be watching a playthrough.
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The 1-4 player dungeon crawler League of Dungeoneers is coming to Gamefound on September 26 with a reprint and the False Prophets expansion.
The game features solo and co-op modes, character progression, campaigns and one-off scenarios, and comes with standees instead of minis. The False Prophet expansion introduces rodent enemies.
Personal opinion: This is a Warhammer Quest-style dungeon crawler, a good option if you are a traditionalist of the genre. I like them a bit more modern.
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Lastly, on September 26 on Kickstarter we have the launch of the Light & Darkness expansion for Erune: a 1-5 player dungeon crawler that comes with a vocal app. This means that you talk to app, explaining the action you are going to take on your turn, and the app responds accordingly.