Eye on Kickstarter #35

Welcome to my Eye on Kickstarter series!  This series will highlight Kickstarter campaigns I am following that have recently launched (or I've recently discovered) because they have caught my interest.  Usually they'll catch my interest because they look like great games that I have either backed or would like to back (unfortunately budget doesn't allow me to back everything I'd like to).  But occasionally the campaigns caught my attention for other reasons.  Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Fridays, I'll make a new post in this series, highlighting the campaigns that have caught my attention since the last post.  In each post I'll highlight one campaign that has really grabbed my attention, followed by other campaigns I've backed or am interested in.  I'll also include links to any reviews I've done.  Comments are welcome, as are suggestions for new campaigns to check out!

You can also see my full Kickstarter Profile to see what I've backed or my old Eye on Kickstarter page that was too unwieldy to maintain.  Also, check out the 2018 Kickstarter Boardgame Projects geeklist over on Board Game Geek for a list of all the tabletop games of the year.

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So, without further ado, here are the projects I'm currently watching as of the second Friday of January, 2018:

Live Campaigns from Past Eyes:
None this week...

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HIGHLIGHTED CAMPAIGN
Re-Chord

• GJJ Games Backed
• People Behind the Meeples Interview
• My son has been learning the guitar for the past two and a half years (classical guitar), and really loves the instrument. He's pretty good, too! So when a game all about playing the guitar came along I had to back a copy for him. Interesting euro mechanics, a tiny bit of take-that, and learning real guitar chords makes this look like a winner!

Re-Chord is a guitar themed euro game for 1-5 players which plays in approximately 40-60 minutes. You are a budding guitarist, a rising star in your genre of music perfecting your craft to become a legend. Using real guitar picks to play chords, can you become the most famous guitarist of all time?

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Black Hole Council

• Black Hole Council is the second game from Orange Machine Games, the first being Abandon Planet, which made my top 10 list for 2017. Black Hole Council is for 4-8 players and brings a similar euro game style to social games, this time incorporating negotiation and deduction into a fun looking game with a bit of a destructive theme.

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The Dice Tower - 2018

• GJJ Games Backed
• The Dice Tower is the premier source for board game news and reviews. Spearheaded by Tom Vassal, the folks at The Dice Tower do what so many of us dream of doing: earn a living playing board games. They work hard to make a living playing games, though, and their annual campaign helps ensure that they can keep providing the great content that they do.

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Dwar7s Winter

• Dwar7s Winter is the second game in the Dwar7s series. This one includes hand-building, worker placement, and resource management, three mechanics that I love. It also has great artowrk, a fun story, and a bunch of great miniatures. What's not to love!

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Western Legends

• I really love wild west themes, but unfortunately my collection is a bit lacking in that genre. I have Colt Express, Tiny Epic West, and (unplayed) Great Western Trail, plus my own 8 Seconds that sort of fits, but that's it. I really like the idea of a sandbox style western where you can choose to be a hero or ourlaw. Plus, having actual historical characters to play seems like a ton of fun!

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Tokyo Series: Jidohanbaiki, Metro, and Jutaku

• More than the gameplay or theme, what has caught my interest here is the fact that this is three games (well, Jidohanbaiki is a game system) that can be played separately or together!

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Hermetica

• I quite like abstract games, even though they rarely make it to the table. One of my favorites is Element from last year, and Hermetica looks like a similar theme, but with very different mechanics. I like the idea of different types of pieces having different behaviors and different powers over the other pieces on the board, plus the presentation here is outstanding!

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Deja Vu: Fragments of Memory

• The "binary system" terminology in the description of Deja Vu seems like a silly catchphrase to me. What they're trying to get at is that they've combined two mechanics to have a game system where the first mechanic drives the strategy of the second mechanic. I don't think this is very unique, although combining a mancala mechanic with tableau building might be a new combination. However the gameplay does look interesting and the theme, artwork, and story are pretty fascinating.

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Neanderthal and Greenland

• Here's another set of games that can be played separately or together, although they seem much more similar to begin with than the Tokyo series games. I wonder if this idea of combining games to become something bigger is a style that will catch on the way Legacy games have become so popular.