Kickstarter Weekly—August 1, 2013

Well it's Thursday and you know what that means... It's not yet Friday. But never fear because we're here with another installment of Kickstarter Weekly, the place where we make our recommendations and let you know what's a poppin' over on Kickstarter. Let's jump in, shall we?

King's Forge - Clever Mojo Games

Go back this project! We have both played the prototype (and will be posting our written AND video Double-Take on it soon!). This dice-builder offers up lots of great decision making moments, a bit of a take that element, and lots of ways to tweak your dice rolls. It's super easy to learn, play and teach. A pledge of $39 gets you a copy of this game and it's money well spent! Check out the full campaign here!

A Duel Betwixt Us - Game Salute

This nifty little 2-player dueling card game takes card dueling into the realm of an old-timey gentlemen's duel. Loaded with lots of humor and jest, the one looks like a lot of fun! In just about 24 hours the campaign is over 60% funded, so you can bet there's going to be all kinds of stretch goaly goodness coming for this one! A $35 pledge gets you the game shipped to your door in the US and UK! We'll be interviewing the game's co-designer Laurence Honderick next week so stay tuned for that! You can check out the campaign here, and be sure to watch the entertaining and informative video on this one!

Giant Meeples - Gamelyn Game

Gamelyn Games founder Michael Coe has found a great niche with these awesome, sturdy, and just super-cool-to-look-at meeples. They were introduced to the gaming world through Dungeon Heroes, and since then Gamelyn has been releasing different sets of meeples for gamers to use, give to kids to play with, use in story telling, or display proudly. The latest installment in this line is a set of GIANT MEEPLES! These things look great, could be used as a set of book ends, or a centerpiece in your medieval dinner party, or... well you can decide. You can pledge $12 and get one, or $40 and get 5, and there are dozens of them to choose from! Check out the campaign right here!

Click-Clack Lumberjack - Mayday Games

Also known as Toc Toc Woodman 2.0. Click-Clack Lumberjack is a dexterity game that puts a dangerous weapon in your children's hands. Ok, it's a plastic axe, but to my children I'm sure it would be a ninja ax, or a bat-ax or something to wield in a quest to eradicate evil... Anyway, there's this plastic tree and you're trying to knock the bark off of it without knocking the wood off of it. Bark scores points, wood scores negative points. An interesting pledge level of $17 gets you the game shipped in a flat rate box and the game box is collapsed to make everything fit. If you want it uncollapsed you can pay an extra $5 and get it shipped that way. Check out the full campaign here!

Dungeon Attack! - Attack Dice Games

Attack Dice, creators of the dice roller When Zombies Attack! are back at it with a dungeon themed dice-apalooza! Dungeon Attack! Looks like a game that takes a straight-forward dice roller and adds some depth and tweaks the scoring mechanism a little. I (Jeremiah) loved When Zombies Attack—it's a filler that comes out quite frequently with my group and is way better than Steve Jackson's Zombie Dice (which is basically a zombie-themed Farkle). This campaign is already funded and there are some sweet stretch goals in the future for backers! $20 gets you in on a copy of the game for this one and it looks well worth it if you're into rolling dice! Check out the full campaign here!

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What You MIssed...

We had a fun and busy week here at TOG. First we had a little April Fool's joke where I said I was giving up board games. (I even convinced one of my friends for the briefest of moments....)

Then we gave you a bunch of Tolkien board game news. Is there any franchise that has more games set in its universe?

The Kickstarter Weekly was a Werewolfish game involving foxes and chickens...

Then we shared a Dr. Demento Kickstarter—for a documentary about the influential radio host.

Then we shared the unfortunate news about Zombies designer Todd Todd Breitenstein's passing, and a fund-raiser for his family.

Then we got news of the GAMA Origins Award nominees—and we shared them with you.

Thanks for joining us; have an awesome weekend.

A Fund-Raiser for the Late Zombies Designer

On March 24, Todd Breitenstein, designer of the board game Zombies!—and its countless sequels and expansions—lost his fight with cancer. The 47-year-old is survived by his wife and three children. US distributor ACD Distribution has announced in a press release that they "will donate all of the profits from sales of all Twilight Creations' games from March 24th through April 12th to the Todd Breitenstein Benefit Fund. In addition, ACD Distribution will match whatever amount is raised in this way as an additional contribution to the fund."

We Are Dead - Kickstarter Weekly

In other news, someone has designed a zombie board game. I know...shock and awe. We Are Dead is a collaborative effort between a couple of very accomplished artists Mike Morris, and Mike Collins. Morris being a 5-year veteran animator for The Simpsons, and Collins, whose accomplishments are a laundry list of Cartoon Network series. We Are Dead is a co-op play game, where players are actually not trying to survive the zombie apocalypse but you are actually inciting the apocalypse. Through co-op efforts and resource management you move through the mall infecting, and feasting, upon shoppers while trying to defeat any uprising heroes.

The game is touted as an easy-to-learn, fun romp, in a very stylized, cartoony zombie setting.  The game is completed, tested, and ready to go, Never Peak Games is simply asking for funds to send it to press.

This Kickstarter is one of the less expensive ones to get into on the ground floor; if you're one of the first 100 backers, you can get a copy of the game for $30. [Update: This level is sold out, but you can still get the game for $35.] You can also—for $20—get yourself a We Are Dead t-shirt.

As always, we'd love to hear what Kickstarters you're backing, or if you're starting your own campaign, let us know!