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.
Castellans of Valeria
First up this week we have Castellans of Valeria from Daily Magic Games. Castellans is the next game in the Kingdoms of Valeria series including Card Kingdoms of Valeria and Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria as well as many others.
In Castellans of Valeria the Duke of the City of Kosk is looking for a new Castellan for the developing city and you as the player are one of the candidates who will be competing for the position. You will start by drafting dice which give you resources or influence with one of the 4 guilds in the city, then you use your drafted dice to take actions to improve the city and your position. You can use the Harvest action to gain additional resources from your drafted dice. To gain influence with the guilds of the city you can build temples and manors in the districts where they have sway. You can recruit citizens to gain their valuable dice manipulation abilities. Down at the wharf you can sell cargo and position your ships in the districts of the city to gain victory points when its current district is scored. And you may place great Monuments in the city to earn victory points each round. Ultimately you will need to gain enough influence and control over the districts of Kosk to become the next Castellan.
Castellans seems to have a lot going for it, the combination of dice drafting, resource management, and area control hit a lot of buttons for me and it is one I am going keep my eye on. One point to note is that the campaign mentions that Castellans will not be released through game distributors. They will only print copies to cover their Kickstarter backers (which could include retailers who back the game) and 250 copies for their web store. This means the game might be hard to find after the campaign so if it sounds like the game for you make sure to back before Friday, June 30th.
Micro Architects
Next up this week we have Micro Architects, a Gamefound project from Thistroy Games.
In Mirco Architects, players take on the challenge of designing and constructing a thriving metropolis. During the game you will add a variety of buildings to your dual layered city board. You will be building one of six different building types Offices, Industrial, Shops, Landmarks, Municipal and Residential. Placing the right kinds of building together is important as you will be scoring points from Landmarks, Services and Goal cards which all want a certain combination or layout of buildings somewhere in your city. The game also includes to additional modules to mix up game player the Residents module where you will be housing residents as you build your city and the Events module which add random events that provides some additional unpredictability.
The components for Micro Architects look great for a small box game. The wooden building tokens are screen printed as are the resident meeples from the Residents module. The overall design is bright and colorful and gives the game a light playful feel. The game also includes a Solo Mode using Automa cards so all you solo gamers out there aren’t left out. If you are ready to build your perfect little micro city head to Gamefound before Saturday June 24th to make your 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.
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