Kickstarter and Gamefound Board Game Monthly Round Up - June 2021 Part 1

Kickstarter and Gamefound Board Game Monthly Round Up - June 2021 Part 1

Meeple Design are starting our board game crowdfunding monthly round up commencing with June 2021 game releases. We will be summarising all the relevant and known tabletop gaming information in one place from release dates, Kickstarter links and most importantly the game information. There are a large number of June releases so we have split the article into 2 parts. Part one starts with games with a confirmed release date of 1st June up to 15th June, dates could still be subject to change. 

Part 2 will be released next week and cover games with confirmed release dates from 16th June and include games that may have there campaign in June.

Each month we also pick out the games that, based on our preferences, stick out to us. Based on our preferences, in the first half of June the 2 games that we will be paying most attention to are:

  • Blooming Industry
  • First Ascent

    AH*LE Card Game
     

      It's a fast paced card game with the aim being to get rid of every card from your hand. There are different cards with varying effects which offer a 'take that' element. It seems that it's aiming to be a fun party game offering suggestions of alternate ways to play to keep it fresh.

       

      Monsters of Murka: Chromatic Gamut

        Monsters of Murka is a campaign setting for 5e DnD based on a high fantasy parody version of New York City. Chromatic Gamut is the second expansion and introduces new classes, monsters, items, backgrounds and more. The expansion has a focus on the LGBTQIA+ community with the world of Murka. The base book is available on DriveThruRPG so you can check it out before backing the expansion. 

         

        Ruthless: Tall Tales
          • Release Date: 1st June 2021
          • Publisher: Board Game Circus and Roland's Revenge Games
          • Designer: Roland MacDonald
          • Website

        Ruthless is a deckbuilding pirate game in which you play cards from your hand to form poker combinations. The player with the strongest crew wins the round and gains points. After which you buy more cards for your deck. After 5 or 6 rounds the player with the highest score wins. Tall Tales is an expansion which will add more card types and also a solo mode to the game. The base game has good artwork on the cards but the expansion really steps it up with the additional card types.

         

        Adventure Tactics: Adventures in Alchemy

        Adventure Tactics: Adventures in Alchemy is an expansion to Adventure Tactics: Domianne's Tower which is a campaign-driven, cooperative tactical combat game. You choose from 1 of 5 classes and fight your way through a branching campaign. During the course of the campaign you level up, unlock new equipment and new classes. The expansion will add a mini campaign which includes new enemies, classes, items and non player controlled allies. One point of note, the base game has a very high 8.4 rating from 236 people so it is clearly highly regarded by the people who own it.

         

        Fall of the Mountain King

          • Release Date: 1st June 2021
          • Publisher: Burnt Island Games
          • Designer: Adam E. Daulton
          • Website
         

          A prequel to In the Hall of the Mountain King which was a 2019 release funded on Kickstarter. Where the original game was themed around trolls rebuilding their kingdom, the new game is about the Gnome attack which forced the trolls from their homes. The main mechanisms of the game listed on board game geek are action points, area majority and drafting.  If the first game is anything to go by then this should have good artwork and components with a 'puzzley' aspect to the gameplay.

           

          Pot-YUCK! The Card Game

          In Pot Yuck you are a dishwasher trying to work your way up into becoming the Head Chef. It is a party game in which you are playing card combos to try to come up with the worst possible food combinations. Adding spice, food and methods you may decide that onion cheesecake or catfish waffles are your secret weapon to becoming the Head Chef. It would probably be a restaurant I skipped, but it does seem like a fun party game.

            

          My Singing Monsters

          Based on a video game of the same name set in Monster World, it is a strategic worker placement game which tasks you with breeding the ultimate singing monster. There will be 5 islands to explore with over 50 monsters to collect and breed. You start by choosing 1 of the 5 different characters, gradually building up your abilities throughout the course of the game. Interestingly the game is intended to be accessible for everyone, so while the rules start simple there are several modules that you can add, introducing new rules and gameplay mechanics, allowing you to build up to a full on strategy game.

           

          The Binding of Isaac Requiem

            • Release Date: 1st June 2021
            • Publisher: Maestro Media 
            • Designer: Edmund McMillen 
            • Website

          The Kickstarter is an expansion for The Binding of Isaac with over 200 brand new cards but will also feature a reprint of the base game and limited edition merchandise. I played a lot of the video game that this is based on and it is one of the best rogue lites. However I have never played the board game version. Let me know in the comments if it captures the feeling of the video game.

           

          Fossil Canyon

            • Release Date: 2nd June 2021
            • Publisher: Polymath Canyon
            • Designer: Kevin Lynch 
            • Website

            A set-collection card game developed in collaboration with the Field Museum of Chicago in which you are a fossil-hunting palaeontologist with the goal of constructing complete dinosaur skeletons that attract visitors to your museum. For us the jigsaw puzzle scoring method looks interesting and makes it stand out from other set collection games.

             

            Dwar7s The Lost Tribes Expansion

            Dwar7s is a hand-building, resource management game with tower defence elements. The Lost Tribes is an expansion to Dwar7s Winter which was a stand alone game in the series. Featuring good artwork and miniatures the game definitely has table presence. More importantly it is well received on BoardGameGeek.  

              

             

            Squaring Circleville

              • Release Date: 3rd June 2021
              • Publisher: Spielworxx
              • Designer: Matt Wolfe
              • Website

            Circleville is a town in Ohio, USA named after the circular portion of a large Hopewell earthwork, upon which it was built. After complaints and a petition from the townsfolk, about the circular roads, the decision was made to rebuild it as a more conventional grid. In the game, you are tasked with deconstructing and then reconstructing the town of Circleville. Moving round a rondel, you take various actions getting permits to perform work with the aim of building the best Square.  

             

            Moonstone: The Arising

              • Release Date: 5th June 2021
              • Publisher: Goblin King Games 
              • Website 
             

              The Arising is an expansion to Moonstone which is a skirmish game for 2 or more players. The game plays on a 3x3 table with around 10 to 12 models in total. We haven’t played the game so can’t speak to the rules, but what is clear is that the models are very unique and remind me of fable whimsical style fantasy characters. The expansion book adds in campaign rules with narrative progressing the Moonstone storyline and scenarios.

               

              Heroes of Barcadia

              If you want a dungeon crawler with a difference then this might be the game for you, as it also involves drinking. Alcohol is not required and you can just as easily play with your favourite juice (apple & raspberry for me). Players move around a randomised hex tile fighting monsters, using power ups and obtaining loot cards. Health is represented by the liquid left in your player cup and for each bit of health lost you drink some of your beverage. The game also features great cartoon style artwork representing the heroes and monsters as well as having pun heavy names for the characters and items. Let's hope the tiles are spill resistant!

               

              Lonely Undead

                • Release Date: 7th June 2021
                • Publisher: Dead Lemon Games 
                • Designer: Shelby Matussak
                • Website 

              If you were a fan of the video game Stubbs the Zombie then this could be the board game for you. Play as a lonely zombie shambling around town turning others into your new Zombie friends. Each player takes control of their own Zombie with unique powers, but you have to be careful as the human you attack is only revealed once you have attacked them and they have varying power levels. The game plays out on a square grid board with different decks representing supplies you can find around town and standees for the characters.

               

              Blooming Industry

              The Tulip industry may not sound like it is hugely relevant to modern society but I find it fascinating and many people believe that there are a lot of similarities between the Tulip boom in the 1600’s and crypto currency in the present day, with speculation in the market driving huge value. Blooming Industry is about the Tulip boom with the aim of the game to harvest, transport, and sell tulips from your farms to the market. While ensuring that the price is high when you sell as Tulips decrease in value, as ones of the same colour are sold. There are 3 phases; Gather, Harvest and Farm, with multiple possible actions in each phase. It's a colourful tile laying game in which you have to build connections in your farm. We are definitely keeping an eye on this one as the relatively simple rules seem to allow for some strategic gameplay. Plus we love the theme!

               

              Deliverance

              It's a dungeon crawler that pits angels against demons. We don’t often play dungeon crawlers, but Deliverance seems to have some unique ideas such as dice rolls that if successful provide additional actions on top of the base action and increasing game difficulty by adding talents to enemies. The character & board artwork looks good and I believe they are offering a choice between a standee and miniature version, which is good to see regardless of whether the game is from a new or established publisher.

               

              Overstocked

              A light game that can be played in 20 minutes, about stocking your warehouse with the most in demand toys. Each round you play a card to either stock your warehouse or increase the central pile which increases the demand. The game ends when everyone has played all cards from their hands and players score points for most in demand toys.

               

              Traps

                • Release Date: 8th June 2021
                • Publisher: Koca Games
                • Designer: Emre Koca 
                • Website 

              A roll n’move game in which you are an adventurer trying to escape the jungle before your friends. Laying traps and using your special abilities in order to survive and be the first out of the jungle. I expect this to be an easy going fun game with rules that can be taught quickly and strong 'take that' elements to the gameplay.

               

              Skeptics

               

              It is a cooperative, dice rolling game, where players explore potentially haunted locations to prove the existence of ghosts. To succeed you must find evidence of the haunting by revealing the ghost at midnight and completing the icon sets of the ghost. Once the ghost reveals itself, you must contend with the environment which starts to work against you, with fires starting and lights going out. The base game has 6 ghosts and 2 locations to provide variety.   Originally the project was on Kickstarter in November 2020 but the funding goal was not reached. It isn’t clear what is new or different in the relaunch but presumably they will rework the price of the KS or the stretch goals.

               

              Battle of Gog  

                • Release Date: 8th June 2021
                • Publisher: Crazzybox Inc
                • Designer: Vitali Minin 
                • Website

                Battle of Gog is an abstract strategy game with multiple paths to winning. The map is built during set up using 36 3x3 tiles providing fresh gameplay experience with every match. During the game you will be gathering resources, buying upgrades and playing treasure cards.

                 

                AracKhan Wars

                 

                  A tactical card game played out on a grid battlefield in which you play your cards too. Each deck is made up of 23 cards which are a mixture of monsters that can be placed on the battlefield and spells to cast on your opponent. At the end of the ninth round both players count the value of their cards on the battlefield and the person with the highest value wins. The stand out factor on this game is the artwork and if the different deck types are balanced with a variety of options for deck builds, then this could be a solid game.

                   

                  Alien Petshop

                    • Release Date: 8th June 2021
                    • Publisher: Gregory Grimsby
                    • Designer: Gregory Grimsby
                    • Website

                  Ever wanted to manage your own cosmic petshop? If so, then this could be the game for you. It is an engine building game with dice placement and set collection. The gameplay loop has you buying pets and workers which are represented by dice, rolling your ‘workers' and then assigning them so that your pets have offspring or you can engineer new traits for your pets. During the course of the game you have to deal with hazards and collect pet traits to score more points. The great thing about Alien Petshop is that there is an easy mode which allows you to play the game with younger shopkeepers.

                   

                  Edict: Solar Contention  

                    Edict is an economic space exploration, each player controls 1 of 5 powerful corporations aiming to establish a commercial empire in space. Edicts specify how many resources must be delivered to Earth in order to be fulfilled and advance the game. Once the Edict is fulfilled, players are able to recruit new people to their team to gain abilities and then a new Edict is revealed. Once all Edicts are revealed the game is over and the player with the most victory points wins.

                      

                    Bushido The Card Game

                     

                      This is a relaunch Kickstarter, as it was cancelled the first time round in 2020. As the name suggests you play as a Samurai in this push-your-luck, set collection game. You roll dice which you allocate to virtues trying to learn enough virtues to impress one of the Daimyo and win the game. It’s Yahtzee style in that you can roll dice up to 3 times sticking with what you roll or rerolling to try and obtain a higher scoring virtue.

                       

                      First Ascent

                      The aim of First Ascent is to become the most skilled climber by acquiring gear and establishing the best route up the mountain in this, medium weight, rock climbing-themed strategic board game. It's a route building game with 10 asymmetrical characters and a mixture of mechanics including card drafting and set collection. The team behind the game are rock climbers so it seems likely that the game will be true to the real world sport and maybe even make me feel like I could tackle Mount Everest, probably not but regardless the game is definitely intriguing.

                       

                      Forests of Pangaia

                        The concept of Forests of Pangaia reminds me of Photosynthesis as the game revolves around growing your own forest and contending with other players for territory. Starting with a seed and growing your individual trees throughout the course of the game. It should have good table presence as the trees will be added throughout the course of the game with additional stacks being added to the tops of the trees representing their growth. The gameplay mechanics do appear to be significantly different to Photosynthesis with a modular board made of different terrain tiles with varying element attributes.

                         

                        Adventures in Oz 5E

                         

                          Adventures in Oz brings the World of Oz  to the 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. There will be new character classes, spells, items and player races. With Oz heroes and villains as NPCs and several modules included. The best part is that you can download an open playtest PDF from their website for free to decide if you want to back the project.

                           

                          *** Please note that we are not affiliated with any of the companies listed above or received payment in any form and this article represents our own personal opinion & research. All the information and dates may be subject to change *** 

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