Kickstarter Picks for the Week of May 05, 2014

What is this post all about? Well, it should pretty straightforward, but, if there's any confusion, this is where I'll be talking about a handful of Kickstarter projects each week, focusing on a few projects that recently launched and a few projects that are about to end. Will I be focusing only on projects in need of funding? No. I will simply be focusing on projects that interest me, regardless of whether they've only raised $5 or raised ten times that of their original goal. Anyway, I think it's about time I got to the actual projects, eh.

• Recently Launched

Evolution

• Ends Mon, Jun 16 2014 10:59 PM CDT.

Evolution is a dynamic card game that involves, you guess it, evolution! As stated last week (and made evident by the fact I always have a deck of playing cards in my left back pants pocket), I love card games, and a card game where you create your own species, evolving 'em as the game progresses, doing your best to survive and score the most points sounds awesome. Evolution is definitely worth checking out--even if you only go to check out the beautiful art on each card--and I wouldn't be surprised to see Evolution reach quite a few of their stretch goals.

Pocket Odyssey

• Ends Fri, May 30 2014 8:00 PM CDT.

Pocket Odyssey is a micro RPG and, as the name suggests, built to fit inside one's pocket--I guess most people don't have super tight pockets like me (?). Now, I'm not much of a tabletop RPG player--what I mean is, I've never played one--but I've always wanted to get into one and find the portable, minimal nature of Pocket Odyssey appealing (and the art is nice too), so, if you're like me, give this little (literally) game a gander and, er, I've got nothing else, I just wanted to rhyme something with "gander."

• Ending Soon

Stormy Weather

• Ends Wed, May 7 2014 9:57 AM CDT.

Stormy Weather is an odd little 2-player game about two mad scientists--bitter rivals, of course--who both decide to retire at the same time and focus on gardening; however, there's one problem: they just so happened to move to the same village! (If you're thinking, "Why doesn't one just move somewhere else?" Well, then there wouldn't be a game...) I haven't played the game myself, but it looks like it could be fun and I like the art--which is pretty important to me--so, if you, too, enjoy 2-player games, Stormy Weather is at least worth checking out.

Dragon Slayer

• Ends Wed, May 7 2014 12:00 AM CDT.

This is just a copy and paste from a few weeks ago, as Dragon Slayer has transitioned from a, "Recently Launched," project, to an, "Ending Soon," project. Anyway, Dragon Slayer is the latest project from Indie Boards and Cards, the publisher behind such great games like Resistance and Coup--I haven't had the greatest experiences with Resistance, but I love Coup--and, best of all, if you backed the recent Coup: Reformation project, you can grab a copy of Dragon Slayer for the price of breakfast ($7 in US & Canada/$10 everywhere else). So, what is Dragon Slayer? Well, it's a "press your luck" dice game--like Zombie Dice--with some additional flavoring: player interaction. What does that mean? It means you're not only playing against the dice and yourself, but your friends too, making Dragon Slayer a potential slayer of other such simple dice games.

Escape Big Box

• Ends Wed, May 7 2014 10:30 AM CDT.

Escape Big Box is not in need of funding, nor is it from some super small indie publisher, but Escape is a fun little game that takes place in real time and this here Big Box is a pretty good deal for those who don't own Escape (its expansions) and want to jump in. Anyway, check out the game and, if the sound of a real time cooperative board game sounds good to you, then Escape will be right up your alley. (P.S. There is a pledge for those who already own the base game and expansions and only want the extras, but it's nowhere near as good of a deal as the complete Big Box.)

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Anyway, that's it and that's all for this week's edition of Kickstarter picks. If you have any thoughts about the projects mentioned or want to highlight a project not mentioned above, leave a comment below--I'm always interested in seeing what other's think about various projects and what projects interest others.