This week is a really exciting one in the Crowdfunding space, with Tidal Blades finally coming to Kickstarter. There are a lot of strong games all launching over the next week all on Kickstarter, from Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, expansions to the stunning looking Encyclopaedia. I will be backing Tidal Blades for the store and my personal money will probably go to Mercurial.
The Tournament of Heroes has ended and you have been named as one of the Tidal Blades, elite guard and champion of our island realm. But you have no time to rest on your laurels as the Fold, the frozen section of space and time that protects Naviri from the sea monsters, is becoming ever more erratic. The High Engineers of the Citadel have entrusted you with the Nexus, a device that will let you venture into the Fold, unfreezing time.
With your fellow Tidal Blades, you must enter the Fold to unlock its mysteries as you attempt to recover the old guard Tidal Blades who were trapped inside when the Fold was created. On your journey to become a true Tidal Blade you will explore throughout the isles of Naviri to find a way to save the island realm.
In Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders, each player takes the role of a new Tidal Blade. In this cooperative, narratively rich, board game, players will work together through 18 scenarios. Each hero is equipped with a Nexus grid, allowing them to build up actions and create powerful combos. Each turn you will choose one card to play, add it to an open space in your Nexus grid, and then activate all spaces in either the row or column containing the played card.
Throughout the campaign you will grow and enhance your character by adding cards to your action deck, leveling up your traits of Spirit, Focus, Resilience and Synergy, unlocking powerful skills, and gaining specialized Items to boost your action cards.
Featuring 18 scenarios with unique maps and 40+ hours of gameplay, Tidal Blade 2: Rise of the Unfolders invites you on a quest through the lush and vibrant lands of Naviri. Along the way, you will meet valuable allies, have chance in counters with Golfins, Iota, and other denizens of Naviri. Battle a seemingly endless army of monsters and enemies as you fight your way to the center of the Fold.
Will you solve the mystery of the Fold in time and save Naviri, earning your place among the Tidal Blades of legend?
Okko Chronicles - Ramparts of the Empire features the legendary Rônin and his fellow travelers who, taking refuge in strongholds scattered throughout the mountains, must fend off the countless invading armies of Karasu before they breach the Pajan. During a game, each player will choose to embody one of the Heroes. Together, they will have to make the best decisions to ensure that the fortress can withstand the repeated assaults of the undead.
Okko Chronicles - Ramparts of the Empire can be played in cooperative or semi-cooperative mode: In semi-cooperative mode, one of the players will play as Black Tiger, an evil ninja, a former hero corrupted by necromancy, who has infiltrated the fortress to facilitate the arrival of the Karasu era! In cooperative mode, a deck of Black Tiger Reaction cards will allow you to make this dangerous opponent act.
During a turn, each player plays one or two of their action cards; these cards give them advantages to perform the 3 actions they have.
A game ends: - when all the Heroes are put out of action or when one of the fortress walls gives way completely, leaving the Pajan Empire to the undead, - or when the last wave of the Karasu army breaks on the defenses of the fortress, thanks to the arrival of the Pajan army. But beware, other parallel objectives can also influence the course of the story.
The game is part of the same range as the Okko Chroicles Water Cycle. It can be considered as its sequel but the game mechanics are different and they can't be played together.
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable).
A new, stand-alone game inspired by Terraforming Mars featuring faster gameplay and over 200 beautifully illustrated cards!
The villagers of Summer's End are preparing for the coming of Malwinter — a strange and legendary season with the harshest snows and deadly cold. Take control of a new generation of explorers, the most valued members of Summer's End who go out every day in search of food, materials, or other resources that the village uses to survive:
Narii, who believes there's something in the nearby mountain range that can help the village survive.
Narii's sister Iris, a village guard who helps fend off the bandits who steal valuable resources and materials.
The apprentice blacksmith, Jasper, who has been trying to build something impressive enough for his teacher for seven years.
Or, finally, Ouop, a mysterious robot who assists the villagers but can communicate only by saying his name.
Fire for Light is a campaign-driven game played out over at least fifteen chapters. During each chapter, you set up a new scenario with new enemies and objectives. Most importantly, players are given choices that will change the outcome of their games and give them access to different rewards or shape future chapters differently.
A chapter is played over several rounds, each culminating in daylight progressing to darkness. Fire for Light uses a unique "Awareness" system to determine which characters (both friend and foe) activate. When an explorer takes their turn, they utilize actions they have available from different sources such as item or ability cards, their explorer mats, or other scenario-specific actions. These allow the characters to move, attack, gather resources, explore the wilderness, or countless other effects. When an enemy activates, they follow behaviors from top-to-bottom and roll a number of dice whenever they move.
Make your choices and uncover the mystery of this snowy world in Fire for Light!
After an arduous journey through the otherworldly land of Valanyr, your caravan finally arrives at Camp Trinity — a young, thriving settlement built atop a ruined kingdom once decimated by an ancient cataclysm.
Like many here, you were previously a mage of low renown now seeking a better fortune. The cataclysm altered Valanyr's Elan to be fertile but mercurial, rendering the rules of spellcasting different from whence you came. Here, the usually separate elements of nature fuse readily, allowing for new and unknown spells to be created. You'll have to start from scratch, but unknown means new discoveries to be made, and a thriving settlement means opportunity...
Mercurial is an card & dice-manipulation game themed on spellcrafting with combo & engine-building mechanics. Learn magical Alteration techniques to control the chaos of your elemental dice, and use these elements to combine lesser magicks into new and unknown spells. Your combined spells can either inflict ruin, restore life, or something more — use them to perform heroic deeds, ranging from helping your allies defeat dangerous beasts, to finding a path for stranded travellers lost in the strange land of Valanyr.
In Mercurial, each player has varying capabilities and starting resources, with their differences offering a unique path to power with every journey. Delve into the fantastic world of Mercurial, and discover a new age of spellcrafting.
Welcome to Isla Nublar, where you and other scientists, dreamers, and schemers will build an attraction like no other. Take on the role of visionaries John Hammond and Simon Masrani, visiting scientists Dr. Alan Grant, Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Ian Malcolm, sharp-minded park personnel Claire Dearing and Dr. Henry Wu, and many more, each playing a vital part in the island's legacy.
Together, you will transform Isla Nublar into an astonishing paradise where awe-struck visitors encounter creatures never before seen by human eyes. Decide where to build park facilities, dinosaur enclosures, and guest attractions — and keep employees and visitors safe from the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, colossal Brachiosaurus, clever Velociraptor, and other threats.
In Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar, you play through twelve adventures in which you customize an entirely unique game board and breed new dinosaurs you cannot unmake. Your team's fateful choices will have a lasting impact, creating your own Isla Nublar story. Your experience will culminate in an endlessly replayable game of your own creation.
Welcome to Encyclopedia! The year is 1739, and as aspiring naturalists and adventurers, you’ve been hired by the Comte de Buffon - Darwin's predecessor - to help him create the first encyclopedia of natural history. To do so, you’ll be conducting research, organizing ambitious expeditions and publishing studies of the world’s most fascinating creatures!
Encyclopedia is a dice-based worker placement game. At the beginning of each round, you’ll be drawing and rolling dice, then placing them on your player board. These dice can then be used to perform an action each turn, depending on their color and value. Your action can be preparing your expeditions by going to the Embassy, visiting the Bank to raise funds, or hiring your research team at the University. Once you’re ready to go, you’ll choose the Animal cards you wish to study, then organize expeditions to observe them in their natural habitats. When your research is complete, you’ll then be able to publish your findings in an attempt to become the biggest contributor to Buffon’s Encyclopedia. Every publication you make will earn you Victory points, and at the end of the game, you’ll score points based on collections of Animals and research amassed during play. The naturalist with the most points wins!
Encyclopedia was designed by Olivier Melison and Eric Dubus, the authors of Dominations: Road to Civilization and Museum. This expert worker placement game brings some fascinating new twists to the genre, offering multiple paths to victory. The game also offers a multitude of ways to counter the random element of your dice rolls. As well as being able to spend different tokens to change the value or color of a die, players have more than just their own dice to choose from, as other players dice can also be used! Taking a die from another player’s board does not cost anything, but the targeted player gains a bonus.
The game’s beautiful theme - with gorgeously illustrated animal cards - ties in strongly with its mechanics, making the rules easy to grasp so that you can jump straight in to devising the perfect strategy.
Kingdoms Rise & Fall: Dorian is a strategic deckbuilding game set in a fantasy world (campaign launch on March 22, 2022). Explore Dorian with your unique character that progresses during the game and leads your army into battle. Build your deck of Combat cards based on your play style with either Stealth, Physical or Magic. Start Siege battles to capture locations or engage in Field battles to defeat your rival armies.
During the game, there will be a lot of player interaction. Players will negotiate, fight tactical Siege and Field battles by using their Combat cards and they might even betray each other. The player with the most Influencers Points (IP) wins the game. There are alternative victory conditions, like team battles and by capturing the capital.
The duration of the game can be controlled by choosing the number of rounds (Kingdom Event cards) and by setting a goal on the Influence Point Track. Meaning you can play a short 1-hour game or play for six hours or more.
In Habitats, each player builds a big wildlife park without cages or fences. The animals in your park need their natural habitats: grassland, bush, rocks or lakes. The zebra needs a big area of grass and some water adjacent, for example, while a bat needs rocks and bush and water, a hart needs bush and grass, and a crocodile needs mainly water. There is a snake, baboon, bee, elephant, otter, lizard, turtle, eagle, meerkat, scorpio, hog, catfish, rhino, etc., each with its own landscape requirements — 68 different animals in total.
Each player starts their individual park with an entrance tile, and they are each represented in the marketplace of animal tiles by a ceramic figure (or a wooden ranger meeple in some editions). On a turn, a player takes the tile to their left, right or front; moves their figure to the space just vacated; then draws a tile to place where their figure started the turn.
When adding an animal tile in your park, you add its main landscape — the base space for the animal — to your park, too. While placing this new animal, its own piece of landscape can help to fulfill the requirements of your other animals' requirements, e.g., the water on a hippo tile fulfilling the adjacent otter's need for water. Thus, fulfilling every animal's desire for land becomes a more and more difficult task with each tile you add.
Aside from expanding your park with different landscape types, flora and animals, you can improve its profitability by building extra entrance roads, trek spots, and watchtowers.
Habitats lasts three seasons, with each season giving each player 6-9 new tiles for their parks. Whoever has best met the goal of the season receives bonus points, with a smaller number of points for second and third place. At the end of the game, each player scores for each tile in their park based on whether that tile's requirements are satisfied. Whoever scores the most points wins!
Comments