0:01

from the secret kabal

0:03

studios it's the secret

0:05

kabal express today

0:08

kana jamie talk about crowdfunding

0:14

and now please welcome

0:16

the secret kabal founders

0:22

hey now kabalas and welcome to

0:25

another episode of the secret kabal

0:27

express this is jamie hello hello

0:29

this is don well donald

0:31

if there's something that you and i love

0:34

it is kicking

0:36

things on kickstarter i

0:40

win you give

0:42

it up you're no longer fighting the way you

0:45

want to learn well listen hey like the lingo

0:47

we create we have to use it's i got

0:49

a buddy he says he says it's a living

0:51

language anytime anybody you know it's like that's not

0:53

a word and the five years later it's like

0:55

a word it's a word in the dictionary it's

0:58

a living language and

1:01

i'll tell you uh of the the

1:03

people on our show we are the

1:05

crowdfunding too uh chris used

1:07

to be the crowdfunding uh guy on the

1:10

show he would pledge to everything he could

1:12

get his hands on but he has stopped

1:14

since he is not pledging to things anymore

1:16

uh mostly dude he just

1:18

doesn't want to spend the money on all

1:21

of these games yeah so that essentially just

1:23

leaves you and me don as the active

1:25

crowd funders on the show and recently on

1:27

the show i announced my uh as our

1:30

discord user chipchuck so eloquently put it my

1:32

kickstarter body count that's a hell of a

1:34

way to put it basically my statistics

1:36

of uh what how many things that

1:38

i backed on lease kickstarter uh

1:41

and he wanted to hear about don's

1:43

so we've decided let's do a whole

1:45

episode of the secret kabal express about

1:47

crowdfunding and eventually we'll get to don's

1:49

immense certifiable

1:52

number that is that's right

1:54

i mean the thing is even though the

1:56

numbers later in the show keep in mind

1:58

i also started after you right That's right.

2:00

That's true. The first thing I pledged was

2:03

the other seven scenes because it was out on

2:06

the heels of blood rage Yeah,

2:08

you were crowd-finding stuff before that I know the

2:10

others was your first one and that wasn't that

2:12

long ago. That was that was 2016

2:16

it was on kick or it was shipped. So probably 2015

2:20

roughly was when that was on Kickstarter Yeah,

2:22

and I started around 2012

2:25

so I'm about three years before you in the

2:27

crowdfunding world and yes You've shot past me I

2:31

was looking it's crazy to look at the numbers. It was

2:34

they expected when they first started They expected it

2:36

to ship in March of 2016. Hmm, which is

2:38

eight years ago Yeah,

2:41

that's what I expected to ship so I

2:43

was kicking stuff put the

2:45

parlance of our time I was kicking stuff well

2:48

before that. Yeah, that's right So

2:50

Don talking about crowdfunding in general just sort

2:52

of build up to some of

2:54

our crowdfunding habits over the

2:56

years Crowdfunding is

2:59

a thing that came around roughly I

3:01

think the first board game Kickstarter that

3:03

came on the scene was alien frontiers

3:05

Oh, yeah that game was

3:08

successful and that was in April of 2010

3:10

that that project launched and it ended just

3:12

shy of $15,000 that's

3:14

a pretty good success for back then

3:16

when that happened and people started picking

3:18

up on this whole Concept of crowdfunding

3:21

on Kickstarter and at that

3:23

time IndieGoGo was the secondary,

3:25

you know campaign platform

3:28

and the reason that that one was

3:30

used as much as it was is

3:32

because at that time you couldn't kickstart

3:34

a board or It couldn't kickstart anything

3:37

Outside of the United States and

3:39

IndieGoGo was international. So people use

3:41

that off. I remember because Rodney

3:44

Watch it played did four years of

3:46

crowdfunding on IndieGoGo He couldn't use Kickstarter

3:48

because he's in Canada IndieGoGo was

3:50

the international version You could also, You

3:53

know, create campaigns in the US and that one

3:55

too But So that's why that one was sort

3:57

of tandem as soon as Kickstarter went international. I

4:00

don't know better by using them together much anymore. Yeah,

4:02

exactly. It definitely changed the whole landscape

4:04

I remember hearing about takes Orders and

4:06

literally thinking to myself, i would never

4:08

risk my money. Put it out. there

4:11

was just bad things off the ship.

4:13

I remember thinking that you know and

4:15

lo and behold, at least three pledges

4:17

later. Ah, I've changed my tune quite

4:19

a bit, but it has definitely changed.

4:21

The whole landscape isn't gonna Sigma. it's

4:23

hard to even I would venture to

4:25

say maybe mean, I guess it the

4:27

more than half our listeners may not

4:29

have been playing more games that time.

4:31

I don't know that, right? right? Case

4:34

that they didn't listen to have inside and

4:36

what the industry was like the lives of there

4:39

were a few big companies yet your fantasy

4:41

Flight games you have Rio Grande you had Mayfair

4:43

ah you know that kind of the years there's

4:45

a he is little of publishing disabuse past

4:47

say publishing companies that which is published games and

4:49

those are the big games are you could

4:51

literally track all the games that were coming

4:53

out of a year wasn't like there was

4:55

is dale use I go to my friend

4:57

of of games or Nam. As always three or

5:00

four things in life I never heard of

5:02

this thing. Before he dies there is certainly for

5:04

sales. That was not the way it was. You

5:06

know, ten years ago. As. Rate. And

5:08

I'd say it that when I

5:10

say that it changed the landscape

5:13

or honestly, I truly feel that

5:15

kickstarter is the downfall of Fantasy

5:17

Flight Games. Now finished

5:19

my games. I wouldn't call them unsuccessful

5:21

at this point, but really where they

5:23

put their focuses their Lc geez in

5:25

their Ccs. They just released a Star

5:28

Wars Unlimited which was according to them

5:30

and their presley's are huge success. It

5:32

were far outpace were everything that they

5:34

decide they thought they were going to

5:36

do with that one and Marvel Champions

5:39

aren't part of the car game or

5:41

huge successes for them in that realm.

5:43

But when was the last time they

5:45

put out a board game that was

5:47

a notable release. that anyone cared about

5:49

me they put out unfathomable which was finally

5:52

bring it back battlestar galactica in a different

5:54

form years later and it was i wasn't

5:56

even a blip on the radar yeah yeah

5:58

you talk about original i back in

6:00

the day, I mean they had a

6:02

handful of original IPs that

6:05

were just huge hits for them, right? You think about Arkham

6:07

Horror, that was the that was a huge

6:09

selling game for a long long time and I'm

6:11

not talking about the third edition, I'm talking about

6:13

that first edition, right? That was a big thing.

6:16

They were kind of known, I don't think I disagree

6:19

with you about, you know, the crowdfunding me and the

6:21

downfall of them because they were kind of known, their

6:24

games were sort of mini-centric. So there were a lot

6:26

of minis in some of those games and you thought

6:28

about them as having really high

6:30

production value. If you were to compare

6:32

the minis they had back then with,

6:34

let's just say, an Awakened Realms level

6:36

miniature, it's like this is night and

6:38

day, right? Exactly. But at the time

6:40

that was sort of the industry ideal

6:43

standard and Kickstarter and

6:46

Gamefound just changed all that, turned out all that

6:49

on its head. I do believe

6:51

that Descent Legends of the Dark, which

6:53

they released about two, three years ago,

6:56

was their one big attempt. This is what

6:58

we're going to do as opposed to be

7:00

a Kickstarter company like Awakened Realms or C-Mon

7:02

or some of those other big ones. They,

7:05

if you look at, I don't know if you

7:07

on that one, right Don? I do, yes. The

7:09

miniatures in that box are probably

7:11

equal to or better than just about

7:14

every Kickstarter game that I've ever got.

7:17

Quality wise, the type, the plastic and the

7:19

sculpts are about as good as you can

7:21

possibly get on the market. Do they look

7:23

better? That's a matter of personal

7:26

preference. But, and they

7:28

had all of that terrain in the box

7:30

and they had this app that was going

7:32

with it. It's a gigantic box, it was

7:34

$175, which is Kickstarter all

7:37

in pledge money right there. Right.

7:39

And I think that that was their attempt to be

7:41

like, we're going to be the retail version or retail

7:44

counterpart to a lot of these Kickstarter companies. And I'm

7:46

not sure if that was successful or not. I'm

7:48

curious to find out if it really was for

7:50

them. I don't know the background data and I

7:52

would love to find out. Well, you have to

7:54

expect it was a little successful because they did

7:57

release some an expansion if I recall. I'm not

7:59

getting this wrong, but there was expansion. I want

8:01

to see. there's a second standalone game in the

8:03

descent university release. So I mean,

8:06

you don't do that if it's not, the

8:08

first was not a little successful. We have

8:10

seen definitely games that are released with the

8:12

expectation there, the first in a trilogy or

8:14

something like that, you never see the other

8:16

two because the first just wasn't successful at

8:18

all. That's right. So I really, and obviously

8:20

it's goes without saying that Kickstarter revolutionized this

8:22

entire industry. We're talking this

8:25

point, established companies that would generally

8:28

go to retail are going to

8:30

Kickstarter as a pre-order system. And I, you know,

8:32

we're going to talk about in the upcoming episode

8:34

in Tony's news, how a game

8:36

found is actually now sort of altering

8:38

their platform to allow for pre-order systems

8:41

as well, sort of making a hybrid

8:43

of a Kickstarter campaign or a crowdfunding

8:45

campaign and a pre-order system. So I

8:47

think this is actually, this is a

8:50

very interesting direction for game found to

8:52

go. We've talked for months about how

8:54

game found is now nipping on Kickstarter's

8:56

heels and Kickstarter bear kick it into

8:58

gear. I think that new concept

9:01

of a game found allowing for

9:03

pre-order systems, CMON is doing that

9:05

for their new, the dead

9:07

keep is their pre-order on game

9:09

found right now. I really, really, really

9:11

feel that a lot of publishers are

9:13

going to go to game found and

9:15

use that. It's going to be a

9:17

huge success for game found going forward,

9:19

just, just altering the system a little bit to

9:21

make it just a little bit different, to give

9:24

you a little more perspective. Like you were talking

9:26

about when you first came in, you were like,

9:28

I would never put my money down for something

9:30

that isn't a thing and hoping that it'll show

9:32

up. People got used to that. Well, this is

9:34

a way to sort of bridge that middle ground.

9:37

And I remember what triggered that. I mean, to go

9:39

back to conversations just a little bit, when I saw

9:41

your copy of blood rage and all those cool extras,

9:43

I was like, I have got to have this. And

9:46

it was done. But then finally

9:48

they had late pledges. And I swear,

9:50

I remember you were like, Don, just like, no late

9:52

pledges are open. I didn't know late pledges were a

9:54

thing at the time. Right. And late pledge and got

9:56

all that stuff. I was like, this is awesome. I'm

9:58

addicted. Other seven CNS, I mean. Let's do it,

10:00

baby. That started

10:02

the string. I do like the

10:04

fact that from a crowdfunding point of view,

10:06

I view this as disruptive innovation impacting an

10:08

industry. We see this in a variety of

10:10

ways, in a variety of different industries. Usually

10:13

what happens is a disruptive element comes in

10:15

the market that offers something that doesn't

10:18

at first at least take a lot of share

10:21

away, but it is threatening

10:23

enough that antibodies kick in from the

10:25

main industry and start to sort of

10:28

work against that a little bit. It

10:30

will take hold and soon it will become

10:32

the main industry and something disrupts it. We

10:34

see this cycle sort of happen again and

10:37

again and again. We see it

10:39

in a variety of industries, board

10:41

games being the latest. I do think

10:43

that Kickstarter has completely changed a couple

10:45

of things. The biggest thing

10:47

is, is change the expectations a consumer has

10:50

when they put a certain amount of

10:52

money down for a game. At one

10:54

point, prior to crowdfunding, it was these

10:56

companies had to compete with one another.

10:59

Whatever the production values were, whatever that upper limit

11:01

was, that's sort of where it was. Now

11:04

it only takes one company

11:06

to go above that and set the

11:08

expectation a little higher and

11:10

then the other companies have to sort of adjust

11:13

to that. Now what we're seeing is

11:15

that companies are on the bleeding edge

11:17

of profitability and now we're seeing some

11:19

companies fall off because of it. We're

11:22

seeing some companies go out of

11:24

business before they can deliver their pledge. We've talked a lot

11:26

about mythic games. They haven't gone out of business but

11:28

they have definitely not delivered on some things.

11:32

We should expect more. This kind of

11:34

thing is just going to happen as

11:36

continual disruptive innovation happens in the industry.

11:39

You're saying that the disruption in

11:41

the industry, which is an amazing

11:44

thing and it can be a

11:46

bad thing, but just even outside

11:48

of the board game itself industry,

11:51

crowdfunding has pushed the limits

11:53

of things like manufacturing. Like

11:55

when we talk about Lutefact in Germany, we

11:58

talk about Panda game manufacturing in these

12:01

Kickstarter companies, because they're giving deluxe,

12:03

you know, we call it the

12:05

deluxe editions of things with upgraded

12:07

components and extra stuff all over

12:09

the place, this is, we've

12:11

seen an incredible amount of innovation

12:13

in the component quality of

12:16

things like just something as simple as

12:18

screen printed meeples becoming a standard in

12:20

board games now because they said, all

12:22

right, well you can, miniatures are a

12:24

huge thing. Well, what can we do

12:26

that's a little cheaper than miniatures, but

12:29

it's still awesome. Screen printed wooden meeples and

12:31

everybody goes ape over those things. I do, I

12:33

look at them and I want those things more

12:35

than I want the miniatures half the time. And

12:38

we've seen all these things, you've seen the

12:40

dual layer player board come in and all

12:42

kinds of different innovations. What is

12:44

that? The Kootenahora. They have

12:46

the... They call it rewood.

12:48

Rewood, right? 3d printed wood.

12:50

Now this has nothing, that wasn't a crowdfunded

12:53

board game, but it's all part of the

12:55

same thing. We're coming up with new ways,

12:59

deluxify board games, but still come

13:01

up with economic ways to do

13:03

it. And in that one's case,

13:06

environmentally friendly ways to do it. Although

13:08

the jury's got to steal me out because when you look at that,

13:10

it's like, okay, this might be made out of wood, but it

13:13

seems like wood held together by

13:15

plastic or something. It's like modern industrial magic

13:17

to a board game. You look at it

13:19

like this should not exist, but it does

13:21

and it's awesome. I don't know the signs

13:23

behind all of that stuff. I'm just crossing

13:25

my fingers and me trusting in what they

13:27

tell me. We need to have Tony eat

13:29

a few of them. Measure the microplastic

13:32

system, see if it doesn't change. We've got

13:34

the one substance

13:37

to rule them all when it comes to making miniatures.

13:40

And something that I just

13:42

find so absolutely incredible about

13:44

this whole crowdfunding fad or

13:46

is it a

13:48

fad anymore? It's just the industry standard at this point.

13:50

I think it's the new reality. It's the new reality.

13:53

Is that Kickstarter, the biggest

13:56

crowdfunding platform on Earth, their

13:58

largest category is board

14:00

games. That is the biggest money

14:02

maker for Kickstarter every single year. It's board games.

14:04

And when I look at the top 15 most

14:07

funded Kickstarters in history, of course,

14:10

number one is Brandon Sanderson and there's four books that

14:12

he put up there that was like an insane amount

14:14

of money. It was 41, almost 42 million

14:17

dollars. But if you go down to number

14:19

four, there's Frosthaven. If you go

14:21

down to number six, there's Kingdom Death Monster.

14:24

It's incredible to me that in the top

14:26

10, there are two board

14:28

games. And then, of

14:30

course, number nine is Critical Role, which is tabletop

14:33

gaming anyway. It's just not board games. That is

14:35

awesome to me that our

14:37

little tiny, it is, it is.

14:40

When you look at video games, movies,

14:42

television shows, everything, the

14:44

board game and role-playing game industry

14:46

is very tiny, can

14:48

have this much of an impact on

14:51

the online society. And this much

14:53

sort of variability in the products, right? And a

14:55

lot of that's driven by crowdfunding as well. I

14:57

think about it almost like music. I know, Jamie,

14:59

you're a huge music fan. I'm a huge music

15:01

fan. There was a time when there was a

15:03

handful of companies that sort of controlled the flow

15:05

of popular music in the culture, right? In the

15:08

society. Because you had to get, if you were

15:10

a band, you sort of had to get a

15:12

record deal through one of those companies. And now

15:14

we've seen bands actually

15:17

fund themselves or do

15:19

indie releases that can be relatively wide.

15:21

This is another disruptive type innovation. And

15:23

it's meant that so many more types

15:25

of music are out there

15:27

and so many more artists are available. There's

15:29

so much variability. And occasionally you have an

15:32

artist that'll pop up that came from this

15:34

indie background and does huge stuff, right? And

15:36

you wouldn't have that if it was still

15:38

sort of gated by

15:40

those companies from 25, 30 years ago,

15:42

right? The way it

15:44

was. The same is true in the board game industry.

15:46

I think we're seeing some things come out of Kickstarter

15:48

that never would have come out of retail because they

15:51

would have simply been too big of a risk

15:53

to take. But now crowdfunding

15:55

allows that risk to be taken and

15:57

it to be funded and we get to see

15:59

something. that you look at and you're like, wow, I don't see

16:02

how this is cost effective. And in some cases, it might not

16:04

be, but it's like, wow, you

16:06

never would have thought you could have gotten that

16:08

kind of component or that kind of emerging game

16:10

play out of something. So I think about it

16:12

in terms of like hegemony leads your class to

16:14

victory. I can't imagine a game like that being,

16:17

you know, don't retail

16:19

directly years ago. Maybe it wouldn't. Not commercially

16:21

viable. I just can't imagine it. I mean,

16:23

there are games like that. And those were

16:26

the war games

16:28

or the historicals that may be

16:30

like a fraction of a

16:32

percent of the world were even knew that

16:34

those games existed, much less bought them. But

16:37

hegemony now is in our

16:40

community widely known in throughout the, you

16:42

know, the board game community. And

16:44

you're saying about some things that are sort of outside

16:46

of the board game world a little bit. I wanted

16:48

to touch on that for a second, because I was

16:51

on the Kickstarter homepage today and there's an article up

16:53

there about 11 projects

16:56

since 2011, all the way up to

16:58

2023 that are short films and

17:00

animated films that were kickstarted and

17:03

are nominated for Academy

17:05

awards. Which that's

17:07

an incredible thing. Yeah. 11

17:09

different projects. That's an absolutely

17:11

incredible. Some

17:13

of them won too. There's a bunch of that were winners as

17:16

well. That's an incredible thing. But

17:18

when I say that and how awesome it is

17:20

and how there's so many different things, I mean,

17:22

some of my, I've back

17:25

mostly board games and

17:27

role-playing games over the years, but there's a couple of things

17:29

that are not board games. But here's

17:31

the thing. We as tabletop

17:33

gaming enthusiasts and

17:37

crowdfunding enthusiasts are

17:39

spoiled. Yeah.

17:42

Because I don't, I have never had,

17:44

Don, you're the only person I know

17:47

in our like group that has had a project

17:49

that hasn't fulfilled properly. Every

17:51

single one of mine is fulfilled. And

17:54

that's a hundred percent track record is

17:56

not common in

17:58

the Kickstarter world. I mean, I think. I think

18:00

there's this, when I was saying that the top 15

18:03

highest funded projects, the third one is the

18:05

Coolest Cooler. That's a famous

18:07

story of a giant bullshit

18:09

project that never worked. It ended up

18:11

falling to pieces. Maybe

18:14

even the second one, I'm not sure, but I know at least

18:16

the Coolest Cooler wasn't good. I know

18:19

Jamie Stegma wrote articles about the Coolest Cooler.

18:21

Yeah. I mean,

18:23

we have to also admit that

18:25

when you have this disruptive innovation,

18:27

unanticipated secondary effects happen, right?

18:30

Right. What we saw is we

18:32

saw this whole idea of the stretch goal and it's

18:34

sort of running rampant a bit. And

18:36

kick-start explosive stretch goals. And

18:39

so that was the big draw is, okay, we're

18:41

going to crowdfund this. And if you give us,

18:43

you know, if you see this money, we're going

18:45

to give you extra things that other people don't

18:47

have access to. And a lot of times those

18:49

things were really cool, right? They bling the game,

18:51

to this day, they bling the games out in

18:53

a way, aren't blinged out in retail.

18:56

Yeah. I don't know if he was

18:58

here. It's like, there's something about having those little extras, right? Sure.

19:01

Especially if they add sort of an aesthetic

19:03

feel to the game that just is

19:05

very cool. But we've also seen a lot of games

19:08

add so many kick-start exclusive things

19:10

that they sort of half-ass

19:13

all of them and you end up with a

19:15

game where it's like, I don't want to add

19:17

any of those extras in because it imbalances it.

19:19

It does something unanticipated. It adds a lot of

19:22

overhead in the game. So I think it's sort

19:24

of hit and miss when we talk about, you

19:26

know, these kick-start exclusive expansions and stretch goals. I

19:28

think more than half the time it seems like

19:30

now I'll get them and I'm like, I'm

19:32

never going to play with this damn thing. Right? The

19:35

base game gives me plenty. And half the time a lot

19:37

of these, at least in the middle there,

19:40

and particularly Cmon was guilty of this, that

19:43

they would give you things that you couldn't even use. Right?

19:46

Zombicide, they gave you like twice the number of zombies

19:49

that were in the base game. I don't need them. If

19:53

the game works with the zombies that are in the base

19:55

game, why do I need double the zombies? So

19:57

you get all this junk lying around that you don't need. and

20:00

kickstarters would do that like crazy because

20:02

people like me, I'll tell you, I

20:04

fell prey to it. I

20:06

was like, these are so cool. If I have twice

20:08

the zombies, that means I can use them in my

20:10

D&D games. I can do over this and over in

20:12

that. And like, how

20:15

many times have I used the zombies at D&D? A

20:18

bunch of times, but not enough that I would need all

20:20

those. So they came up

20:22

with their tactics. But I will say that

20:24

seeing the changes in the industry right now,

20:26

a lot of that stuff is

20:29

starting to go a little bit by the wayside. When

20:31

you look at a C-mon project now, they're

20:33

giving you extra stuff. Like I was just

20:35

thinking about the new

20:38

Song of Ice and Fire tactics. Just

20:40

about every stretch goal that

20:43

I can see on there, it looks like

20:45

something that I would actually want. It's

20:47

not superfluous stuff. It

20:49

is just extra content that exists within the

20:51

game. Like it's extra characters that you can

20:54

play, the He-Man game.

20:56

Now, were those extra characters playtested

20:58

as much as they could have

21:00

been? I don't know. With

21:02

He-Man, it definitely wasn't. But

21:04

with a miniatures game like Song of Ice

21:07

and Fire tactics, the community will

21:09

attack you if you don't put the time in

21:11

to make them play properly. Yeah,

21:13

and I think some of this, as you

21:15

said, we're sort of seeing something I call

21:17

contraction of those stretch goals or contraction of

21:20

those Kickstarter exclusive extras. And some

21:22

of that may be driven by another thing, which is

21:24

the pandemic. A

21:26

lot of companies have gone in and said, we're

21:29

going to produce all these things. And now when

21:31

it comes to production and shipping, those costs are

21:33

becoming exorbitant. They've come down some, it's my understanding.

21:37

But there was a time when it was scary people. It's like,

21:39

man, that's really high shipping

21:41

wise. And we've seen companies come

21:43

back and ask for more shipping and receive a

21:46

lot of backlash from the community. And many would

21:48

argue rightly so. But I

21:50

wonder if companies, they're not dumb. They're watching

21:52

this and they're like, okay. Maybe we rained

21:55

this back in a little bit. We don't promise the

21:57

world because we don't have to ship the world. We

21:59

don't have to produce. reduce the world because

22:01

there could be secondary effects that

22:03

we don't know are going to happen in

22:05

the environment or politically or whatever, right? Shipping

22:07

wise, anything can go up and suddenly this

22:09

razor thin margin we have, we're on the

22:11

wrong side of it and we're

22:13

losing money and we've seen cases

22:15

where creators have had to sell their house for

22:18

instance, try to fulfill kickstarters, right? They don't want

22:20

to be in that position. That's right. So I

22:22

think that might be part of the reason that

22:24

we're seeing some contraction here and I love it

22:26

to be honest, because a lot of,

22:29

as you said, a lot of that crap I'm not going to play with. I

22:31

would rather have just a few things that are well thought

22:34

out and added into that game more

22:36

than just layering tons

22:38

and tons of stuff. I think of Nemesis for

22:40

instance, or, uh, you know, uh,

22:42

Lords of Hellas. There's a lot of expansions for Lords of

22:44

Hellas and I'm generally not playing with a lot of them

22:46

because you look at the rulebook and you're like, there's

22:49

17 things you have to do different with a

22:51

particular expansion than the base games. Like I must

22:53

spend longer trying to learn this, set it up

22:55

or what I just rather play the base game.

22:57

We seem to have done very well though. I

23:00

think in terms of like, uh, Cthulhu death

23:02

may die or other seven sins, right? These

23:04

are two C-mon games

23:06

where you can mix and match it with like modules

23:09

without any extra rules overhead. I love

23:11

that. We've seen, you know, separate gods and aunt.

23:13

Those are relatively easy to add in. Uh, so

23:15

C-mon I think it's done a relatively speaking, a pretty

23:18

good job with that, but other companies have just

23:20

gone kind of crazy and add a bunch of

23:22

crap in. It's like, I don't, I'm never going

23:24

to play with this stuff. I think C-mon is

23:27

a great example of a company that has been

23:29

on the roller coasters since the beginning. And we've

23:31

seen the lows and the highs. And

23:33

I think that they've managed to

23:35

level themselves out to a place where

23:37

I feel comfortable. Now I know there's still a lot of people

23:39

that hate them, uh, because you know, their

23:42

communication and Kickstarter sounds so great in there

23:44

and they're, uh, you know, they're shipped things

23:46

late and not everything's perfect all the time.

23:48

Uh, but I generally

23:50

find them to be a reliable source at

23:52

this point. So I think looking at them,

23:54

it's a pretty good picture of how crowdfunding

23:56

a crowdfunding company has come into their

23:58

own and sort of. have leveled off to the right

24:01

spot. Yeah, although they play

24:03

their margins really tight, right? I mean, if there's

24:05

a criticism, that's it. I know I had one

24:07

pledge, a part of it

24:09

dropped off the back of a truck somewhere, you know,

24:11

and I emailed them, hey, man, this thing didn't show

24:13

up. They said, okay, we'll get you a replacement out

24:16

as soon as we produce more. And it was like

24:18

nine months later. So you know, their margins are relatively

24:20

small when it comes to extra components they produce and

24:22

things like that. But yes, I agree with you. For

24:24

the most part, they have ridden

24:26

this roller coaster and benefited from this

24:29

crowdfunding roller coaster more than most. You

24:31

think about all the Zombicide games

24:33

they've had, most of which have done

24:35

really well in crowdfunding, right? And

24:37

delivered, you know, good content. We would

24:39

often say it's a very derivative of

24:42

previous Zombicide games, but hey, if

24:44

it's working... People keep buying it, man. They just

24:46

put a new people in it. When

24:48

they put DC, Superman, and Batman in it, people are

24:50

going to buy it. Exactly.

24:54

Well, Don, I think it is time for us

24:56

to take a quick break here and listen to

24:58

a... A spot

25:00

from our sponsor. But after that, I think

25:02

it is time to give the data. Everybody,

25:05

do yourself a favor and sit down. Don't

25:07

be standing up for this. You'll

25:10

be falling down. All right,

25:12

so we'll be right back after

25:14

this. Whoo!

25:18

Let me tell you, I want to

25:20

congratulate Restoration Games on an absolutely fantastic

25:23

and successful campaign for Thunder Road Vendetta

25:25

Carnival of Chaos. They made over a

25:27

million and a half dollars on this

25:30

campaign. It's absolutely fantastic. I'm sure that

25:32

the pledge manager will be open soon

25:34

and everybody will be able to lay

25:37

pledge, so keep your eyes open for

25:39

that coming up. But I want to

25:41

talk about something that they just announced.

25:44

A brand new set for unmatched, unmatched

25:46

Slings and Arrows. The pen is mightier

25:48

than the sword. All the

25:51

world's a stage, but the globe is a

25:53

battlefield. Slings and Arrows brings

25:55

Shakespeare to the fight, along with three

25:57

of his wondrous characters. The way we're

25:59

sis... Hamlet and Titania. I

26:01

gotta tell you, I absolutely love all

26:04

of these different sets and how

26:06

it brings together characters from film and

26:08

television and literature. All different sources.

26:10

And gets to the core essence of

26:12

these characters with the decks and

26:14

how they operate. It's just

26:16

absolutely fantastic. I cannot wait to find

26:19

out how the characters in Unmatched, Lings

26:21

and Arrows work. It's gonna be so

26:23

much fun. And not only

26:25

that, the Shakespeare deck is one of the

26:27

winning hero designs from the Unmatched deck design

26:29

content. So this was

26:31

created by a fan out there

26:33

and that's just absolutely awesome. Unmatched,

26:36

Lings and Arrows is gonna be

26:38

released real soon and you can

26:40

pre-order it right now by heading

26:42

over to restorationgames.com. Alright

26:47

Don, so I'm gonna go first. I already

26:49

gave my Kickstarter stats on the show. I

26:51

didn't break it down to this level, but

26:54

I'm gonna start off because clearly

26:56

mine is less. Clearly.

26:59

My hair, I'm talking. We sort of

27:01

broke this down into

27:03

the platform Kickstarter, Gamefound,

27:06

BackerKit and Indiegogo. And

27:08

we have it broken down into pledges, cancels,

27:10

unsuccessful campaigns and one dollar pledges. Just because

27:13

sometimes, you know, that adds to the number,

27:15

right? Like if you're one of those guys

27:17

that likes to look at the

27:22

updates throughout the project before you're back. So

27:24

the number of pledges that I made on

27:26

Kickstarter is 122 at this point. The

27:30

number on Gamefound is 29. The

27:32

number on BackerKit is 1 and Indiegogo

27:35

is 4 and they weren't board games.

27:38

That was Rodney. And not surprisingly,

27:40

you've outstripped me when it comes to

27:42

Indiegogo. Oh, am I right? I've

27:45

canceled 11. I've

27:48

only had one that was unsuccessful

27:50

and I canceled that one and

27:52

I only had one single one

27:54

dollar pledge. And thank

27:57

the maker. It was a mythic

27:59

games. It was Monsterpocalypse. I'm

28:01

like, I died. I put one dollar on

28:03

it because I wanted to see what would

28:06

happen in the pledge manager and what I

28:08

wanted didn't happen. And guess what else didn't

28:10

happen? It probably isn't going to ship to

28:12

anybody. You saved yourself some money there, man.

28:14

I think you started going to church with

28:17

you. Obviously, you're praying the right way. That's

28:19

right. So I had quite a few. I

28:21

think 122 on Kickstarter and 29 on

28:23

Gamefound, that is a lot. That

28:25

is not like a small amount,

28:27

a small number in any capacity. I

28:29

think there's probably people out there that

28:31

gasped when they heard that number. There

28:34

were people that would gasp when they

28:36

saw my shelves. Now, Don, prove me

28:38

a piker here, Don. Save me from

28:40

myself. Tell everybody

28:42

what you have done. Okay. So

28:44

I got a caveat a little bit because I'm not sure

28:46

I pulled some of these stats

28:48

correctly because the law of

28:50

large numbers has taken over. Is

28:54

that what you learned at college, at university?

28:57

Something like that. About math? So

29:01

it's hard for me to rack and stack some of

29:03

these things because, you know, it's physical counting that's taking

29:05

place in many cases. So I could be double counting

29:07

here or there. I sure hope I am. Don, I

29:10

double count as delegregious. Listen,

29:12

the Kibolis know exactly what you're doing

29:14

here. You're just softening the blow. I'm

29:17

just being realistic and letting people

29:19

know. This is from, okay,

29:22

2024 right now. He started in 2016. No,

29:27

the first one was delivered in 2016. You're careful with that now.

29:29

Okay, there you go. Give me

29:32

a decade at least. All right. All right. So

29:34

Jamie's numbers are smaller than my

29:37

numbers. My hair, just a hair.

29:39

So just put it

29:41

in context here. So Jamie, you had 122 pledges

29:44

on Kickstarter and you had 11 that

29:46

were canceled. That's right. I

29:49

have 410. Now that's counting three that I haven't

29:51

actually paid for yet because that's what I got in the queue now.

29:54

But 410, that were successful. But

29:57

154, you know, other than those. 410

30:01

that were dropped unsuccessful something like that. A

30:04

hundred fifty four times you fought better of it.

30:07

Yes or the world aligned against me

30:10

we just don't know right. But that

30:12

means I've pledged to 564-ish actual

30:14

projects right. Whereas

30:18

for you it's been 130-ish. Yeah. Again

30:21

over the span of about a decade. Little

30:23

under a decade. Game found number is ridiculous.

30:26

I didn't realize this. Again.

30:30

Again. So on game found it's 125

30:32

pledges. So

30:34

all together we're talking over 500 games. This

30:37

is outrageous. That I have pledged to,

30:41

as they say, across Kickstarter

30:43

and game found. I

30:45

did have one one dollar pledge in there and

30:47

I know exactly what it was. It was Marvel

30:49

Zombicide or Marvel Zombies or whatever. I pledged one

30:51

dollar and I just didn't follow through with that.

30:54

Because I was sort of burnt out on all the you know

30:56

C-mon stuff and I was like okay. No I'm

30:58

not pledging that one. Not following through. But I

31:00

could hold back from hitting one dollar just in

31:02

case that jays my mind. C-mon they got a

31:05

hundred percent return on investment with you. That's

31:07

true. Yeah they've already made their money off me many

31:09

times over. Oh Don so my

31:12

largest I want to know what our

31:14

largest pledges are. My

31:16

largest pledge that Kiballis will know is

31:20

Batman, Gotham City Chronicles. And

31:22

that was $320. Now I paid

31:24

$160 of that and Chris paid the other $160 for

31:26

the Catwoman miniature. Right

31:31

one miniature. And you know what? That

31:34

Catwoman miniature is still in the box. He told

31:36

me to leave it with the game. I was

31:38

like okay. And Chris has never played

31:40

the game. I kept trying to get him to play

31:42

it but he wouldn't play it. So

31:44

one can say that I've paid a lot of money for a lot

31:47

of games. Most of which I've played. And

31:49

Chris has paid a lot of money for one

31:51

game. He hasn't played it. That's right. So what's

31:53

the better return on investment? I think my definition

31:55

mine is. In any case your largest

31:57

pledge $320 and you click to point out you only pay a

31:59

$1. have that. My largest pledge is actually 500

32:02

bucks and that was Arcadia

32:04

Quest Inferno and there is absolutely

32:06

no way that I got $500 worth

32:09

of return on that particular investment. But it is

32:11

what it is, right? I did pledge $500 to

32:13

it and actually got all the stuff. Arcadia

32:16

Quest Inferno is a great game. I love that

32:18

game. Yeah, it's a really good one. But that's

32:20

a lot of money for that game. Have

32:23

you used every single thing in that box?

32:25

Absolutely not. I'm sure you did. No. Hell

32:27

no. Yeah. That box, because

32:29

if it's only one, man, you know when you

32:32

get the confirmation that you're getting a

32:34

package via FedEx or UPS or whatever.

32:36

I just scrolled down to weight and

32:39

it was like 34 pounds or

32:41

40 pounds. It's like, wow, some

32:43

bigs coming. I love seeing

32:46

pictures on Twitter every now and then. Somebody will

32:48

take a picture of them standing next to the

32:50

stack of boxes that they just got from their

32:52

all-in pledge and it goes over their head. Most

32:57

people don't have shelf room for that, much

32:59

less a collection of games. It's craziness. Well,

33:01

I've gotten really good myself at throwing away

33:03

inserts and combining boxes. And if I get

33:05

it down to, especially with those big ones,

33:07

if I get it down to two boxes,

33:09

because usually you'll have the box proper and

33:11

then there'll be another box that's like the

33:13

Kickstarter extras and you have seven or eight

33:15

other boxes that are expansion stuff. Usually if

33:17

you take the inserts out and stuff, you

33:20

usually get everything in two boxes. I know

33:22

I did that with Cthulhu, Death May Die.

33:24

Well, I'll tell you, Don, that

33:26

is some immense numbers you got going

33:29

on there. This is

33:31

true. It's an embarrassing

33:33

level. Let's put it that way. Yeah,

33:35

no question. I'm being honest with the Kabbalah's. I

33:38

think it's somewhat embarrassing when you think about it.

33:40

It's like, yeah, I'm averaging over the ... If

33:43

you are generous and

33:45

give me 10 years, I'm averaging about

33:48

one a week of those big box

33:50

games. Not big box. Some of these things

33:52

are actually like $5. Not a

33:54

lot of them. The vast majority of them are probably 80 bucks,

33:57

100 bucks. But there are some

33:59

... some big ones in there. So

34:02

Don, let me ask you this. This is

34:04

a question that I wanted to answer in this

34:07

discussion topic today. Do you

34:09

feel as though that you over the past 10

34:12

plus years of being a

34:14

crowdfunding enthusiast, has

34:17

your habits changed at all? Did

34:19

they start off that you weren't doing much and

34:21

then it got intense? Or did it

34:23

start off intense and it's kind of going

34:25

lower? Listen, a month ago we

34:27

were counting how much you pledged during the

34:30

news. So clearly it's intense right now. How

34:32

do you feel like the growth has happened

34:35

with your habits? Yeah, so

34:37

actually that one news segment was a little bit

34:39

of an aberration. Usually it's not like that. It

34:41

just happened to be like that. Sometimes they'll cluster

34:43

up like that. When I first started,

34:46

it was Dribbs and Drabs. It was basically

34:48

the C-Mon stuff. I talked about

34:50

the Blood Rage and other Seven Sins. Then

34:53

it was Zombicide, Black Plague, or whatever the next one in

34:55

that series came along. And then it starts

34:57

dribbling a little bit. I'll

34:59

do this, I'll do that. And at one

35:01

point, I think probably around the beginning of

35:03

the pandemic, when I wasn't really

35:05

gaming out there, it's like a certain

35:08

amount of your attention that you're psychologically,

35:10

your body has a tendency to be

35:12

toward. And what I didn't have time

35:14

gaming, it was more about back

35:16

and stuff and trying to learn solo modes and stuff

35:18

like that. And so I think that's when it intensified.

35:20

And now I think I'm actually in a

35:23

bit of a contraction period where I'm pulling

35:25

back a little bit. The

35:27

thing I found that helps me do that is whenever I

35:29

see something I think I might be interested in, instead of

35:31

clicking back, what I will

35:34

do is click like. And that way it'll warn

35:36

me two days before it closes. Hey, you run

35:38

out of time to back this thing. And then

35:40

I'll take a look at it. Usually my thoughts

35:42

have changed over the ensuing

35:44

days or weeks because I

35:46

played something else in between. I'd be like,

35:48

yeah, I don't need that. That's

35:50

fine. And so a lot of times,

35:52

I think a lot of this, we see these

35:54

cancels that are happening. A lot of those are

35:57

sort of loaded onto the more

35:59

recent. times. So

36:01

yes, my tendencies have definitely

36:03

changed. Usually I'll look in, what

36:06

I've stopped doing is before you do the news, and that

36:08

one week before you do the news, I looked and like,

36:10

it just so happened that there were

36:13

a couple of things I'd already backed and other stuff's

36:15

like, whoa, this looks interesting. And that looks interesting. So

36:17

I think it ended up like four or five things,

36:19

some of which I backed right before we started recording.

36:21

Right. But it was kind of funny to point out,

36:23

yeah, Don's backed them all. Yes, my habits have

36:26

changed a little bit. How about yours? My

36:29

habits have been very different over the years.

36:31

When I first started off, I was very

36:35

timid to pledge to anything. So

36:38

it was very small card games. Like the very

36:40

first thing I ever pledged to was Fleet. Oh,

36:43

yeah. The card game about fishing, about

36:46

the fishing boats. The

36:48

second thing I got was Garden Dice, which

36:50

was a small game. It wasn't much. You know, Emmett

36:52

Domain was one of them. That was just like, it

36:54

was a $25 game, right? Emmett Domain

36:57

Escalation actually was the, an

37:00

expansion that was only $25. So it was

37:02

getting like little things at first. And

37:05

then it got to a point where I was

37:07

backing the big stuff. When I started to get

37:09

comfortable with the platform, the big

37:11

stuff being like the Siemens and getting

37:13

all the Kickstarter extras and stuff. And

37:15

that was when I was, I remember

37:18

I pledged to Aqua Sphere,

37:21

the Stefanfeld Eurogame. And when I got it,

37:23

I was like, why did I get this

37:25

on Kickstarter? It's the same thing that

37:28

I could just go down to the store and get if I wanted. So

37:30

I stopped pledging to things that were not a

37:33

giant mess of miniatures and stuff. So I

37:35

was like, this is where I'll get my big

37:37

proud, my big games. And I was going

37:39

to get my little games elsewhere. Well,

37:41

it's funny because my habits on that

37:44

have completely changed over the years. A

37:46

flip-flop on 80, where

37:48

I'm trying not to pledge to the

37:51

big giant miniature Kickstarters anymore. I still

37:53

do. I will admit every now and

37:55

then I do like Cichlides, but that's

37:58

because I love that particular game. Right

38:00

a lot right it wasn't really about the miniatures.

38:02

It's about I want this new version, right? But

38:05

you know deep shelf wonders creatures

38:10

Cascadero old Kings

38:12

crown, you know, you know stuff

38:14

like that this Harrow County even

38:16

they're like smaller Euro

38:18

games territory control games aren't the

38:20

giant Kickstarter projects age of comics

38:22

stuff like that That's

38:25

what I'm pledging to now and Usually

38:27

I'm looking for ones that have those deluxe

38:29

components like we talked about before like the

38:31

screen print in meeples Or maybe like acrylic

38:33

standees as opposed to cardboard standing stuff like

38:35

that I just want a little bit of

38:38

a bonus for getting it now

38:40

rather than waiting waiting till later

38:43

And that's what I'm attending to do now.

38:45

That's how I've changed over here. So I'm getting smaller

38:47

games now than I used to You

38:49

know, I've definitely noticed when you get more on

38:51

the recording the news and you're

38:53

considering backing something Use this

38:55

because of as you said some kind of

38:57

aesthetic addition to the game, right? And

39:00

that's good. There were certain things I would have back

39:02

before similarly, but I wait till they hit retail Right

39:04

like the shim Phillips games because they

39:06

are unchanged when they hit retail. I sort of like

39:08

that It's like I can hear about them and then

39:11

go pick up the exact same thing I might pay

39:13

a little bit more when it comes to buying the

39:15

extra coins or something but it's all available and another

39:17

one we think of is like They're

39:20

Eagle Griffin games the big Eagle Griffin games.

39:22

You can always purchase all that stuff After

39:25

you know, right they delivered a retail you

39:27

hear about they had a little you could buy the

39:29

game and then like the extra Kit you pay more

39:31

for it. Yeah, I found that over time I saved

39:34

money by just holding off on those Yeah, and if

39:36

I hear good things about them, I'll pick up I

39:38

broke my own rule when it came to weather machine

39:40

though Yeah, and I should I guess I didn't like

39:42

that one with the shipping costs. It comes out to

39:44

roughly the same anyway Usually right great point. All

39:46

right, Don so we're coming up at the end

39:49

of the episode So why don't we finish off

39:51

the episode with telling the kabbalah's what are some

39:53

of our favorite pledges? Kickstarter

39:55

games crowdfunding games that we have gotten

39:57

over the years hook us up Five

40:00

of your favorites. So my

40:02

top five, and this is in order from the fifth

40:04

to the first, and I got, just letting the Cabalas

40:06

know, I had a really hard time coming up with

40:08

this list because I had seven or eight, right? As

40:11

you can imagine, with hundreds of things back, just like,

40:13

okay. And

40:17

one could easily take a look at my list and

40:19

say, oh, what about this one? I'd be like, oh,

40:21

that should have been at the top five. So this

40:23

is not the perfect top five, but this was a

40:25

relatively quick, you know, gander through there

40:27

and say, okay. And these are definitely, they could

40:29

be in anyone's top five, in my opinion, right?

40:32

So number five for me is Final Girl. The

40:35

reason Final Girl is in there is because it's

40:37

just such a top notch solo game, in my

40:39

opinion. It's all so well done. It

40:43

is by number one solo game. And

40:47

it has all the intrigue, all

40:49

the great gameplay that would have

40:51

been in its predecessor, hostage negotiator.

40:53

But then it has sort

40:55

of this aesthetic overlay and like the visual aspect of

40:57

how the killer's moving around and how the Final Girl

41:00

and the victims are moving around. And it just adds

41:02

so much to it. It's almost what I think it

41:04

was like a perfect solo game. So number five for

41:06

me is Final Girl, just a great, great

41:09

pledge to have made. Number four

41:11

is one that surprised me. I never would have known. I wish I

41:13

could go back in time and sort of see myself pledging to it.

41:16

And that was Chronicles of Crime. And

41:18

that one in particular is like, man, it's delivered on

41:20

such a great amount of gameplay. And you think not

41:22

only of Chronicles of Crime, but the two expansions that

41:24

sort of came with it and it was all in

41:26

one box. And they've done that two

41:28

or three times since, right? Where they've released Chronicles of

41:31

Crime, I think it's 1900, 2400. I'm

41:37

getting all the numbers mixed up. Yeah, 1400,

41:39

right? All these came together and there's

41:41

always a little twist to it. So when you think about Chronicles of

41:43

Crime and the fact that there's so

41:45

many different scenarios

41:48

to play out there, even with that base

41:50

game, that was an ingenious system, a very

41:52

innovative system. I'm really glad I pledged to

41:54

that. Number three for me is one

41:56

that really surprised me in an extremely positive way. And I

41:58

always remember playing it at Orcs. For the

42:00

first time with you and our

42:02

buddy Justin from restoration games was teaching us

42:05

and that was returned to dark tower Yeah,

42:07

and I have to admit that whenever

42:09

I'd back return to dark tower because my uh

42:13

Because when I was a kid, I wanted the

42:15

original dark tower I remembered those commercials and stuff

42:17

But then I backed fireball island was sort of

42:19

hit flat for me even though I was very

42:21

much looking forward to it So there was a

42:23

it was a perfect storm in that I was

42:25

like not expecting much from return to dark tower

42:27

and sort of Bracing for potential impact that it

42:29

wouldn't be great would be something that resonated me

42:31

and we played it I'm like, this is so

42:33

well done. I've played it many times since then

42:35

This is one where I'm still sort of, you

42:37

know, when you put that big thing up on

42:39

the table Everybody's like, oh, that

42:41

looks cool. Hell. Yeah, it looks cool. It plays

42:44

well, too Oh, yeah, perfect everything so

42:46

good. So return to dark tower My

42:48

number two is one of the original ones way back

42:50

It's probably the first four or five that I pledged

42:52

to and this is size And

42:55

size when I backed I thought this might be something special

42:57

when I've got even to this day It's like one of

42:59

my favorite games. I just think

43:01

it's such a good game I love

43:04

everything about that game including the fact

43:06

that I'm the only person Jamie's

43:08

ever lost to play inside I think that

43:10

as a badge of honor and guess what?

43:12

That's the last time I played that friggin

43:15

game And

43:19

that was an orange is our river it's a that

43:21

was yeah, but side great game Great,

43:24

you know, they've since released even more expansions and

43:26

more sort of bling to it I haven't gotten

43:28

the metal mix because I think that's

43:30

a little over the top But you

43:32

know, I do enjoy that game very very much my

43:34

copies bling that little bitty things and yeah It's just

43:36

such a such an enjoyable game Get

43:39

the metal mix for expeditions. So like yes

43:48

And the number one for me is one that you

43:50

know I went

43:52

back and forth on this return a dark tower

43:54

side this one in particular It's like it was

43:56

wobbling around a little bit in my head and

43:58

that the number one though is Cthulhu death may

44:00

die for me and we've talked about this many

44:03

times the simple fact that you have so many

44:05

characters any Any handful of

44:07

which could sort of work together in these

44:09

weird interesting ways The

44:12

fact that you have all these different scenarios that

44:14

add sort of a half to the game and

44:16

the way that you mix and match These things

44:18

things together without additional overhead to the game, right?

44:21

That's a huge thing It's like I can mix

44:23

and match to my heart's content so

44:25

many different possibilities and

44:28

no matter what I mix and match It's not

44:30

gonna make it more complicated than any other combination at

44:32

a time when I talked about you know These other

44:34

games that add a lot of expansion stuff that are

44:36

just overly complicated The thulu death may die is like

44:39

the perfect version of a kick-started game to

44:41

me Because I get a lot of variety

44:43

a lot of variability and all of it's

44:45

great and fun and relatively simple to play

44:48

And you can check these nice Frosted

44:50

dice, you know, if they

44:52

game you're checking like 30 dice or whatever It's just

44:54

such a good feeling bills to a great crescendo So

44:56

definitely I've gotten my return investment for Cthulhu

44:58

death may die even including the

45:00

paint job that I got on all the characters So

45:04

yeah, those are my five final girl chronicles

45:06

of crime Return to Dark Tower size

45:09

and Cthulhu death made them what

45:11

don I have to say that my list is

45:13

a little different than yours in that I approached

45:18

mine almost like It's

45:21

a very mixed bag because I will say this

45:23

that there are games that I did pledge on

45:25

Kickstarter that I actually like Better than some of

45:28

these games that are on here But

45:30

I for some reason am happiest. I

45:32

pledged to these on Kickstarter

45:35

I don't know how to explain it other than

45:37

that Like I'm happy that I pledged to these

45:39

like for example could feel a definite may dies

45:41

not on my list But I love that game

45:43

and I'm so happy I pledged to it, but I

45:46

could get it like anywhere I could go to the

45:48

store. Just get it and be fine like at the

45:50

time But for some reason these games just feel good

45:52

that I pledged to So

45:54

the number five was

45:56

actually a gift. I

45:58

got this as a gift pledge

46:01

and it was the Too Thin Coats paint

46:04

line from Duncan Rhodes' painting academy.

46:06

Duncan Rhodes is a

46:11

professional painter that used to work for Games

46:13

Workshop. He was one

46:15

of the greatest painters, man. Like we

46:17

would go to the Games Workshop store

46:19

down in Grapevine, Texas and we would

46:21

look at his miniatures painted. They were

46:24

in the glass case and they're just

46:26

absolutely gorgeous. And he left

46:28

Games Workshop and went out on his

46:30

own and started what he calls Duncan

46:32

Rhodes' painting academy and he

46:34

had created his own line of paints.

46:37

And I was gifted this pledge

46:40

that was an all-in pledge for

46:42

like 320 colors

46:45

of this stuff and I

46:47

absolutely adore this paint. Before

46:51

that used Vallejo and I

46:53

used Citadel paints and I

46:55

really like them. Man, I don't

46:57

think that I could go back from this

47:00

Duncan Rhodes' Too Thin Coats paint line. The

47:03

colors are vibrant. It's just,

47:05

you know, the coverage is great on

47:08

the miniatures. You don't have to use

47:10

too many coats. Too Thin Coats is

47:12

true. It's not eight coats, right? It's

47:14

just an absolutely beautiful paint line and

47:17

it has changed my painting world with

47:19

that pledge. So I very much

47:22

appreciate that

47:24

gift. It was such an awesome gift. My

47:27

number four is a board game. Now

47:30

there are some of our board games and this one

47:32

was the second game I ever pledged and it is

47:34

my one of my favorites of all time and that

47:36

is Garden Dice. And I'm

47:38

so happy that I pledged to this one

47:40

because you can't get

47:42

it anymore, anywhere. It

47:45

was in retail just a little bit after

47:47

the Kickstarter and never came back for any

47:49

more printings. I

47:52

remember the designer contacted me and

47:54

talked about how we talked about it on the show and

47:57

he was so happy that we liked it and I've played

47:59

this game Dozens and

48:01

dozens and dozens of times over the years. I

48:03

still play it to this day because it's an

48:05

absolutely fun dice game about growing vegetables. As a

48:07

matter of fact, I talked about it a couple

48:09

of years ago on the show. The designer again

48:11

contacted me and said he's really trying to get

48:13

a reprint done or another Kickstarter done. It just

48:15

hasn't happened yet. And boy do I hope that

48:18

Doug Bass gets

48:20

this back on the market again because people

48:22

need to play Garden Dice. It's an absolutely

48:25

wonderful, simple family game about

48:27

growing vegetables. I love it.

48:29

Garden Dice. There are some

48:31

copies. I'm just looking. There are some copies available

48:33

at Noble Night Games. Oh, that's good. Noble Night?

48:36

Yeah. Well, it's not a lot. And

48:39

in fact, some of them are excellent

48:41

or near me. So I don't know if

48:43

they're new, but they are like new versions

48:45

of Garden Dice. Kiballus, go buy that game

48:47

right now. Go buy it right now and

48:49

onboard GameGeek get ahold of that Doug Bass.

48:52

Tell him you want this game back on

48:54

Kickstarter. All right. So

48:56

my number three is one that I

48:58

know Don loves. Don taught

49:00

me at Origins very recently.

49:03

And that is my

49:05

favorite game designer, Martin Wallace, Struggle

49:07

of Empires. This is one

49:09

of those Eagle Griffin games where they just bling

49:11

the hell out of it, put it in a

49:13

giant box, put it on Kickstarter, and you got

49:15

to have it if you like this game. This

49:18

is a wonderful war game. And we just talked

49:20

about innovative mechanics in our

49:22

recording for the episode coming next week. What

49:25

did we call it? Quintessential exemplary

49:28

mechanics or something like that

49:30

mechanisms. Yeah, something like that. And

49:32

this one has an exemplary mechanism

49:34

of of the whole idea of

49:37

the sides of the war are not

49:40

determined for the entire game.

49:42

They're determined at the beginning of every round based

49:44

on bidding mechanisms. So the

49:46

sides of the war are mixed up every

49:48

round. It is such an absolutely fantastic game.

49:50

Martin Wallace thinks like no other game designer

49:53

out there. The production of this one is

49:55

gorgeous. The artwork is gorgeous. It's

49:58

just an absolutely fun game. And I'm so happy.

50:00

happy that I pledged to this one. I

50:02

have not pledged to any other of

50:04

these Eagle Griffin Deluxe games. This is

50:06

the one and I'm so happy

50:08

I did. Man, Struggle of

50:11

Empires is one of my

50:13

favorites. And I will say, Jamie, you'd like

50:15

it even more, I think, if you had

50:17

played the original because it was all chips

50:19

and cardboard pieces and you can blink that

50:21

version that has that great gameplay but in

50:24

this amazing package. So I'm really happy to

50:26

see this on your list, to be honest,

50:28

because I take a lot of enjoyment out

50:30

of knowing that I expose you to and

50:32

talk to you this game and you've liked

50:34

it so much. It's terrific. So,

50:36

that's Struggle of Empires. Number

50:39

two is a game that

50:42

the original version, Chris, got me

50:44

for Christmas one year and

50:46

I adored it. It was

50:48

so much fun. It's a two-player

50:50

game called Claustrophobia and

50:52

this version is called Claustrophobia Now,

50:57

the one that Chris got me, it

50:59

was such a fun game but, man, the components

51:01

are kind of crummy, you know, and

51:03

the paints, they were pre-painted miniatures

51:06

and they look ugly and the

51:08

little trays for your

51:10

characters were like chintzy, you

51:12

know, but it was such a fun two-player

51:14

game where one player plays all the monsters

51:16

in the dungeon and the other player plays

51:18

a team of four heroes. They're

51:21

not heroes, actually. They're prisoners. I

51:23

was going to say, yeah, criminals and

51:26

priests. There's the priest and then he

51:28

hires three other criminals. The hires recruits

51:31

three criminals to go with him into the

51:34

dungeon to delve down into hell, almost Diablo

51:36

style, fighting these demons down in these caves

51:38

and it's a two-player dungeon crawl game but

51:40

it's more about the puzzle of the scenario,

51:43

right, like in the way that you use

51:45

your abilities. There's this really clever concept of

51:47

rolling the dice and allocating the dice to

51:49

your different abilities. Such a great game.

51:52

This particular version

51:54

of the game, it just took all of

51:56

the components and made them better and

51:59

it's streamline. The

52:01

the gameplay down just a little bit and

52:03

almost every way that it streamlined it made

52:06

the game better I think

52:08

maybe there was a couple of things I'd like

52:10

from the original to be back in this

52:12

one But for the most part, this is a

52:14

much much better version of the game and they

52:16

didn't go overboard That's another thing. I loved

52:18

about this one This was from monolith and they

52:21

put out Conan they put out some other games

52:23

the Batman goth city chronicles of monolith They went

52:25

overboard with that stuff this one. They didn't

52:27

go overboard with they just remade the original game

52:30

with the original I think

52:33

one of the original expansions

52:35

Included they didn't go overboard with

52:37

the miniatures just made good miniatures for

52:39

what was needed and that's it And

52:42

it's just an absolutely great game a

52:44

two-player dungeon crawl game. That is just

52:46

cleverly done claustrophobia 1643

52:49

my second favorite Kickstarter

52:51

ever backed and then there's

52:53

my number one, which is a Game

52:56

that is a solo game, which

52:58

is kind of weird because I barely play

53:00

solo games But you say that Final Girl

53:03

is your favorite solo game of all time

53:06

Sometimes my it is mine and

53:08

sometimes it's this one Nemo's war

53:11

the beast. Oh my bad Nemo's

53:15

war is such a beautiful solo game

53:17

where you play Captain Nemo with your

53:19

submarine You're sailing around you could be

53:21

a pirate you could be a revolutionary

53:23

You could be all kinds

53:26

of your attacking ships and stealing the

53:28

loot and going on little adventures And

53:30

it's all done in this really clever

53:33

Wargame style slash euro game style

53:35

in a solo package that can

53:37

be played With as a co-op

53:39

game if you want it to which it works just

53:41

fine as a co-op as well I

53:43

just love this edition. I remember when

53:45

this first came on the scene

53:48

You know tool the the famed

53:50

artist contacted me and said this

53:53

this game specifically He was lobbying

53:55

to be the artist on this game

53:58

because he loved the game and he wanted to

54:00

make this game beautiful. That was his goal.

54:02

And this was before he was really a

54:04

big artist. Like he just wanted to be

54:06

the artist on this game and luckily he

54:08

got the job and he

54:10

made an absolutely fantastic

54:12

production out of this one.

54:16

I'm very impressed with this game. I love it. I still

54:18

play it to this day. I pull it out every now

54:20

and then and throw it on the table just for fun.

54:23

Nemo's War is great. Yeah, that's a

54:25

good one. I like that list. And it's funny you talk about a

54:27

few of those things. I mean, Struggle of Empires I've talked about. But

54:30

Nemo's War, I've played that too and enjoy that

54:32

quite a bit. I've got that on my shelf

54:34

over there. I've been waiting nearly as much as

54:36

you. But Clostrophobia 1643, I also played the original.

54:38

I also backed 1643 and I was

54:40

just looking at it. It delivered five years ago. I have

54:43

not played it yet. I've had it on the stack to

54:45

play. I've had it on the stack to play, but never

54:47

hit the table. So I'm glad you had this on your

54:49

list because it's like, okay, I got to get this out.

54:51

I got to get this played. Yeah.

54:53

If you like the original, you're going to like this one too.

54:56

It's like they just streamlined a little bit. And

54:58

then just, it's the same game other than that.

55:00

Just you're going to have a better quality, bigger

55:02

tiles and all the better artwork and all that

55:04

good stuff. So yeah, if

55:06

you're around, it's just you and me, let's play

55:08

it. All right. Sounds good.

55:10

We make that happen. Powerade, Kibalis. Well,

55:13

that is our show on

55:15

crowdfunding. It's very hard to follow Don

55:17

and his statistics there, but I think

55:19

we ended off pretty good. Kibalis, please

55:21

do us a giant favor. You can

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always go over to Facebook and like

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May, we're going to be launching our

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brand new campaign in the middle of

55:38

May. And we got a great project

55:41

that we're really excited about. So keep

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your eyes peeled this coming May for

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56:07

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56:09

really like the photos channel See what people tell

56:12

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56:14

in there It got out of control last week

56:16

one time. In fact, it got so out of

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56:21

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56:23

in and I was like, I don't even know it's

56:25

kind of like coming in halfway through a conversation between

56:27

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56:29

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56:33

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57:01

overall body count. That's right And of

57:03

course, you gotta come on back next

57:05

week because we got another absolutely

57:07

fantastic crazy I

57:13

don't know but Gaming

57:16

hot cans. Good night. Everybody

57:19

Have a good one And

57:22

that wraps up another episode of

57:24

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57:27

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57:29

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