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538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

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Exploding Kittens-smallNate Silver’s popular 538 blog, known mostly for astute political analysis, often takes a hard look at other industries, and yesterday Oliver Roeder examined the recent explosive growth in crowdfunding for board games. His examples include Conan (which we covered here,) Reaper Miniatures, Dwarven Forge, and the break-out hit Exploding Kittens, which exceeded its campaign goal in eight minutes and set a record for most backers in Kickstarter history, raising $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers.

Luke Crane is Kickstarter’s in-house board game expert and resident dungeon master. He sees Kickstarter as the latest in a series of board and card gaming milestones. Dungeons & Dragons, first published in 1974, crystallized role-play gaming. Magic: The Gathering, which debuted in 1993 and became a smash hit, spawned countless expansions and still boasts a competitive professional circuit. The Settlers of Catan, and its first English-language edition in 1996, gave many their first taste of German board gaming kultur. That game has sold over 15 million copies.

And then, in mid-2009, Kickstarter launched.

Since that debut, pledges to board and card game projects on the site have totaled $196 million, according to the company. Ninety-three percent of that money went to successful projects — those that reached their fundraising goal. For comparison, pledges to video game projects, including hardware and mobile games, have totaled $179 million. Of that, 85 percent went to ultimately successful projects. On Kickstarter, analog is beating digital.

Read the complete article here.

Conquer a Dark and Dangerous Galaxy in Warhammer 40K: Forbidden Stars

Conquer a Dark and Dangerous Galaxy in Warhammer 40K: Forbidden Stars

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Forbidden Stars-small Last year I bought Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, Fantasy Flight’s two-player card game of interplanetary warfare in the Warhammer 40K universe, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But as much fun as it was, it wasn’t what I really wanted — a multi-player game of large scale strategic conflict in the stars.

So I was excited to discover today that Fantasy Flight has recently released Forbidden Stars, a competitive board game of interplanetary war set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and it looks to be exactly what I was hoping for. The base set features four iconic 40K factions: the loyalit Ultramarines Space Marines, Craft world Iyanden Elder, Evil Sunz Orks, and World Eaters Chaos Space Marines. Each faction has its own range of units and unique combat, event, and upgrade cards.

While I miss some of the other colorful factions in the 40K universe — such as Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and Tau — doubtless they will be included in later expansions.

The game uses the familiar moveable tile system, to give every conflict a unique scope and landscape (see the pic of the board below). The huge box comes packed with over 140 sculpted plastic pieces — always one of the delights of a Fantasy Flight game — and custom dice.

There was some concern in certain quarters that, following their acquisition by Asmodee last November, Fantasy Flight would lose some of its creative spark. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case.

Fantasy Flight first dabbled with the Warhammer 40K license with a line of excellent role playing games, including Dark Heresy, Only War, and the superb Rogue Trader, one of the best space RPGs I’ve ever played. They have stopped producing supplements for the RPGs (and cleared out much of their back stock with a huge sale late last year), and have now turned their energies to board games. This is the third Warhammer 40K board game to be released by Fantasy Flight (the first two were Relic and Conquest), and this one seems by far the most ambitious.

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The Retold Story of Etrian Odyssey Untold

The Retold Story of Etrian Odyssey Untold

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Etrian Odyssey Untold-smallIn my previous post on Etrian Odyssey, I spent the majority of my time examining what the series did to revive the dungeon crawler genre, and attract a new generation of fans through the use of mixing modern and classic game design. By the time this post is up, the second game in the Etrian Odyssey Untold series will be out, and I wanted to take a look at how Atlus is giving old and new fans a revised take on the series.

Second Chances

Previously, I talked about how the Etrian Odyssey series was reviewed very harshly by most critics for the first couple of installments; the reason was that a lot of people didn’t want to play a dungeon crawler, and were hung up on the series’ hardcore difficulty. And to be fair, their complaints had some merit, due to the quirks of the series.

While Etrian Odyssey did make a lot of allowances compared to older dungeon crawlers, this was still a series that forced you to find the enjoyment in it. Enemy stats were scaled very high, and all it took was one bad battle to wipe out your party and lose all progress from your last save. While party composition wasn’t as complicated as previous series, a novice could still mess up early by not understanding good party compositions, and the game’s use of harvesting field points for items/money.

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Future Treasures: Dungeons & Dragons: Out of the Abyss

Future Treasures: Dungeons & Dragons: Out of the Abyss

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Out of the Abyss D&D-smallFor all the accolades and buzz for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, there have been shockingly few releases supporting the game. Beyond the core rulebooks (published 12 months ago now), Wizards of the Coast has published only two adventures, one accessory, and a DM’s screen:

Hoard of the Dragon Queen (Adventure, August 2014)
The Rise of Tiamat (Adventure, November)
Dungeon Master’s Screen (January)
Princes of the Apocalypse (Accessory, April)

So I was very pleased to see another major item on the publishing schedule: Out of the Abyss, a massive 256-page Underdark adventure for characters of levels 1–15.

The Underdark is a subterranean wonderland, a vast and twisted labyrinth where fear reigns. It is the home of horrific monsters that have never seen the light of day. It is here that the dark elf Gromph Baenre, Archmage of Menzoberranzan, casts a foul spell meant to ignite a magical energy that suffuses the Underdark and tears open portals to the demonic Abyss. What steps through surprises even him, and from that moment on, the insanity that pervades the Underdark escalates and threatens to shake the Forgotten Realms to its foundations. Stop the madness before it consumes you!

The next release on the schedule is Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, an accessory that ties into the highly anticipated Sword Coast Legends computer RPG coming out next month. It arrives in November.

Out of the Abyss will be published by Wizards of the Coast on September 15, 2015. It is 256 pages, priced at $49.95 in hardcover. There is no digital edition.

The New Dungeons & Dragons Movie Will Be Set in The Forgotten Realms

The New Dungeons & Dragons Movie Will Be Set in The Forgotten Realms

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Drizzt Do’Urden-smallWe’re learning more about the new Dungeons & Dragons movie announced by Warner Bros. this week.

The first D&D movie, produced by New Line Cinema in 2000, was an epic failure (and its sequel was even worse), but this film will be produced by the studio behind The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter franchises, which has been on the hunt for a premium fantasy property for some time. An ongoing lawsuit over ownership of the D&D film rights prevented the project from going ahead, but Variety reports that dispute has finally been resolved.

A movie based on the widely popular game Dungeons & Dragons is in the works at Warner Bros., the studio announced Monday, 10 months after a trial over who owned the rights to the fantasy game ended.

After months of negotiation, Warner Bros., Hasbro’s Allspark Pictures and Sweetpea Entertainment said they had come to an undisclosed arrangement, ending the 2-year-old lawsuit, and are moving forward with the feature film franchise. David Leslie Johnson (The Conjuring 2) has already written the screenplay set in the D&D fantasy world of [The] Forgotten Realms. Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Stephen Davis, Sweetpea Entertainment’s Courtney Solomon and Allan Zeman, and Roy Lee (The Lego Movie) are producing the high-priority project.

“This is far and away the most well-known brand in fantasy, which is the genre that drives the most passionate film followings,” said Greg Silverman, Warner Bros. president of creative development and worldwide production. “D&D has endless creative possibilities, giving our filmmakers immense opportunities to delight and thrill both fans and moviegoers new to the property…”

The Forgotten Realms, created by Ed Greenwood in 1987, is home to the drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden, the mighty wizard Elminster, and countless other famous D&D characters. It has been featured in over 200 novels and countless adventure modules and supplements.

Read the complete article at Variety.

Wickedness of Old: Tales of Cthulhu Invictus, edited by Brian M. Sammons

Wickedness of Old: Tales of Cthulhu Invictus, edited by Brian M. Sammons

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Tales of Cthulhu Invictus-smallCthulhu Invictus, the popular 2009 Call of Cthulhu sourcebook from Chaosium, allows players to partake in mythos adventures in the hills and streets of ancient Rome. It was at least partially inspired by one of Lovecraft’s most famous dreams, described in a letter to Donald Wandrei dated Thursday, November 3, 1927. The letter survives (and the relevant fragment, now titled “The Very Old Folk,” is posted online here), and it relates an exceptionally vivid nightmare in which Lovecraft dreamt  he was an ancient Roman named Lucius Caelius Rufus, investigating a terrible Iberian hill tribe.

He had killed himself when the horses screamed… He, who had been born and lived all his life in that region, and knew what men whispered about the hills. All the torches now began to dim, and the cries of frightened legionaries mingled with the unceasing screams of the tethered horses. The air grew perceptibly colder, more suddenly so than is usual at November’s brink, and seemed stirred by terrible undulations which I could not help connecting with the beating of huge wings…

Above the nighted screaming of men and horses that dæmonic drumming rose to louder pitch, whilst an ice-cold wind of shocking sentience and deliberateness swept down from those forbidden heights and coiled about each man separately, till all the cohort was struggling and screaming in the dark… Only old Scribonius Libo seemed resigned. He uttered words amidst the screaming, and they echo still in my ears… “Wickedness of old… it is wickedness of old…”

Tales of Cthulhu Invictus is an original anthology of Cthulhu Mythos fiction set in Ancient Rome, the setting of Cthulhu Invictus. It was funded as a stretch goal as part of a successful Kickstarter for De Horrore Cosmico. It is due to be published any day now by Golden Goblin Press.

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The Worst AD&D Spell Of All Time

The Worst AD&D Spell Of All Time

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Arcana UnearthedSo there we stood, surrounded. Demons in all directions, converging fast – and we’re not talking garden variety patsies. Even for our major league party, the future looked bleak, bloody, and painful. On the plus side, we had our pizza in place, our dice at the ready. Beers and sodas hovered with popped caps and bated breath, anticipating action.

“Initiative!” cried the DM.

We each rolled. One of the demons, which just happened to moonlight as a spell-caster, moved first — and what did that pipsqueak no-good blackguard cheat of a demon cast our way?

Chain Lightning.

At fifteenth level.

Two hours later, with the pizza cold and stiff, the beers stale and the sodas flat, we finally finished adjudicating the effects of that single spell. We were in shock, and grumbling to beat the band. The DM, equally weary and perplexed, said, “Okay. Still first round. Who gets to take the next action?”

That I no longer recall, but this I know: we won the battle, and the demons lost. So did Chain Lightning. We made a solemn pledge that very day to never again allow that spell to eclipse the glory of our triumphant campaigning. Banned it was, all but ripped from the pages of the rulebook. And good riddance, too.

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Shin Megami Tensei and a Different Take on JRPGs (Part 1)

Shin Megami Tensei and a Different Take on JRPGs (Part 1)

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This may surprise some of you after my love letter to Etrian Odyssey, but for the longest time I didn’t like the RPG genre. During the mid 90s to early 00s, I was stuck between the grind-heavy traditional Japanese RPG (JRPG) design, and the number-crunching computer RPGs of the day. There were exceptions of course, such as Earthbound and Knights of the Old Republic. But it wasn’t until I found the Shin Megami Tensei series that I fell back in love with the genre.

ShinMegamiTenseiChange is Coming

Shin Megami Tensei has been a Atlus staple since the early 90s; the brand has gotten so big that I have to split this examination into two parts, with this one covering the main branch titles.

The Shin Megami Tensei series has several staples that exist between all the games, with “change” being the principle theme. In every title, the protagonist is either a part of a cataclysmic event, or will be the one that changes the world forever by causing one. Aiding him are a changing stock of demons that the player can recruit through different means; usually by talking to them.

Demons belong to different families and have varying stats and powers. What’s important about the series’ design is that your party is never the same for long due to two things. First is that exploiting enemy weaknesses is vital to having any chance of beating a SMT game. (Later titles, such as Nocturne and Shin Megami Tensei 4, actively punished or rewarded the player for keeping track of element resists, but more on that in a minute.)

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Adventures In Cards: Munchkin!

Adventures In Cards: Munchkin!

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Munchkin coverHow was my day, you asked? Well, I’ll tell you. My Halfling wizard and I spent the last hour fleeing from a Gazebo, leveling up by way of a Drooling Slime, and staying alive by means of the Kneepads Of Allure and a (basic but useful) Huge Rock.

What on earth could cause such havoc and silliness? Surely not Dungeons & Dragons?

Nope. It’s D&D’s hell-spawn little brat of a brother, the card game Munchkin. Now possibly I’m late to the table on this (I often am), but Munchkin has to be the geekiest, most asinine, not to mention juvenile, card game going. It’s also a diverting homage to AD&D, and better yet, it makes both kids and grown-ups laugh.

Consider Munchkin’s very own press: “…the mega-hit card game about dungeon adventure… with none of that stupid role-playing stuff.”

Of course D&D remains a clear progenitor, and possibly Munchkin owes something to Magic: the Gathering, but it strikes me that Munchkin’s most direct sire is a horse of a very different color, the irreverent and insouciant Killer Bunnies, which, if you’ve never played it, is a must for any gaming fan’s bucket list.

That said, you’ll need a lot of patience (or a sensai) to figure out how to play Killer Bunnies. But. Once you’ve “mastered” this obscenely complicated, impossible-to-predict killing spree of a game, enjoyment and strategy abound. I’d even be willing to state in a court of law, no less, that killing rabbits has never been so pleasurable, or so downright wicked neat. After all, who wouldn’t want to do in a (purple) Congenial Bunny while wielding a piece of flying burnt toast?

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Art of the Genre: Bill Willingham Loved the Ladies, Even if TSR Wouldn’t Always Let Him Show Them…

Art of the Genre: Bill Willingham Loved the Ladies, Even if TSR Wouldn’t Always Let Him Show Them…

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Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn't realize it was cropped, did you?
Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn’t realize it was cropped, did you?

Former TSR Artist and now comic writer sensation [Fables] Bill Willingham wanted to be Frank Frazetta, or so I surmise. I’ve always been a fan of his work, dating back to those early days in the RPG field when he was a member of ‘The First Four’ at TSR.

Along with Jim Roslof, Jeff Dee, and Erol Otus, Bill managed to produce some absolutely lovely interior illustrations and acrylic covers for the first sets of D&D modules, once the business took off and TSR could afford color. His tenure there, which ended with a blow up concerning the termination of artists that removed both he and Dee from the company, ended up being the best thing for him as he went on to relative fame and fortune in comics, a place that his talent certainly spawned from.

I sat with Bill at a seaside café back on 2009 when ComicCon was still a monster, but not the headache it is today and we discussed his work in the field. Nothing too in-depth, and sadly he was unable to add his art to my Art Evolution project because it had been too many years since he’d done that kind of work. Still, he looked over all the other artists who had donated work and was most pleasantly surprised to see his old friend Jeff Dee in there. Obviously Dee was ‘the kid’ during his time in the burgeoning TSR ‘pit’, and at 19 there was no doubt that was the case, but Bill seemed to have a twinkle in his eye for Dee’s version of Lyssa in the project, and I was at least happy to somehow connect the two again, if even for a just a nostalgic moment.

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