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 games are:

Speakeasy

Our first game this week is Speakeasy from Eagle-Gryphon games and designer Vital Lacerda. 

Eagle-Gryphon games is known for their high quality, immersive board games and this new design from Vital Lacerda looks to be no different. Set during the prohibition era of the 1920s the game invites players to take on the role of a mobster running speakeasies, nightclubs, stills and casinos striving against their competition to build an elicit empire.

Speakeasy is for 1 to 4 players and features worker-placement, card and resource management. Over four acts (rounds) your goal is to become the most powerful mobster in Manhattan and you will need cunning and careful planning to outwit the other mobsters. You’ll send your Capos to talk to persons of interests at locations throughout the city to take actions like opening new nightclubs and casinos, pick up and deliver barrels from your stills, hire goons, ambush rum runner ships and many other options.

At the end of each act you participate in a mob war where you will defend your buildings and attack the operations of other mobsters. After the fourth act the player who amassed the most money will win and solidify their grip on Manhattan.

Speakeasy features excellent artwork from Ian O’Toole, high quality screen printed components and all the attention to detail and design you would  expect from an Eagle-Gryphon game. The theme is quite unique and looks to be well integrated with the gameplay to create and immersive experience. I’d wager this will be a must-get for fans of Lacerda’s work. 

Speakeasy is available now on Kickstarter for $125 for the Kickstarter edition that features:

  • A double sided main board 
  • Triple layered player boards
  • Screen printed components
  • A custom box insert
  • The Speakeasy upgrade pack (in lieu of stretch goals) – the full contents of which have yet to be revealed!

The Kickstarter campaign for Speakeasy will end on October 25, 2024, so make your move before then to get a copy.

Nature

Our next game this week is Nature from North Star Games on Kickstarter.

Nature is a 1 to 6 player strategic card game that builds on and refines its predecessor Evolution with a focus on easy teaching, balance and expandability. In Nature, you will play an animal species that must adapt to a changing environment.

In contrast to Evolution, Nature uses a modular system where you will explore a different ecosystem by combining different game modules. To survive and thrive in Nature you must respond to the unique properties of your ecosystem, avoid predators and find food.

The keys to your species’ success is adapting to your environment by increasing its body size, growing its population and using special Trait cards to give your species special abilities and behaviors. You might add the Clawed, Horned or Plated traits to give your species more defense against predators or you might look for the Scavenging trait to help your species hunt for food.

You’ll need to be able to feed your species to keep its population thriving, and the player with the healthiest population at the end of the game will be the winner!

Lets take a look at the different pledge levels available in this campaign:

  • Nature – $39 – Includes the base game, 2 promo packs and the Elephant graveyard mini-module
  • Nature Big Box – $109 – Everything from the Nature pledge plus all 5 modules: Flight, Jurassic, Natural Disasters, Arctic Tundra, and Amazon rainforest. Also included are 5-6 player components, additional promo packs and a custom box insert.
  • Nature Big Box Deluxe – $159 – Everything in the Big Box plus upgraded tokens for the base game and every module.

Check out the Nature Kickstarter page for additional pledge options and to reserve your copy before October 24, 2024, when the campaign ends.

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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