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 are:

Read on for why we picked them…

Vineyard: A Winemaking Game

To kick things off this week we are taking a look at Vineyard: A Winemaking Game from  Eduardo Baraf on Kickstarter.

Vineyard is a 1 to 4 player strategy game from the same designer as Creature Comforts and Creature Comforts: Maple Valley. Set in a cozy sun filled valley, players will find themselves cultivating and harvesting grapes, making and aging wine, bottling and loading that wine onto trucks for sale and hosting tours of the vineyard to groups that arrive on the train.

Vineyard uses a unique shared worker placement / action selection mechanic where instead of each player controlling a specific worker, all players can influence a shared group of workers that each has their own specialty. You will select an action card to have a worker take an action at a specific location, but the worker must always move to a new location, so if another player already used a worker to cultivate grapes, you won’t be able to use that action! Through the game you will also gain the ability to use improved action cards and upgrade your workers’ specialty actions giving you more options and more powerful actions.

Vineyard also comes with some optional gameplay modules that you can use to customize your gameplay experience that add things like secret player objectives and additional bonus and options for card play and location combos. Vineyard also comes with a dedicated solo module if you are just looking for a cozy night of winemaking by yourself. This is also  “pre-stretched” campaign so you can be sure you are getting the full game experience right from the start.

Vineyard is available now on Kickstarter with the following pledge level options:

  • Vineyard: A Winemaking Game – $50 – Includes Vineyard and the Local News mini-expansion
  • PFG Bundle – $95 – Includes Vineyard and the Local News mini-expansion as well as 2 other Pencil First Games titles, Herbaceous and Floriferous and their mini-expansions

Don’t let this one sit on the vine too long, make your pledge for Vineyard: A Winemaking Game before the campaign ends on February 25, 2025.

Bark Avenue: Kings and Queens and Concrete Jungle

We’ve got another cute and cozy game for our second pick this week in Bark Avenue: Kings and Queens and Concrete Jungle from TerreDice Game on Kickstarter.

Bark Avenue is a competitive pick up and deliver game where players take on the role of a dog walker in upper Manhattan. Players are challenged to manage the needs of each of their different dogs who have their own desired walk lengths, favorite activities and compatibility with other dogs. You’ll be walking dogs around New York through the city and parks, taking their photos, letting them do their favorite activities, making sure they do their business and getting them back home before sundown. You earn points for money you earn from walking and tips as well as personal goals and advertisements. 

In this new campaign two expansions are being added to the world of Bark Avenue each adding their own unique mechanics and twists to the original game. The Kings and Queens is the larger of the two expansions and adds a new Borough map board with a worker placement mechanic that lets your race players to grab special bonuses. It also includes Double Dog cards which feature two different dogs at once but you may have to manage two different favorite activities for those pups. The expansion also adds Item cards like running shoes or a pet carrier, which grant asymmetric abilities with one time or permanent effects that will grant you an edge over other players.

Concrete Jungle is a 27 card mini-expansion featuring jungle cards which are other kinds of pets like cats and lizards which function like dog cards but need to visit coffee shops and treat shops to have their fun. 

If you missed the original campaign for Bark Avenue or are already a fan now is the time to expand on the fun with these pledge levels:

  • Bark Avenue: Kings and Queens – $22 – The Kings and Queens Expansion
  • Bark Avenue Deluxe Edition + Kings and Queens – the deluxe second printing of Bark Avenue with dual layers boards, the coveted squishy poop tokens (you heard that right) and the Kings and Queens expansion.
  • Kings and Queens + Retail Upgrade Pack – $35 –  The Kings and Queens expansion plus an upgrade to your retail copy of Bark Avenue with wooden tokens and yes, the squishy poop tokens.
  • Bark Avenue: Concrete Jungle Addon – $10 – You’ll need to add the Concrete Jungle expansion on to another pledge level if you are looking to get this

The campaign for Bark Avenue: Kings and Queens and Concrete Jungle runs until February 27, 2025, so just make sure to get your pledges 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 social media or email.

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