Kickstarter - the new thing for games

I really need to check in to Kickstarter more often. I had to get into it to get the Ogre Designer’s Edition , but haven’t really kept up with what else is coming through it. But, especially in the Tabletop Gaming category, it’s almost a good idea to keep checking.

There have been three games that have interested me lately – and they are each a different use of the Kickstarter engine.

Some manufacturers are using Kickstarter as a means of judging interest and to be able to take advantage of the economics of scale. They may also be using it as a way of generating pre-order sales. Our friends over at CheapAss Games have used this as a means of judging interest in their full color reprints of their games. They did Unexploded Cow last year and are doing Deadwood Studios right now. By pledging, you get a copy of the game, plus a few non-game bonuses. Due to the high shipping costs on top of the regular game cost, I’ll wait until it’s in the stores.

The Ogre Designer’s Edition started out for these reasons but also had stretch goals that included extra in-game units that were only available through Kickstarter.


Walk the Plank – a thematic prequel to Get Bit! Follows this second model. In addition to the game, which looks like fun, there are bonuses that improve the game the more that is pledged. Since the shipping was very low, I signed up for this one. Then they added the ability to get the exclusives from the Get Bit! promo so I had to up my pledge in order to get the Sharkspansion. This had been a Kickstarter exclusive from the original Get Bit! offer. They had tried to offer it afterwards but got a lot of flack from those who thought it should be a Kickstarter-only exclusive.


The third model is similar to the second – with additional improvements in the game being added as stretch goals are reached. But instead of keeping these goals as kickstarter-exclusives, they reserve the right to make them available after the Kickstarter funding has ended. The people who fund through the Kickstarter do get the occasional exclusive but they mainly get the extras earlier than later buyers.  Dungeon Roll follows this model with most of the bonuses being early versions of later expansions and a different box for the Kickstarter edition.