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.

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.

Yonder

Our first game this week is Yonder from Sinister Fish Games on Kickstarter.

Yonder is a worker placement game for 1 to 4 players from Haakon Hoel Gaarder, the designer of the game Villager, Streets. and Moon. Yonder takes place in a fantasy setting where players are tasked with founding a new settlement with the help of an array of workers of different fantasy races.

You will gather resources, construct buildings and fulfill the needs of Envoys from the city to earn gold and bonuses. Each fantasy race has a different ability in Yonder that affects how you use them as a worker.

Ogres are strong and gather twice as many resources when gathering resources or food, but they eat twice as much food as other workers. Elves can use spaces that already have a worker that isn’t another elf. Goblins always arrive in pairs so you get two workers for the price of one. Dwarves get discounts when building or using certain spaces, and Skeletons, being skeletons, don’t eat any food at all! 

Using your different workers you’ll need to gather resources and construct buildings to form your settlement. Some buildings will help you build an engine so you can deliver goods more efficiently to meet your Envoys’ contracts, while others will provide important opportunities to earn gold for end game scoring. The winner will be the player who built the most successful settlement and earned the most gold. 

Yonder is available at the following pledge tiers:

  • Kickstarter Edition – $65 – A copy of the base game plus Kickstarter extras 
  • Deluxe Edition – $97 – The Deluxe edition of Yonder which includes the Kickstarter extras, upgraded player tokens, round marker and first player marker, metal coins, acrylic Arcana tokens and a GameTrayz insert.

You don’t have to travel far to make your pledge for Yonder, just make your way over to the Kickstarter page before August 15, 2024, when the campaign ends.

Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor

Next up this week we have Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor from Elzra Games on Kickstarter. 

Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor is a dungeon crawling dexterity game for 2 to 4 players and while it is a standalone game, it also functions as an expansion to Catacombs Third Edition.

In Catecombs: Fortress of Nazemoor, up to three players will select a hero such as the Elven Queen, the Rabbit Ranger or the Healer. Another player will be the Overseer and is in charge of the monsters and the dreaded Catacomb Lord that the hero’s must defeat. Each hero has a unique set of items and special actions to help them in the dungeon.

Players engage in combat by flicking the wooden disc of their hero at the enemy to inflict damage or by making a ranged shot, flicking a separate token like an arrow or a fireball. Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor also introduces a new character type called Assistants that can aid either the heroes or the Overseer. These new characters can be obtained by the heroes or the Overseer opening Crates, a new object in this version of the game.

Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor is also unique from Catacombs Third Edition in that it is played as a Campaign over multiple sessions. Fortress also boasts a new session generation system to create unique encounters with many different monsters in a variety of situations. And Fortress is compatible with all prior Catacombs expansions allowing for a huge variety of combinations with this new addition to the series. 

Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor has a wide variety of pledge options so and I will cover a few key ones here:

  • Fortress of Nazemoor expansion box – $55 – The expansion only version for owners of Catacombs 3E 
  • Fortress of Nazemoor Big Box – $79 – Full standalone version of the game
  • Prospector Bundle – $169 – Fortress of Nazemoor Big Box plus a copy of Catacombs 3E Big Boxx

The campaign for Catacombs: Fortress of Nazemoor ends on August 2, 2024, so 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 our social media or email.

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