Join Ben, Justin, Matt and Suzanne as they review their 2023 gaming and discuss what they look forward to in 2024. We go through the best new game we played, our favorite hobby projects, favorite gaming memory, and more.
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.
Our first game this week is the Gamefound project for Chaos Cove from APE Games and designer Martin Wallace.
Chaos Cove is a semi-cooperative worker placement game for 2 to 4 players with a high degree of interactivity. Chaos Cove is famous for is rum and its rum parties and has drawn the attention of invading pirates and barbarians. To be victorious Players must utilize 16 unique heroes to defend the cove by battling pirates and barbarians, building forts and ships and throwing the occasional rum party for good measure. Each round players will be able to use 4 different heroes during the worker placement phase triggering the benefits of the main board locations to gain resources and other benefits and also use their heroes’ unique power. Players may need to stockpile cannons and sabers for upcoming battles against the invaders or instead gather wood, food and rum to be able to construct new buildings and ships. Players can also play cards from their hand of hero cards to trigger the powers of heroes that other players have played to the board.
Forts and Ships that players have constructed will provide additional resources and trade opportunities after the worker placement phase. Ships and Forts are also critical to defending against pirates and barbarians respectively. In the combat phase players can attack an invader where they have a ship or fort built. Cannon tokens are used against invading pirates while sabers are used to fight the barbarians. Players may also spend hero cards to improve their combat strength to defeat enemies. Players need to be careful as the pirates and barbarians can break through into the cove if they have not been defended against. If too many invaders break through the players can lose the game collectively. Ultimately the player who has done the best job defending the cove (and thrown the best rum parties) will win the game.
Chaos Cove features cartoony, humorous artwork and a cast of colorful heroes like a swashbuckling cat, a rum guzzling walrus, a gorilla in a tuxedo and a goblin buccaneer. Each hero has their own illustrated hero tile and also a high quality screen printed meeple token. The tone of the game definitely feels lighthearted and it looks like it could be a good mid-weight family game. Chaos Cove will be hitting Gamefound on October 7, 2023 and you can view the campaign preview right now. For more details on pledge levels and rewards make sure to visit the Chaos Cove campaign page on Gamefound starting on October 7th.
Our second game this week is Reforest from Firestarter Games on Kickstarter.
Reforest is a card game for 1 to 4 players where players build a thriving ecosystem from a tableau of beautifully illustrated plant cards representing real plant species from the pacific northwest. Players will gather plants like Salmonberry, Licorice fern to great trees like Yellow-cedar and Douglas-Fir. To play plants to their tableau players must pay the plant nutrient cost by discarding cards or by playing the cards such that it grows over other plants. Some sun loving plants may die if planted over but plants that tolerate the shade will stay in the player’s play area. Players will also have to make sure their plants are place in suitable elevations for their growth and manage the space of their limited growing region to maximize their points.
If they have tended their region well, players may attract special animal visitor cards which grant additional endgame points. The game features 90 different plant cards and 10 animal visitors all with realistic hand drawn illustrations. Reforest seems like the kind of calm nature themed game that would be right at home on the shelf alongside games like Cascadia and Wingspan but it is also small and packable and could be an excellent companion on a camping trip to the pacific northwest. Reforest is available for CA$ 27 or about $20 USD and the campaign will run through November 16, 2023 so make your pledge 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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