AEG – WiscoDice

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, Gamefound, and Indigogo to find projects that interest us.

There are certainly some exciting projects out in crowdfunding land. Let’s take a look at a couple of games that we think you should check out.

Undergrove

Our first game this week is Undergrove from Alderc Entertainment Group on Kickstarter.

Undergrove is a game for 1 to 4 players from designers Elizabeth Hargrave and Mark Wooton and is based on the real life symbiotic relationships between trees and fungi. In the game the players will take on the role of a tree that’s right a tree – to be specific a Douglas Fir tree in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Players compete to establish seedlings throughout the forest and develop the best symbiotic relationships with the mushrooms in the forest.

Players will spread their seedlings through the forest looking to be adjacent to mushrooms and fungi with beneficial abilities and to potentially gain points for relationships for those mushrooms. To use a mushroom’s ability with the Activate action you will first need to grow roots from your seedlings on to the adjacent mushroom with the Reproduce or Partner action. In the same way you must have grown a root token on a mushroom to gain points for it at the end of the game. Mushroom activation abilities can provide needed resources to take your main actions or refresh your ability to activate mushrooms or provide other benefits. You also have the option to add new mushrooms to the forest expanding the different ability options and scoring opportunities. The Absorb action will importantly allow you to absorb carbon from nearby mushrooms into your seedlings which lets you score mushrooms you have roots on and potentially grow into trees which score even more.

Through the game players will have to carefully select where to spread their seedlings to maximize their scoring potential and strategically choose which seedlings to grow into trees. Undergrove features beautiful illustrations by artist Beth Sobel of a variety of real life mushroom and fungi species. The game will be available as a standard edition for a very reasonable $39 USD. The deluxe mycologist edition features upgraded wooden components and the whispering woods micro expansion all for $69 USD. The campaign for Undergrove ends in just a few short days on December 8, 2023, so be quick to get your pledge in!

Nocturne

Next up this week is Nocturne from Flatout Games on Kickstarter.

Nocturne is a light strategy game for 1 to 4 players from the makers of Calico and Cascadia and also features art by the excellent Beth Sobel. Nocturne takes place in a magical moonlit forest where the players as powerful fox mystics will cast spells to gather magical items and ingredients for brewing potions. The forest takes the shape of a grid of tiles that represent the items and potion components that players will be competing for.

Players capture tiles with a spatial bidding mechanism; they must cast one of their spell tokens numbered 1 through 7 and cast a more powerful spell than the previous player on an adjacent tile. Players continue to bid with their spells until all players have passed, the winner then claims the item tile for their collection. Items tiles like Firebird Feathers, Creature Skulls and Mysterious eggs each have their own scoring rule when collected in sets but can also be combined in a recipe to craft a concoction as an alternative way of earning points. Winning a tile also grants the player a chance to draft special item tiles that have their own unique scoring methods.

Players will use the unique power of their individual fox mystic to compete over the two Twilight and Moonlight rounds to collect the greatest set of magical items and concoctions as well as attempt to achieve the Twilight and Moonlight public goals to ultimately become the winner.

Nocturne looks beautiful and seems easy to teach while also providing an interesting puzzle to the player. As a bonus for those with kids the game also features a family variant which simplifies and streamlines some of the rules to make it suitable for younger players.

The Nocturne Kickstarter edition is available for just $29 USD which includes all unlocked stretch goals as well as an exclusive Kickstarter promo pack with new character cards, concoctions and goal cards. There are just a few days until the campaign ends on December 8, 2023, so find your way through the forest quickly to the Nocturne Kickstarter page quickly if you are looking to pledge.

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.

Stay informed when new Kickstart Monday projects come out by following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and following the #KickstartMonday hashtag.

Also checkout the latest articles from WiscoDice:

Kickstart Monday: AEG Expansion Extravaganza

By Justin Skillings

On June 12, 2023

In Kickstart Mondays

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, Gamefound, and Indigogo to find projects that interest us.

This week we are doing things a little differently and only focus on one Kickstarter project because this unique project from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is four games in one! It’s the AEG Expansion Extravaganza!

The project is a different kind of kickstarter. There are four different games on offer at discounted prices along with both existing and new expansions. Backers can go all in and get all 4 games and their expansions or choose Ala Carte and just pickup the expansions they are missing or just get the new stuff.

The first game in the bunch is Space Base, the dice rolling engine builder from designed John D. Clair.

In space base players manage a fleet of spaceships that will provide resources and benefits as players roll a pair of dice each turn. Player add new ships to their stations and their fleet to make certain dice results even more lucrative for them ultimately racing to be the first player with 40 victory points.As part of the campaign you can get the two existing expansion to Space Base, The Emergence of Shy Pluto and The Mysteries of Terra Proxima as well as the brand new expansion Genesis.

Next up is War Chest, an abstract medieval battle game for two to four players.

In war chest players will use unique types of soldiers or units such as Pikemen, Crossbowmen and Cavalry represented by custom poker chips to strategically control the battlefield and outplay their opponents. Players deploy their unit coins on to a hex grid and maneuver their until to control their territory and attack their enemies. There are two existing expansions for war chest available War Chest: Nobility and War Chest: Seige and a third new expansion War Chest: Nightfall.

Next is Tiny Towns, the strategic village building game for up to six players.

In Tiny Towns each round one player as the Master Builder announces a resource type that all players must place into their village construction area. Combining the right resources in the right formation allows players to place down buildings with various special abilities and ways to earn victory points. The type of buildings players can build can change each game lending a great deal of replayability. The campaign has both existing expansions for Tiny Towns available at a discount: Tiny Towns: Fortune and Tiny Towns: Villagers as well as the new addition Tiny Towns: Architects.

Last but not least is Cubitos, the dice bag-building racing game also from designer John D. Clair.

In Cubitos players compete in a race around a race track by rolling a set of dice that provide movement for their racer, money to buy new and better dice to their bag and other special abilities. Players gain new dice to improve their racing abilities from a host of silly characters such as the Cubasaurus the Llama Shaman and the Ledercheesen which appears to be some kind of living cheese creature that wears lederhosen. Players can push their luck by rerolling their dice multiple times to get better results but risk busting and losing the ability to advance their racer that round. Cubitos is a lighthearted and silly game which make it great for a family but their are still some interesting bag building mechanics to keep more serious gamers interested. The Kickstarter campaign features the first expansion for Cubitos, Cubitos: Fowl Play which adds two new types of dice and a bunch of new ability cards as well as new ability cards for the original eight dice colors.

Whew! That’s a lot of games in one Kickstarter! If you are already a fan of many of these games like I am this campaign is a great way to get all this good expansion content in one go. Or if these are new games to you it is still a great deal to pick and choose what is most interesting to you. The AEG Expansion Extravaganza ends on Friday June 16th so make sure to back 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.

Stay informed when new Kickstart Monday projects come out by following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and following the #KickstartMonday hashtag.

Also checkout the latest articles from WiscoDice:

The Best Board Games of 2022 …So Far

By Conesy

On September 14, 2022

In Lists

GenCon2022-Haul-1 — So Many Games to Choose From

2022 is far from over, but there have been a plethora of board game releases in 2022. If one thing is clear, it’s that board game publishers are still going strong by releasing new board game titles. With so many to choose from WiscoDice wanted to drill into five of the best board games of 2022 (so far…).

We did put a few selection criteria in place to help create this list. For our selection we are only selecting complete board games, so no expansions. We gave preference to games we have actually had a chance to play. WiscoDice was not sponsored or received any review copies of the games in this list so any games that we have actually played it is because we played at friends or conventions, bought a copy ourselves, or were able to play them online.

That said, let’s take a look at the best board games of 2022!

Kickstart Monday: Doomensions and Letters of Marque

By Conesy

On August 15, 2022

In Kickstart Mondays

Welcome to Kickstart Monday!!!! This is our weekly series featuring 2 or more crowdfunding projects in the tabletop gaming industry. I scour over platforms like Kickstarter, Gamefound, and Indigogo to find projects that interest me. People would ask me what I think is worth backing since I was providing these recommendations already. So why not share my thoughts with a weekly blog about projects that interest me.

Stay informed when new Kickstart Monday projects come out by following us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and following the #KickstartMonday hashtag.

This week on Kickstart Monday I couldn’t help but be excited about the new project Doomensions: Pop-Up Mystery Manor and AEG’s Expansion to Dead Reckoning, Letters of Marque. With that, let’s dive into it!

Doomensions: Pop-Up Mystery Manor

Doomensions: Pop-Up Mystery Manor from Curious Correspondence features a 3D take on the escape room at home game experience. This eight-room pop-up experience is certainly a different take on the escape room game genre. Designed for 1-4 players it promises between 5-10 hours of playtime.

In addition to the pop-up mystery manor, you will have clippings, handouts, and various other materials in the game. Throughout the game, you and the other players will be taking on the role of paranormal investigators attempting to uncover what might haunt the mystery manor.

If you love escape room games but are looking for something to pop-up with more table presence and give you a new challenge then you should definitely check out this project.

Dead Reckoning: Letters of Marque

Dead Reckoning Letters of Marque from AEG is the next expansion to the very popular Dead Reckoning game. In the original game, Dead Reckoning is a game of exploration, discovery, and battle between players for a series of islands in an area similar to the Caribbean. For 1-4 players, this game utilizes the card crafting mechanic made popular in Mystic Vale. This mechanic allows players to customize their crew as they gain experience and journey on their discovery.

In addition, this game features a saga system. This allows players to play through the saga components unlocking various new mechanics as they organically just play the game. Letters of Marque, the third expansion to the game, is also a saga expansion. While there are some small things it adds, the biggest thing is it brings more saga content. Where the saga content differs from say a Legacy game is that you are never permanently destroying or changing components. This means you can always reset things back to the original state if players so choose.

If you like narrative games or are interested in more content for one of the best pirate games on the market then you should consider backing this project.

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.