Hype in board gaming hobby
At the moment you are reading this, a new CMON game is rocking the Kickstarter - Rising Sun. It's a spiritual successor of Blood Rage, another successful project, from the same publisher and designer Eric Lang. CMON continues its winning streak on Kickstarter that has started with Zombicide in 2012 and followed with games like Arcadia Quest, Rum & Bones and The Others: 7 Sins. The latest post on Jamey Stegmaier's blog gives a bit of insight on CMON's success.
People often criticize CMON for running their campaigns as a marketing tool and preorder mechanism since they don't really need additional funds to publish their games. According to critics, Kickstarter should be used to help independent artists, designers, publishers, producers... to bring their projects to life. A good example of this is a game that's currently climbing fast through BGG rankings - Gloomhaven. Another example would be last year's Scythe.
Kickstarter is such a great tool for generating interest (hype), but hype can be created for products that are going through regular publishing channels. Pandemic Legacy is a great example of that. A game that's currently #1 overall on BGG list. Season 2 is one of the most anticipated games of 2017. Terraforming Mars, Cry Havoc or anything from Fantasy Flight Games or other acclaimed publishers were also hype generators. Whether they live up to the hype or not is another question.
How does the hype affect you? Are you backing Rising Sun?
News
11th Annual Golden Geek Awards Winners for 2016!
BoardGameGeek announced the winners of the 11th Annual Golden Geek Award for 2016. Scythe won the Board Game of the Year title plus several others.
Board Game and Tabletop News – March 8th 2017
Chris Bryan goes through the latest board game and tabletop news of last week.
Asmodee’s Exciting Titles from Toy Fair
Asmodee’s booth had some awesome titles to show off at this year’s Toy Fair. Here are a few that caught the eye of Jessica Fisher from Gameosity.
Batman: The Boardgame - game overview at FIJ 2017 (Cannes)
BoardGameGeek looks into Batman: The Boardgame, a newly announced game from Monolith, the creators of Conan.
Coming Soon from Mayfair Games
Mayfair Games announced a whole slew of new releases and exciting reprints for 2017 recently.
Oh Captain! Who Will You Trust?
Ireth of BoardGame Stories is writing about Oh Captain!, an upcoming game from Asmodee. In Oh Captain!, the Captain’s goal is to collect as much treasure from the explorers as possible, while the explorers’ goal is to hide and keep the best items for themselves.
Articles and Videos
Why I Play Board Games
Let me introduce to you the 5 reasons I play board games. If you are a gamer yourself, you probably won’t find anything earth shattering in this list, and you will most likely see some similarities as to why you enjoy the hobby.
Rather Dashing Interview (Element) by Man Vs Meeple
A fantastic interview with Grant Wilson & Mike Richie of Rather Dashing Games by Man vs Meeple.
5 Reasons Why Tabletop Gaming Is The Best Mid-Life Crisis You Can Have
The past few years have seen me rediscovering a hobby that has been with me since childhood: tabletop games. And by that, I mean rediscovering an (un)healthy obsession with tabletop games, only now I have a bigger budget.
How to teach board games: 7 steps to make teaching easier!
What is the best way to teach board games? This guide will lay out a series of simple steps that will help you to learn cool tips and tricks to help you on your way.
The Design of a Resource-Efficiency Game
A resource-efficiency game focuses on turning resources into victory points through a chain of actions. It’s a very common design style for euro games, but also one with considerable room for variety. An article by Shannon Appelcline of Mechanics & Meeples.
A chat about Kickstarter, with the creators of VIKINGS GONE WILD
Tompet Games continue their series of Kickstarter interviews, this time with creators of Vikings Gone Wild board game that was successfully funded last year.
Crowdfunding
Divinity Derby - A racing & betting game of mythic stature! by Ares Games
A party on Mount Olympus can quickly turn into a crazy race of legendary flying creatures - are you ready to place your bets?
KIWETIN by Gary Paitre
An unpredictable fast-paced board game for the whole family. Grab branches, cast spells and win!
Urban Tribes by Richard Gurley
Urban Tribes is a strategy board game where hipsters, preppies, rednecks, and soccer parents compete for control of a fictional town.
DRAGOON: The Rogue and Barbarian Expansion + Reprint by Lay Waste Games LLC
Choose between the base game, or the expansion with two new playable characters! Now in either plastic or solid metal.
King's Road by Grail Games
Knizia & Dutrait return to bring us King's Road! Can you earn the king's influence? Out-think your opponents as you sway the crown!
Farlight by Game Salute
Space organizations set out to explore and colonize the solar system, in an intrepid new game by King's Forge designer Nick Sibicky.
Reviews and Playthroughs
Review: Mansions of Madness (2nd Edition)
Wolfie reviews Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition, an adventure game based in Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Files universe. You know, the one with all the horror and the Cthulhu. The game is scenario-driven, but each scenario is self-contained and there is no overarching campaign.
Martians: A Story of Civilization Gameplay Runthrough
Rahdo runs through Martians: A Story of Civilization, a 1-4 player game where players need to explore the planet in search of necessary resources, build new constructions and develop technologies adjusted to planetary conditions.
Review: Not Alone
A devastating malfunction has caused your ship to crash, an orgy of violence disturbing the peaceful world of Artemia. You are explorers, so while waiting for rescue you set out to explore this lush, verdant planet. But as you do so, you come to realise the terrifying truth…
Review: Anachrony by Mindclash Games
It is the 26th century and earth is recovering from a devastating explosion that is creating havoc with the atmosphere of the planet. You are a leader of one of the four Paths that the Capital has trusted in.
Vinhos Deluxe Review - Fine and Mature, Just Like Us
Elaine and Efka explore the depths of a wine barrel. Will they stay sober to give a leveled review? Only one way to find out. Featuring a special guest.
Gloomhaven Overview – The 21lb Legacy Dungeon Crawl
If you’ve seen Gloomhaven, you won’t forget it. This 21-pound enormous box from designer Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games is rivaled only by Kingdom: Death Monster in sheer magnitude. It’s a dungeon crawler packed to the brim with over 100 hours of content.
Week in Review - March 6, 2017
The Dice Tower crew and friends are going through all of the reviews they did the last week.
Influencers
Wil Wheaton
Wil is best known for his portrayal of Wesley Crusher on the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series.
In board gaming world, he is a co-author (with Felicia Day) and a host of TableTop web series that is published on Felicia Day's YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry. In each TableTop episode, Wil goes through a brief explanation of a tabletop game and then plays it with other celebrities. TableTop had an enormous impact on the board gaming hobby with episodes having more than a million views on YouTube.
Check out Wil's blog or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.