What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

I received a pleasing update via Kickstarter rival Gamefound about the 10th anniversary Firefly game. Production remains on schedule, which is nice to hear. But what I really enjoyed was a preview of an insert tray for various cardboard tokens, because each tray had a debossed (opposite of embossed) symbol of the token type that you put in that tray. Game with a lot of tokens can be a pain to put away, because the trays aren't labeled or because you end up consolidating various token types in a limited number of baggies. I hope this idea of tray identification catches on with other publishers.

My long overdue KS copy of Borderlands: Mr. Torgue's Arena of Badassery just showed up, unceremoniously dropped by my garage door as opposed to going to full ~20 additional feet to the porch. There have been reports of missing parts but all of mine seems to be present. I'll have to go through it in detail later, but my initial impression is that the production is very sweet on this. Mini sculpts all look very nice, and the bosses are chonky indeed.

Update: One component issue I noticed... the mini cards, of which there are a fuck ton, have super tiny text. Looks like a magnifying glass should have been a stretch goal.

I have a copy of the retail edition and I'm gearing up to play it. Looks good and has some similarities to Monter Fight Club's Cyberpunk minis game, which I like quite a bit.

I backed the last Awaken Realms game called Dragon Eclipse. 2 players, a shit ton of conent, a bunch of beautiful toys. Sounds perfect for the missus and I. And I went all in. Fuck it. I've always like toys. Now that I'm an old man I like NICE toys even better. Their newest edition of Castles of Burgundy is tits.

LOL. I am so glad I'm almost done with Kickstarter. After a long string of successful campaigns (read: delivered on time without problems), interrupted solely by the Five Year Lack of Plan known as Cthulhu Wars, I've finally run into a string of downturns. Maybe the fact that Cthulhu Wars finally delivered was the cosmic signal that nothing else would go right?

First, Weimar: The Fight for Democracy is now two months late on its original delivery. Check that: it actually delivered on time and even early in Europe. But despite the ship having been scheduled to be in port three weeks ago, no one in the US has received any shipping notice at all. Capstone is supposed to be the US publisher facilitating that delivery and have yet to respond to any inquiries about why no one has even seen a notification email.

Then, the Tiny Epic Crimes crime happened. The emails were sent from some shady Chinese firm that listed the games sitting in Anaheim for weeks and then finally that they were all successfully delivered... except that no one got them. Gamelyn, to their credit, has jumped on the situation and is now apparently shipping the orders to everyone from the company's supply, but I still don't have a game in my hands (the copy I mentioned in the Playing thread was a friend's who lives a few miles from me and had theirs delivered without issue.) What makes that one interesting is that someone was advertising an entire pallet of the game on Facebook marketplace for a couple days, but no one is sure whether that was someone just trying to take advantage of people or they were the actual thieves of said pallet trying to make a buck.

And now Unmatched: Adventures: Tales to Amaze has said that fulfillment was supposed to be completed in the US by 10/19 (aka three days from now) but, again, there are many people that apparently haven't even seen a shipping notification, including me, but not including another friend of mine who also lives just a short distance away and received their copy without a problem.

So, yeah. I've had enough. Not only do I have too many things to play right now, but I'm just not interested in the foibles of Kickstarter anymore. I went for years without a problem (except the aforementioned meme-like Five Year Non-Plan) and now the universe is telling me to get out. Once Arcs and a small expansion for War Chest come through, that's the end for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, I think the high interest rate situation has hit a lot of this stuff hard too.

I don't think I have any kickstarters outstanding now besides Arcs, which is good. I just got Voidfall in but I didn't back that one, I did a late back through some reseller. Their US distributor sent everything out with like a very thin piece of bubble wrap around all of the boxes, it's quite comical. Mine had a little cosmetic damage (crushed corner) but some people's had all sorts of damage. Wild.

I did see a pic from someone who lives in the US who just got WEIMAR.

Unmatched: Tales to Amaze just showed up at the house one day last week. There was no shipping notification. I was surprised.

Dead Reckoning from AEG showed up today, and it all looks very nice, component wise. The rules look dense, and shockingly they chose to do the square rule book. Shame.

Yeah, that game looks really good.

I was happy doing KS' for expansion content on known games, but Rallyman screwed that for me. My only outstanding KS now is Dungeon Degenerates. Don't expect to use the service after that delivers. I think that and Spirit Island are the only two games I have that crowdfund expansions and both also do retail releases.

I was doing well for a while but in the last couple years have spiraled out of control. My outstanding projects are:

• Trophy. Books, PDFs, dice, and tokens have delivered. Still waiting on character creation cards. Everything was supposed to be delivered in March 2021.
• Richter: The Rotting City. Kickfailure. PDFs received, but apparently they are out of money to print books. I'll probably never see it. Due May 2020.
• Brindlewood Bay. PDFs received, waiting on printed books, cards, and dice. Due date was Dec 2022.
• If I Were a Lich, Man. PDFs received, waiting on boxed set. Due date was Sep 2023.
• Shadowdark. PDFs received, waiting on books. Due date was Jul 2023.
• Oaths of the Riddermark. Scenario/setting for Torchbearer 2e. Due Jan 2024.
• Dead Cells. Due Sep 2024.
• Endeadvor: Deep Sea. Due May 2024.
• Havoc: the Combat Card Game. Due Dec 2023.
• Pocket Samurai. Due Dec 2023.
• Cyclades: Legendary Edition. Due Dec 2024.
• Moria: Through the Doors of Durin. Due May 2024.

Listing it like that makes me look insane. Of course in the moment it's one thing, then a couple weeks or months later it's another thing, etc.

I am in for a lot of $$ on the Monster Pocalypse KS and it's looking really bad.

Seems like that company "Mythic" has a terible KS record even when they do finally deliver so maybe it's a little bit my fault for rolling the dice on them.

I’m waiting on Mythic Battles Ragnarock for games. Also the Expanse graphic novel and New Edge Sword and Sorcery magazine.

I’m not as interested in pledging for games much, these days. I am going to be a day one backer for the new Conan expansion. There may be others I’d consider, but my chances of pledging are going to be low.

Outstanding I have They Live! the card game, which will likely deliver next month, and Worms, presumably some time next year. I would love to say I am done, but next week I am likely to pledge for Secrets of the Lost Tomb and on Halloween there is one that I've had my eye on for a long time, Book of Skulls.