TOG Visual—An Origins Interview with Patrick Nickell

Crash Games' Patrick Nickell was kind enough to sit down with Jeremiah and tell us about Council Of Verona, Paradise Fallen, and more! If you want to check out Council Of Verona, you can do that right here. It's already been funded, so join in the fun.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIulzoHL5OU]

Kickstarter Weekly - May 18, 2013

It's another week in the books here at TOG, but before we're done we thought we would bring you another round of Kickstarter news so you can plan the final destination of a portion of your gaming budget over the weekend. Prepare to Die! - Game Salute

Yep, we've been all worked up over here about the upcoming series of games based on The Princess Bride and Game Salute has kicked things off with a campaign to get Prepare to Die, a party game based on the famous line of Inigo Montoya, to market! Jeremiah recommends this one! You can check out his preview of this one here.

Admiral - Bombat Games

I (Jeremiah) have a soft spot for pirate ship type games, this one looks like it has potential, but is very pricey to get in on. $60 for a "half set of Admiral" and $95 for the basic game. But like I said it has potential for those of us who like to sail pretend ships and blast cannons at our friends!

Pixel Dungeon - Octopus Apocalypse

This is a set of fun paper miniatures for table top gaming/RPGing. Super cheap to get in on with lots of packs full of creatures, heroes, and locations!

Funded!

Upon A Fable—Kickin' It Games

This one ends on Monday, and it's over the line! It's a Euro for 1 to 6 players that features worker placement and card drafting. One reviewer described it as " Agricola meets 7 Wonders." That has us intrigued...

Paradise Fallen - Crash Games

Coming in just under the wire to get funded last week was the core game to what is promised to be a larger gaming universe in Paradise Fallen. Congrats to Crash Games, and we're looking forward to seeing this on the shelves soon!

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What You Missed...

News! Reviews! Poohs! We had a cram-packed week here on the blog. First we brought you news that Z-Man Games is reprinting an old Alan Moon trick-taking game: Black Spy. And Z-Man also revealed that the anticipated game Terra Mystica will come out May 1.

We had two interviews: first was Jason Tagmire of Pixel Lincoln fame, sharing about upcoming projects. And then we interviewed Shane Steely and Jared Tinney, designers of Walk The Plank.

We also discussed some of the odd choices of the Origins Awards. And Tom Vasel gave us some behind-the-scenes info on the nomination process (in the comments).

We had a Double-Take Review of I'm The Boss: The Card Game—and we had wildly different experiences with it.

THEN, we talked about the newly announced deluxe expansion for Star Wars The Card Game—with wookies!

And finally (whew!) we talked about a bunch of new Kickstarter projects—including the new Gryphon Game Francis Drake.

Thanks for reading! We'll have more for you next week; have a great weekend!

Kickstarter Weekly—A New Look

There has been such an increasing amount of activity on Kickstarter over the past few weeks, that we've decided to put a newer spin on our Kickstarter Weekly features. You'll still get them on Thursdays, but instead of piecing them out we're going to feature several projects, and give some news about them as we go. So welcome to the new Kickstarter Weekly here at TOG! Our first project this week is from Eagle Games: Francis Drake, a game designed by Peter Hawes, puts players in the heart of Spain's new world as they sail the Caribbean, buying, selling, trading, and raiding ports for goods to return home with and sell for profits! The gameplay looks well-thought-out, and there are some customized aspects, giving it a higher replayability factor. The board and components look gorgeous as well!

The campaign has 32 days left and they've already blown past the funding goal, so it shouldn't be long before the stretch goals start getting knocked off. The only downside is the game is a little pricey, but if you've got your eye on a few other titles from the Eagle/Gryphon catalog, they've thrown together some really nice bundle packages.  Check out the campaign here, and consider getting in and helping them reach the stretch goals!

Our next campaign is Paradise Fallen from Crash Games, a card-management game game set in a modern post-apocalyptic island setting. Crash Games plans on setting up an entire series of games, using this title as a launching point, to create a deeper universe for games and expansions to live in. Players control tribes trying to survive while placing obstacles in the paths of the other tribes. You'll strive to survive, find food, and and explore the fallen paradise.

You can grab a copy of the game for a $25 pledge, and there are again some nice bundles available for higher price points. The campaign has 27 days left and is still $10,000 short of their funding goal, so they've got a ways to go before it funds—let alone hitting stretch goals. I'm loving the artwork so far, and they've come up with some great outrigger canoe meeples as well! (What meeples will they come up with next!?) If card management, and post-apocalyptic island survival are your thing(s) then head on over and check out the campaign here.

Up next is Teramyyd: Earthsphere a steam-punky, monster-fighting sky pirate, questing game.  I (Jeremiah) am very intrigued by this game. The game appears to have multiple scenarios for players to embark on, and within those scenarios lie different quests to complete on their way to victory. Let's not forget the cool sky pirates flying machines that you can upgrade and add to while trying to defeat sky monsters!

IO Worlds has blown past their funding goal by $40,000 with 32 days remaining on the campaign. And have already unlocked a new baddie and a new ship as the first two stretch goals. And the 3rd one looks way cool too! The bad news is, all of the early bird pledge levels have been devoured! So it will take a pledge of $75 to snag a copy of the game, but as the stretch goals pile up, the box you get will be stuffed with more and more cool little miniatures! You can check the campaign out for yourself, right here.

If you haven't done so, your window of opportunity is closing to get in on the Pixel Lincoln: Bicycle Playing Card campaign! There are two inexpensive options for jumping on board, a $10 pledge will get you a 21-card expansion for Pixel Lincoln the deck building game. Or a $12 pledge will get you a deck of PL playing cards! There's just 5 days left, so best hurry on over!

And finally we want to extend a congratulations to Days of Wonder who CRUSHED their campaign to bring Small World 2 to the tablet realm (including PCs through Steam, android and iPad). They blew past their $150,000 goal, pulling in almost $400,000! This unlocked ALL of their stretch goals! Congrats to DoW, and the over 7,000 folks who backed the campaign!

Have you backed any of these projects? We'd love to hear what pushed you off the fence, and what you're excited about!

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