Category Archives: Kickstarter
Character Meeples by Meeple Source
I don’t really ever upgrade my games by adding cooler components or by painting minis or anything like that. But every once in a while there is a product that can add enough to the game to make it worth it. Today I want to introduce you to Meeple Source.
I wrote about Meeple Source in my Sourcing Game Components: Meeples article last September. They make fantastic custom meeples with a ton of character. Today I am mentioning them because they have a campaign currently running on Kickstarter (KS Link). I have personally met the fine folks behind Meeple Source and they are great people with a great product.
They just look so awesome!
I brought back a few of the character meeples from BGG.Con and my kids (ages 4 and 2) loved them. I wish I had bought more of them for my kids, and for my own games and game designs.
The campaign they are running has ten days remaining. They are over $70,000 and they have more stretch goals to go.
So far they have added some awesome stuff to the campaign. They added custom character meeples for a few games, like Tiny Epic Kingdoms, Lords of Waterdeep and Pandemic. They have three custom meeples from other companies like Miniature Market, Board Game Geek, and Tasty Minstrel Games. These are free to people who pledge $9 or more. They have also added cool viruses, germs, or plagues for Pandemic.
Here are just a few of the MANY meeples you can get:
I won’t get into the pledge tiers for the campaign because there are a ton of them. But go check it out and choose some sweet character meeples for yourself, or your kids, or your parents, or to hide in your co-workers office. I’m backing to get a fresh set of 10 different meeples, but since they keep adding awesome content I have no idea which 10 I’ll choose in the end.
Scoville and Me
Scoville – Where dreams come true!
I was thinking the other day about how strange all of this Kickstarter stuff is and that people are pledging money toward a game that I designed. It’s all been a really wild ride and it’s awesome to see a dream come true like this. If you are reading this, you are likely a backer, and for that I thank you.
On the flip side, I run this blog and it hasn’t exactly been running like normal while Scoville has been on Kickstarter. For that I apologize. Today won’t be like normal either. I realized that the truth is I may never have a game on Kickstarter again. So I’m trying to enjoy all of the stuff going on around the campaign, both good and bad. I’m taking the perspective of just enjoying it.
So today I thought I would share with you all the awesome opportunities that people have presented me with. These are the interviews and podcasts that I’ve had a pleasure of being a part. But first, for those who have not seen it, Undead Viking has a video review of Scoville for you visual and audible pleasure.
Undead Viking Video Review
Interviews
I had the pleasure of being involved in three different interviews. The #BoardGamersAsk was a live interview on Twitter where anyone could ask me anything. It was pretty awesome!
Indie Cardboard: January 26, 2014
#BoardGamersAsk via Ministry of Board Games: January 31, 2014
Cardboard Republic: February 14, 2014
Podcasts
It turns out that the guy who runs My Board Game Show lives in my town. So I was able to go over to his house and record the podcast live with him. And I had the pleasure of joining the Dice Hate Me crew, who are always fun to chat with. Here’s the four podcasts I had the privilege of being on:
My Board Game Show – Scoville & Mob Town: February 4, 2014
Dice Hate Me State Of Games: The one about the hot games of 2014: February 7, 2014
Let’s Level Up: February 11, 2014
G*M*S Magazine Boardgame Review Room: February 11, 2014
In the meantime…
Thanks for checking out Scoville on Kickstarter! It really means a lot to me. I’ve got other games I’m working on that I hope will end up as awesome as Scoville.
Monday Brews: 2-3-14
I’m back from my Florida vacation and I’ve got two weeks of Boards & Barley to report on, which includes a gaming weekend with my friends Brad & Kendra from Green Bay. So there is a lot to cover.
But first I want to remind you that my game, Scoville, is currently live on Kickstarter! Go check it out by clicking the link:
Scoville on Kickstarter!
Now that I got that out of the way I can resume life as normal. While there’s no “Designer’s Corner” this week since all my focus has been on vacation and the Scoville campaign, here are the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed over the last two weeks:
The Barley:
Boddington’s Pub Ale: I enjoyed this from a nitro tap at The Mucky Duck on Captiva Island in Florida while watching the sunset (see image above). Does it get better than that?
Will you ride the wave?
Kona Big Wave Golden Ale: I bought this to try something new during our trip to Florida. It wasn’t very enjoyable and the housekeeping crew was rewarding with three of them that I left in the hotel room fridge.
Red Stripe: I enjoyed this one at a beach-side restaurant in Fort Lauderdale before sitting on the beach in 80 degree weather. I didn’t have to add in that last part, but it helped make the Red Stripe more awesome.
New Glarus Spotted Cow: I don’t recall when I enjoyed this, but this is a common beer to appear on the list.
Stone Arch Vanilla Stout: Brad and Kendra brought this excellent brew for the weekend. It is out of Appleton, Wisconsin. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Estaminet: I got this with my dinner in Fort Myers since it was a Belgian beer that I had not had before. After drinking it I think it is to Belgium what Miller & Budweiser are to the US.
New Glarus Cabin Fever Honey Bock: And then there’s my current beer crush, which will continue to be on this list because it’s so good!
Redhook Winterhook: I chose this Seattle beer during the game Sunday night because I thought it would be a good beer. It was. And Seattle went on to dominate.
Left Hand Sawtooth Ale: I chose this Colorado beer at halftime to see if it would change the fate of the game. It did not. But the beer was pretty good.
The Boards:
The Little Prince: Airplane Version.
The Little Prince x2: My wife and I got this to the table, sort of. The tables were really tiny and were at 37,000 feet. But The Little Prince worked pretty well in the airplane. This is a fun game for 2 players so it worked well for us to bring it on our trip.
Cribbage: My wife and I love playing cribbage and it is often a refreshing escape from meaty Euros. Unfortunately she pulled out the victory in the end.
Timeline x5: I have been wanting to play this game because it seems like a fun and light game that accessible to a lot of different gamer types. I wasn’t disappointed. We played five times with two expansions and rarely saw the same cards come up. It’s a fun, light game.
Tenzi x10: We also did some serious dice rolling with Tenzi. Tenzi is a game where each player has 10 dice and you roll them to try and get the same result on all of your dice. It’s like trying to get a Yahtzee but with 10 dice and unlimited re-rolls.
Boss Monster x2: I had not played this game before but it was a lot of fun. In the game you are trying to build a dungeon with different rooms that will destroy any hero that tries to enter. If you take too much damage you will lose. If you kill enough heroes you will win.
Kingdom Builder x3: It’s such an elegant and simple game with deep strategy, while at the same time possessing enough luck to make it frustrating when you get the wrong cards. But we love it and we’ll keep playing it.
Ticket to Ride – Netherlands: I really like the anxiety caused by the Netherlands expansion. Players have bridge toll tokens that must be paid for each connection you build on the board. Then if someone plays the same connection they have to pay you the same amount of bridge toll tokens. So there are incentives to playing your connections first, which is not the normal way I play. I love that they mixed it up!
Scoville set up for 4 players during a Gaming Weekend of Awesomeness!
Scoville: With Brad and Kendra in town it was fun to put my “final art” copy of Scoville on the table for us to play. They were both involved with Playtest #4 just over a year ago so they saw how far everything has come along. I ended up winning but only because Kendra didn’t realize that my wife and I each had a Platinum pepper left. So fun!
Village: I played this game over a year ago and remembered it being a little disjointed. You collect goods to use for different things, but all the resource collection and usage felt circular to me and then your people die and it didn’t seem that great of a game. Well I gave it another shot and it still felt the same way to me. I think the death mechanic is really the driver for the game. I’d like to play it one more time before I officially rule it out, but it’s on the fence for now.
Farmageddon x2: I love this game even though it can be infuriating! Players plant and try to harvest beautifully artistic crops to earn money. But other players are lurking to hinder your progress. Can you be the best farmer and earn the most money? And a new expansion should be coming soon! I’ll be picking that one up.
Targi: I bought this at GenCon from the Cool Stuff Inc booth for $20 and I finally got it to the table. It was worth the wait. This was a lot of fun and the decisions were dramatic and tense. I really enjoyed the back and forth concept of blocking your opponent. I’m looking forward to playing this again.
Eminent Domain: I got my copy through Kickstarter and we got it to the table. It is a very fun take on the deckbuilder genre. Each card has both an ACTION and a ROLE. So depending on how you build your deck you can start to tailor your game. I’m very excited to try out the expansion!
Compounded: My wife finally got to play this and she really enjoyed it, which says a lot! We all had a great time playing this. It’s such great game. It was a bit unusual though since we played with the lab fire cards randomly located in the compounds deck. And twice the came out stacked. So the lab was pretty safe after that. I need to learn to shuffle better.
And I probably forgot a few games because we wrote them down on paper instead of recording them on my phone. Never the less, it was a great two weeks of gaming for me!
***
Those are the Boards & Barley I enjoyed, what did you enjoy?
Scoville on Kickstarter!
I was originally planning on posting an article about Decision Space in game design but certain events have caused me to postpone that article. It’s still coming at some point and I think it’s a pretty good article, but today I can’t help but share about Scoville.
Scoville has Launched!
If you are interested in the game and seeing the art or watching me in a video, then head over to the campaign page. The first 24 hours of the campaign saw 498 backers pledge $20,876. I am truly amazed at the response so far for Scoville.
Also, if you are a backer or are on Twitter, feel free to use this image as your avatar! The more we can spread the word, the more likely we will be at hitting our funding goal and the stretch goals.
Designing vs. Publishing
On the Kickstarter page you’ll notice that two of the stretch goals are to add a 5th and 6th player. While some people might grumble that the Print and Play files have always had the capability for 6 players, why does the Kickstarter version only have 4 players out of the gates?
This is a great debate between designing games and actually producing games.
As a designer I could add whatever I wanted into my designs. It could have 2000 wooden bits, 500 cards, 100 modular boards, and so on.
A publisher would never sign a game like that.
So there comes a time when designers must start to think like publishers. In order for Scoville to be up to a 6 player game, it would require more Market Orders, more Recipes, more Player Screens, More Pawns, More Coins, and more Bonus Action Tiles. Each of those elements are things I could easily produce for the few prototype copies that I made. But their are actual cost considerations for a publisher to produce them.
So while it is easy for a designer to add whatever they want into a game, it ultimately takes real money to make it happen.
That’s the case with the 5th and 6th player stretch goals for Scoville. I hope you all understand.
Go Check It Out!
The artwork for Scoville was done by Josh Cappel, who is a pleasure to work with. I love his style and it is clear that he really brought the town of Scoville to light in the artwork for the game. Here’s a picture of the box:
Will you be the best pepper farmer and win the Scoville trophy?
I’ll be sharing more art with you here and on Twitter as the campaign moves forward. Thanks so much for checking out my game.
Scoville Coming Soon!
Hi Everyone! I’ve been having a bit of writer’s block lately and I finally realized why. It’s because with the Scoville Kickstarter launching soon my brain has been floating in hyperspace. I completely missed October. And I don’t think there’s been a night so far in November where I haven’t dreamed about the game of the Kickstarter or the artwork. I might be losing my mind.
Today is a Friday which would normally be a Review day or a Design Me day. But I’d rather write about Scoville and give you an update.
Art by Joshua Cappel
I couldn’t be more excited with the artwork choice by Tasty Minstrel. If you’ve read my board game reviews then you know I commonly list artwork as either a positive or negative for games. That’s because artwork is a big deal for me.
So when Tasty Minstrel told me that Joshua was on board I was elated. I love his style and the flavor that he adds to the game. Here are a couple of samples of his artwork. These are not images from Scoville. The first is from Garden Dice and the second is the board for Belfort:
That’s some awesome stuff. If you haven’t played Belfort you should really go check it out. And make sure you look for all the cool easter eggs on the main board!
While the prototype is basic and I have not added much artwork to it, I have had a vision for the artwork basically from the start. And if the funding hits a certain level then that vision will turn into reality! I’m so excited to see what Joshua does with the game!
Campaign Teasers
Well, unfortunately I can’t really say very much. But I’ve seen the KS preview and I can tell you things are moving along nicely! We’ve got a great lineup of stretch goals. I’m probably not supposed to say this and I might get in trouble for it, but Pepper Farming Meeples may or may not be one of the stretch goals. *wink wink*
I’m also probably not supposed to share this potential stretch goal (peppers instead of cubes). So don’t tell anyone! (or tell the world – this awesomeness should be shared!). Here is a quickly done example of what the peppers could look like. The colors aren’t perfect and I believe the platinum pepper may have a nice shiny coat, but don’t hold me to that!
Wouldn’t you rather be planting these instead of cubes?
BGG.con
So that’s all I can share today. I’m hoping to be able to tease you with some artwork next week, but let’s not count on that. But for those of you who are attending the Board Game Geek Convention from the 20th to the 24th I will be there demoing the game basically all day and all night. If there are other games you are interested in checking out, then let me refer you to this geeklist:
So if you want a demo I’ll probably be running them every hour on the hour. But if you miss the top of the hour, don’t let that stop you from checking it out! It’s gonna be an awesome time!
Boards and Barley 