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.

River Valley Glassworks

Our first game this week is River Valley Glassworks from Allplay on Kickstarter.

River Valley Glassworks is a cozy drafting game for 1 to 5 players and features artwork from the excellent Andrew Bosley. The Woodland creatures of River Valley collect colorful glass from the river to keep and arrange in their shops to score the most points.

Glass pieces of a variety of rarities and shapes flow down the river eventually collecting in the lake. Players draft sets of glass pieces from river tiles and arrange them in their personal glassworks into rows and columns. Each color of glass which represents a different rarity, is placed into its own column in your glassworks going from left to right. Spaces in your glassworks columns increase in point value from left to right and also as they grow taller.

At the end of the game you will score points for each row depending on how many spaces are filled in the row without gaps. You will also score for your two tallest columns, but you must be careful not to collect too much of one color of glass as it will then overflow its column and each piece that overflows counts for negative 3 points. The player who has done the best job at arranging their glassworks and scored the most points is the winner!

River Valley Glassworks is available at a variety of pledge levels. The retail edition is available for $39 and includes a Kickstarter exclusive first player statue as well as all unlocked stretch goals. At $69 the deluxe edition includes an illustrated playmat, clear acrylic river tiles, deluxe dual layers boards and screen printed meeples. You could also opt for the founders edition which adds on a unique founders box sleeve and river glass pieces made from real glass. Also included as a bonus for backers of the founders edition is a special medallion that will be redeemable for a future “tiny box” game from Allplay. If you are looking for a cozy casual drafting experience I’d recommend heading down river to the River Valley Glassworks Kickstarter page before the campaign ends on April 4, 2024.

Super Boss Monster

Our second game of the week is Super Boss Monster from Brotherwise Games on Kickstarter.

Super Boss Monster is a dungeon building board game for 1 to 4 players inspired by retro video games. Super Boss Monster builds upon the original Boss Monster from 2013 with new mechanics, a town board, minion meeples, and a brand new solo mode. In Super Boss Monster, players take on the role of the bad guy and compete to build a side-scrolling 8-bit dungeon by drafting and building dungeon rooms while attempting to lure in heroes from town to defeat them and collect their souls.

Players will build their dungeons with room cards that are either monster rooms or trap rooms. Each room also has a specific treasure type either tomes, holy symbols, swords or money. Hero’s are drawn to the treasure in dungeons and the dungeon with the most treasure of a specific type will lure a matching hero into its depths. Once a hero is lured to a dungeon they will progress through the dungeon room by room taking damage and triggering the rooms effects. If a hero makes it all the way to your boss monster at the end of the dungeon they will deal wounds to your monster. Be careful! Your boss monster can only take 5 wounds! If your dungeon defeats a hero you collect their soul. Once one player manages to collect 10 souls they win the game!

To get a basic version of Super Boss Monster you’ll want the Minion pledge for $30. It includes the retail version of the game along with a Kickstarter promo card pack. Deeper into the dungeon you’ll find the Boss pledge for $45. You’ll  get the deluxe version of the game with a neoprene play mat and wooden wound tokens. If you are feeling brave try the Super Boss pledge for $75 that includes everything in the boss pledge plus a collectors big box and an expansion for a fifth and sixth player. For $90 you can face the Final Boss pledge which gets you 4 neoprene player mats on top of the rewards of the Super Boss pledge. And for the truly adventurous, the Ultimate Starter pledge is available for $175 and includes everything for Super Boss Monster and all published expansions for the original Boss Monster (compatible with Super Boss Monster). Make your move before the Super Boss Monster campaign ends on April 5, 2024.

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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