Watch your Back: Week October 16 to 22 (Part 2)
Let's continue with the second part of next week's crowdfunding overview (you may check Part 1 here).
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Race to the Raft is a 1-4 player cooperative tile placement game in which you are trying to save cats from a burning island. It is inspired by designer Frank West's previous game, The Isle of Cats. Your goal is to build pathways for the cats to walk safely towards the raft and be rescued from the fire.
The game comes with 81 scenarios that you can play progressively as a campaign. On your turn, you may play a card with a pathway from your hand, or move a cat along a path. Then, you draw a polyomino fire tile from the bag and place it on the board to spread the fire on the island. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18.
Personal opinion: Looks like a good game if you like puzzles.
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Spirit Island: Nature Incarnate is an expansion for the 1-4 player hand management game Spirit Island. The expansion adds 8 new spirits, and new aspects, threats and major powers as well as new game mechanics. The campaign will launch on Backerkit on October 18, and will also offer foil spirit boards and wooden tokens.
Personal opinion: Spirit Island is one of my favourite games. I have the Branch and Claw expansion but not Jagged Earth because I haven't finished playing through all the content. So I'll check what the campaign actually offers and decide whether to back or wait for retail. Foiling on the boards is completely unnecessary and probably even a visual hindrance.
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Super Snipers is a 1-2 player dueling game in which two snipers are trying to take each other out.
The game uses polyomino tiles that each player draws from a bag and then places on location boards trying to find where the opponent is hiding. In the solo mode you can choose to play against an AI or against two AIs in real time. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18.
Personal opinion: Interesting concept but not my cup of tea.
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CMON is bringing back Cthulhu Death May Die in a standalone edition called Fear of the Unknown. The original game is a 1-4 player cooperative dice chucking adventure in which you are playing as a hero trying to fight an Elder god and his minions. The new installment brings in the god Tsathoggua, new mechanics, and ways to make the game more, or less, difficult. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18.
Personal opinion: I'm generally lukewarm on the Cthulhu theme, so not really tempted to get this.
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AOC: Age of Champagne is a 1-4 player worker placement game in which, as the owner of a winery, you compete with your rivals for the title of the best Maison de Champagne.
You will send your workers to various action spaces on the board in order to make investments and meet the demands of the market. Solo rules haven't been revealed yet. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 20.
Personal opinion: Nothing for me here. And, not that it matters, but champagne happens to be one of my least favourite wines.
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Pampero is a 1-4 player resource and hand management game in which you are building wind farms in Uruguay and managing the local energy infrastructure.
Each player has a hand of 8 cards from which they choose actions to play on their turn. You can build wind farms, electric towers, or fulfill contracts, with the aim of earning the most money at the end of the game. Solo rules haven't been revealed yet. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 20.
Personal opinion: I don't know the solo win condition but I suspect a bot.
Since I love puzzles I will have a good, strong look at Race to the Raft. The KS exclusive pack contains quite a lot of contents, otherwise I would have for sure waited for a retail release. As Hana said, the board looks cluttered and unappealing. Still, the designer diaries proved me this was the kind of game I could enjoy a lot.
Super Snipers has appealed to me from the very start, but I'm waiting to know more about it. A likely back, actually.
Nope...
Cthulhu: Death May Die is fun. I am way off playing through all the content though. Which means I probably won't back when I see the shipping costs, and then later I'll be sorry. Though some of the content will surely be available in retail later.
Well some meat here: Race to the Raft I followed along through the designer diaries. Especially since I love puzzles. But this one is a combination of push your luck mechanisms with drawing cards for solo and racing against time. On top of that it's quite a big game and the graphic design while looking fine up close makes the board way too chaotic to see at a glance what's going on, which is as far as I'm concerned very important for puzzles. So pass.
Nature's Incarnate on the other hand is a sure back. I'm not going to pretend that I fully explored everything, every possibility or combination of the content so far or that I played it to death.…