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.

Minecart Town

Our first game this week is Minecart Town from Jelly Jelly Games on Kickstarter. Minecart Town is a tile laying game for 1 to 4 players where you will settle in a new land and build a prosperous town with efficient tile placement.

The game takes place over 4 rounds and most player actions in a round are able to be taken simultaneously. At the start of the round in the Resource Production step your locations and buildings will produce resources like stone and wood from your starting mine and forest locations.

Then in the Construction step you will be able to spend resources from anywhere in your town on new buildings and to build railroads. You’ll need railroad tracks to connect your buildings so that you can move resources between them in the Transport step.  After you move all the resources you choose along tracks to their new location, you will be able to use those resources in the Resource Processing step of the round, this may produce new resources for you to use but most commonly you will produce points.

It’s important to efficiently design your town’s layout so you can get the right resources to the right processing buildings. In the final round you will be able to Transport and Process as much as you want so you can take advantage of satisfying multi-step processing chains. The player who has built the most efficient town and gathered the most points will be the winner. 

Minecart Town is available to back now on Kickstarter for $45. The campaign runs until September 23, 2024, so make sure you get your pledge in before then.

Panda Spin

Our next game this week is Panda Spin from Moon Gate Design on Kickstarter. Panda Spin is a 2 to 5 player trick taking game by designer Carl Chudyk (Glory to Rome, Innovation).

In Panda Spin you will be competing against other players to win tricks in order to discard all your cards before the other player can. If you are the first to discard all your cards you gain points for each card remaining in the hand of the player if the most cards.

The deck in Panda Spin consists of 5 suits of 13 cards with each suit representing an element of the Chinese zodiac: Fire, Earth, Wood, Water, and Metal. Each card has an animal from the Chinese Zodiac on it and one special “Element” card which will immediately win the trick but can only be played under certain conditions.

Tricks are played by playing animal cards in different Combinations; Sets – two or more of the same value, Runs – cards with sequential values, Formations – basically a Set of Runs and Bombs – 4 identical values. The interesting twist is that when you lose a trick you get  “Spin” your cards flipping them 180 degrees and making them more powerful by granting them a special elemental ability.

Depending on the element this ability might change the value or use of the card in your Combination. For example if you have a spun Fire card it will then have either a double value card or a high single value card. A Water card when spun acts as a wild in a Set, Run or Formation. You will have to decide each trick if you want to pursue winning the trick or losing the trick to power up your cards. You’ll play tricks until one player has 15 or more points and then the player with the most points wins! 

Panda Spin is available for only $18 and that will get you the deluxe Kickstarter edition including upgrading wooden tokens and foil cards. The campaign will end on September 10th 2024 so you’ll want to get your pledge in before then.

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 our social media or email.

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