Kickstarter, what in the world of fuck is that then? Its taken me about 18 months to get my head around what the deal is here. Its dragons den with no dragons and absolutely no fucking quality control, you give someone some of your money, and they might think about doing something worthwhile with it, and send you a bit of it, or they might just spunk it up the wall on cocaine, burgers and strippers. Its a lottery. So why the fuck would anyone go in for it?
That was predominantly my outlook on it all for ages, alongside a lot of friends investing in kickstart versions of games we already had, proxies for Bloodbowl and Necromunda for example, absolutely no dice as far as I was concerned.
Then a gamer friend who writes for blogs and other ill shit who shall be known only as Prospect, hooked our group up with Shadows of Brimstone, knowing my love for tentacles, ancient evil and abyssal horror.
The campest gunslinger I have ever seen, notwithstanding anyone, ever.
It looked absolutely boss, and totally flipped my lid, this was something I could understand someone giving cash to get involved with. It was tentacles, a very thinly veiled Cthulu overtone, and best of all, it looked like Warhammer Quest!
Being the bellend I am, I flogged my Warhammer Quest set a few years back on ebay, something I hugely regret doing, so this was my attempt to come in with something similar play-wise.
It really ticked all the boxes for me, I’d have preferred a university setting or some underwater research team but they might have been shit, what I got was the wild west. Yes, the wild west, cowboys, bar tenders, priests, bar maids, prospectors, and mines. Mines filled with transdimensional tentacle based horror. And some questing for all manner of ill gotten gains to boot.
The wild west equivalent of gold chains, watches and timberland boots.
I’m still not 100% sold on that but I’ll be honest, the more the producers, a company called flying frog who I’ve never heard of, write, the more I like the idea. It seems pretty sweet and looks amazing. The models look great, really nicely detailed and nicely sized too and the tiles are lush looking. Really colourful and expressive, they look like they should and really capture the eye and hopefully the imagination when it drops and gets played.
Bossman here, giving no fucks about his zombie/alien mates.
There’s two game boxes to begin with, and you just add expansions to them as you see fit which is pretty much like say Descent or the aforementioned ‘Quest in my view. There are some wicked looking monsters chilling in the environs you get to explore too, and with the level of investment I went for, which ill admit, was calculated to be the minimum I could put in to get the most shit back, there was a TONNE of cool stuff being sent in addition to the two starter sets.
There are the two starter sets, one is way more Lovecraftian than the other though.
I’m genuinely excited to get this in and play it, and may have changed my outlook on kickstarter in the process. That’s assuming i get my games next August obviously.
I emailed the guy whose running Flying Frog for a quick Q&A much like my man Owain did for his Battle Terrain article, Owain met with a great success here however, whereas I sadly, did not. If the dude gets back to me, I’ll get part two of this up with the Q&A as I’m really interested in his take on the game and his inspiration.
So in conclusion, I’ve jut given some bloke in America 120 quid to produce a game that I’m not going to see until at the very least, next August, that’s if i ever see it at all. And I”ll tell you what, I don’t feel bad about that, nor apprehensive, I’m absolutely stoked to be part of something that looks as boss as Shadows of Brimstone, and even more so to get this thing unwrapped, smell that sweet new game smell, and to get some dice rolling.
Owain already had the Crue’s Kickstart My Heart, so here’s the the other other song with kickstart in the title I could think of.
Speaking as a fellow Quest-flogging bellend, that looks quite promising – I do like me some Cthulhu and the WIld West is, well, big hats and duster coats and growling, right up my street really. Can’t really chip in given the other projects on the table, but I suppose the advantage of things like this is you don’t need to buy them if you know someone who has, nudge nudge wink wink and all that.
As far as Kickstarter goes, I’ve generally steered clear of it unless the project’s being run by someone I actually know and trust – the Crusader one was basically lending my mate Colin thirty quid, which I’d probably have done anyway if he’d asked, rather than gambling a hundred quid on some stranger’s probably-not-even-ready-to-go project. The advice Kickstarter themselves give you is “have something to sell before you start your project” – never were truer words spoken. I’ve set up and cancelled a half-baked Kickstarter for something that I realised I didn’t actually want to do, and I’ve seen tens of thousands of Dollars American walk away when leading light of the Old School D&D blogs James Chevski welched on his promise to write up his boring megadungeon.
You’ll be calling your gun slinger Carl and modding some goggles on wont you? Its on the cards for a meetup games day once its out so you’re more than welcome to give it a spin!
Agreed there, this one was by a company that had games out already, successful games, so I think that went some way to easing my anxiety there. I mean that’s no guarantee it wont go tits up but it feels less of a risk than many others on there.
Heya.
Welcome to the HoP.
Von said good things, so I thought I’d pop on over and give a look-see.
I grew up in the NYHC scene.
Cro Mags, Agnostic Front, Carnivore (Pete Steel before Type-O Negative), shows CBGB’s and La’Mour.
I went through my Satan metal phase, from Venom to Anaal Nathraak. I saw Slayer a billion times. Literally.
Are you from NYC? Your musical taste seems pretty similar to mine, and we share similar backgrounds musically, it seems…although I always preferred ‘It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,’ ‘Fear of a Black Planet’ and ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’ from Public Enemy as opposed to their crossover stuffs.
Anyway…cool blog. I’ll be lurking.
You should really check out zombicide, it’s another board game Kickstarter campaign that was really successful. It’s a really cool game that me and my friends play on the weekends from time to time, and according to the company that created the game, there’s going to be a third expansion that is going to go up in kickstarter.
original kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/zombicide?ref=search
season two expansion kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/zombicide-season-2?ref=search
I’ve backed away from Kickstarters a bit as I found that the amount of money I ended up splurging in the excitement of the stretch goals didn’t really justify an amount I’d just never have paid for a boardgame on the shelf in the FLGS. Especially when you include the costly shipping charges.
I was painfully tempted by Shadows though and I like Flying Frog stuff. Before Zombicide came along their Last Night on Earth was my go-to zombie game.
Kickstarter has properly battered me over the last couple of years. I went all in on Shadows of Brimstone which I am of course still waiting for, along with Myth and the Defenders of the Realm deluxe set with new expansions, and Kingdom Death: Monster. All told we’re in the region of about £800 and I haven’t seen the slightest bit of plastic yet. That’s not a complain per se, more an admittance of my idiocy. All four games should, thankfully, not be far off (Myth is due first).