Welcome to Kickstart Monday! This is our weekly series featuring 2 or more crowdfunding projects that have caught our eye. We scour over platforms like Kickstarter and Gamefound to find projects that interest us.

This week’s picks include:

Read on for what stood out to us about these games…

Flamecraft Duals

Our first game this week is Flamecraft Duals from Cardboard Alchemy on Kickstarter. 

Flamecraft Duals is a travel friendly two player head to head pattern matching game set in the world of Flamecraft,  full of colorful and whimsical art and a whole bunch of dragons!

In Flamecraft Duals you are competing to create patterns of dragons on a hexagon grid with extra thick poker style dragon tokens. On your turn you will draw a dragon token from the bag and place it on the grid. Dragon tokens represent artisan dragons producing a variety of goods like bread, meat, plants, and potions. 

After placing your token you will get a chance to “Fire up” your token and activate its special ability which can have a variety of effects like moving and swapping other tokens, pulling and placing new dragons or even firing up other adjacent tokens. Then you will check to see if you can score.

You’ll have Shop cards in your hand displaying a pattern for you to try to make on the board so you might be looking to look up 4 bread icons or two plants and one iron. You can even score both of your Shop cards in the same turn. Scored cards are kept for end game points and you draw some new Shop cards for the next round. Once the final dragon token or the last shop card is drawn the game end is triggered and the player who has done the best job creating patterns and fulfilling their ship cards will be the winner!

Flamecraft Duals is available as a deluxe edition right now on Kickstarter for $30 which includes plastic cards, metal coins, a dragon fountain miniature and magnetic storage. There are also a large variety of other add-ons including an expansion for the original Flamecraft game make sure to check out  the campaign page for all your options

If you are fired up about Flamecraft Duals you’ll want to get your pledge in before May 21, 2025, when the campaign ends.

Nippon: Zaibatsu

Our second game this week is Nippon: Zaibatsu on Kickstarter from CrowD Games. 

Nippon: Zaibatsu is a new edition of the game Nippon originally released in 2015. This is an economic area control game set during the Industrial Revolution where 1 to 4 players manage conglomerates of Japanese companies called Zaibatsu. To prove to the emperor that you are the most worthy Zaibatsu, you’ll need to build factories, mines, and railroads, develop new technology, complete contracts, sell food to markets and hire experts to guide your ventures.

This new version of the game has been revamped to include streamlined gameplay, and new mechanics, resources and objectives. Other improvements include unique factories, updated actions, a reworked consolidation mechanic, asymmetric starting conditions and a new solo mode.

There are two editions on offer in this campaign so let’s see what the options are for pledges: 

  • Nippon: Zaibatsu, Standard Edition – $60 – the standard version of Nippon: Zaibatsu without additional content and without metal coins. 
  • Nippon: Zaibatsu, Emperor’s Edition – $80 – comes with all additional content including deluxe wooden components, extra factories, the Common Goals module, and free metal coins. 

The campaign for Nippon: Zaibatsu ends on May 23, 2025, so be sure to get your pledges in before that if you are looking to grab this new reimagined edition. 

Did we miss your favorite project?

Thank you for checking out this week’s Kickstart Monday! If you find these interesting or want some attention on a Kickstarter or other crowdfunded projects that you would like to read more about please share your thoughts with us via social media or email.

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