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Tag: Flatout Games

Kickstart Monday: Undergrove and Nocturne

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: Point City + Deep Dive and The Hunt

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.

Point City + Deep Dive

Our first project of note this week is the Kickstarter for Point City and Deep dive from Flatout Games.

Point City + Deep Dive

Point city is a follow up to the quick card drafting  game Point Salad. Point city looks to expand upon the mechanics of point salad by including card drafting and engine building mechanics. 1 to 4 Players will create a unique city from 150 different building cards. Players try to find the right combos of resources and buildings including special civic buildings to maximize their scoring. Point city looks like it would be a great alternative to Point Salad for someone who is looking for a slightly heavier but still quick game. 

This Kickstarter campaign also includes Deep Dive, a push-your-luck game for up to 6 players. Deep dive looks to be a light fun game where you dive deeper and deeper into the ocean with your group of penguins hope for greater rewards the deeper you go. But you must be wary of the various predators that looking to snack on penguins that dive too deep. If one or both of these games catches your interest follow our link to the Kickstarter project before April 14th.

The Hunt

Our second project for the week is The Hunt a Gamefound project from Salt and Pepper Games.

The Hunt

The Hunt is a 2 player asymmetrical duel set in 1939 between one player playing as the British Royal Navy and another taking the role of the German Kriegsmarine. The German player must steathfully sink 5 freight ships while the British player seeks to hunt the German Admiral for a final battle.

The games plays out on a hex grid and with tactical card play using cards either for their special event or for action points to take actions like movement,  search and attack or other special actions that differ between each side. The game promises tense action in a 20-45 minute time span and seems like it would play out as a bit of a cat and mouse game with the Germans trying their best to avoid a direct battle while still targeting the British freight ships. I quite like the artwork on display here too as it really helps the theme of the game come forward. This definitely looks like an interesting title for anyone looking for a 2 player war game. Head over to the Gamefound project page for The Hunt, before April 3d if you are looking to back it.

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: Verdant Dog Parks for Your Game Table

Welcome to #KickstartMonday!!! This is our weekly series where we focus on two or more gaming projects in tabletop gaming. This week we’ll dive into a pair of board games that let us imagine scenarios on the wilder side of life. With the days getting shorter and fall starting to set in here in Wisconsin thinking about these games helps us keep summer in our minds!

Verdant

Verdant from Flatout Games is a 30-45 minute game about house plants and a cozy living space. During the game you will be managing the position of your plants to maximize the light needs for each. You will then need to take care of your plants with various nurture actions. With many options for end game scoring cards, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to replay this game.

What’s really remarkable about this game is the amazing art on each of the cards. All of the different plants that you can add to your living space (in the game) are carefully drawn and depicted. There are quite a few tokens as well, and each of them has a great graphic design as well. The tokens for pots look like ceramic pots ready for plants, the little spades look like they are ready to work dirt, and the green thumb tokens are a nice addition as well.

Overall, if you need a game in your collection about growing house plants then you should check out Verdant today!

Dog Park

Dog Park from Birdwood Games is a game about walking our favorite furry critters, our dogs! During the game you will be able to collect various breeds of dogs. Once you collect the dogs you will need to keep them happy. Take the dogs on walks, give them treats, play ball with them, and set those tails wagging!

Dog Park is a card driven game where you will need to balance collecting and adding dogs with resources like treats and play. You will need to manage a careful balance to be the best dog walker in town.

With a play time 40-80 minutes, this game for 1-4 players is well suited to play with the family. This game looks to be a great game that any group would be able to play on a weeknight evening.

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 at our email.

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