Kickstarter Weekly—January 17, 2014

We're wrapping up the week with a new podcast, and some new Kickstarter projects. So what are they? I'm glad you asked. Featured Kickstarter Campaign: Zeppeldrome: A Humorous, Hazardous, Dirigible Relay. It's a race to the finish, and there are all kinds of hazards you can play with, which ups the replay value. Look for a review of this game next week, and an interview with designer Anthony Gallela in a week or so. A mere $29 gets you copy of the game.

Because the world needs more zombie games, here's IELLO's latest offering: Zombie 15', which is a real-time cooperative take on the tired, old genre. You play in exactly 15 minutes, and follow a soundtrack, like Escape: Curse of the Temple. A "mere" $70 gets you a copy of the game.

Fresco Big Box is a big box of...Fresco. Because the world needed that? Again, $70 gets you the game.

Village In a Box is a micro game where you're trying to build the best village. There are lots of extra games you can add on to this one. Check it out here!

Countdown: Special Ops is brought to you by Game Salute. There aren't tons of different tiers: $35 gets you the game. Boom.

Plaid Hat Games Announces Dead Of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Plaid Hat Games, makers of the hit games Summoner Wars and Mice & Mystics have announced Dead Of Winter: A Crossroads Game. According to the Plaid Hat Web site, the Crossroads games are a new series of games "that tests a group of survivors' ability to work together and stay alive while facing crises and challenges from both outside and inside."

Dead Of Winter is the first game in the new series, and it finds 3-5 players trying to survive in a world full of zombies. Dead Of Winter is a "meta-cooperative psychological survival game. This means players are working together toward one common victory condition--but for each individual player to achieve victory, they must also complete their personal secret objective. This secret objective could relate to a psychological tick that's fairly harmless to most others in the colony, a dangerous obsession that could put the main objective at risk, a desire for sabotage of the main mission, or worst of all: vengeance against the colony! Certain games could end with all players winning, some winning and some losing, or all players losing."

Sounds cool. I love that people are playing with the boundaries of social games, such as The Resistance, and Two Rooms and a Boom. This sentence from the description has me very excited about it:

"Dead of Winter has players making frequent, difficult, heavily- thematic, wildly-varying decisions, that often have them deciding between what is best for the colony and what is best for themselves."

Sign me up. What are your thoughts? Does it sound cool? Are zombie-themed games played out?

Thanks for reading! And don't forget: You still have a chance to win a copy of Pixel Lincoln. Just listen to our third podcast to find out how. It's easy!