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.

new Van

We bought a newer van – a Ford Freestar (which is what they called the Windstar models between 2000 and 2007). It seems in pretty clean shape and has minimal rust.


The only thing is that the ‘emission control’ light kept coming on the day after I filled up with gas. I’ve taken it back to the dealership twice to have it looked at.

The first time they reset the sensor and the second they actually changed the sensor. They second time they also fixed the door trim from the driver’s side door. It had fallen off at the end of our street but I had found it on the way home.

Renovations - Bathfitters - update

There were a few issues with the bathtub surround that we had done. Because we were under warranty we had Bathfitters come in to fix them. Some were so small as to not bother them but we had a few bigger ones so we had them fix them all.


Within days of being installed, one of the little plastic nubs to cushion the doors had fallen off – but I picked up a sheet of them and fixed that right away. One of the pull rings had been caught by the door and was very loose – they fixed that. The ceiling piece kept drooping down – they replaced the adhesive tape with a stronger tape. The divider for the doors popped off – they fixed that and now screwed it down. The one door often slides open and they also noticed some pitting around the tub door frame – they use a new frame and will replace that at another time.

Otherwise they were good about the repairs and we are again very happy. Once the roof is finally fixed, and we fix the ceilings, we may move and upgrade the fan and have them repair the hole. That will have to wait for now though.

Mr Bond, I presume

Last year, Walmart had the James Bond Legacy packs on sale for $15 each. Each pack holds a mixture of 5 movies from the various Bonds. I had originally thought that these were a great deal when they had come down to $30 from the $50 they had started at but couldn’t justify the price at the time. At $15 they were too good to pass up – almost.

I snapped up the first two sets but didn’t have enough for all four sets right then. When I went back later that week for the last two – they were gone. The other Walmarts didn’t have any either. I kept checking but was unable to complete the set.

It turns out that they had pulled the sets back to the manufacturer so that they could make new sets for the 50th anniversary this year. So I had 10 movies and was missing 10 movies – not counting the new Daniel Craig films. I already had the old Casino Royale – with Peter Sellers and David Niven as well as Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery – neither of which count towards the main 20 films.

I was finally able to snag another 7 individual movies at Giant Tiger for $5 each a few weeks ago – leaving only You Only Live Twice, Moonraker, and Tomorrow Never Dies. Last weekend I picked up two of them marked down from $12.99 to $5 each at Best Buy leaving only the Moonraker – which I could truly do without. But while we were at the Real Canadian Superstore I checked the bins and found it for $7.49 – which normally would have been too much. Since it was the last one I needed though, I picked it up. This means that the last 10 movies cost me almost double what the first 10 did.

Now I just need to find some free time to sit done with the boy and watch them. Maybe I’ll try to dig out the old Victory Games James Bond 007 RPG and play him through the each movie before we watch them. He did say that he wanted to try some role playing games and the Victory Games ones have a great set of hand-outs.

Van - brakes and head gasket

The brake warning light came on in the van. When we had it checked out last week it was leaks in the front cylinders and the self-adjusting calipers in the back. All told, it worked out to almost $800 in repairs. We had it done and they threw in an oil change since the oil was low and dirty (odd since I had just had the oil changed in October).

When we got the van back it didn’t have any heat. Well, it did have enough heat to eventually defrost the front window but it just felt like cold air blowing. So we took it back on Saturday to have them check it out. It turns out that the antifreeze was low about 4 litres. They called and asked if we wanted to do a pressure test to see where it was leaking. As much as we feared the worst, we went ahead with it and it came back that the head gasket was leaking. Repairs would total almost two and a half grand. With the age of the vehicle, we had to really think about it for a few days but decided to go ahead with it.

I dropped the van off on Monday and we just got it back today.  In the mean time, I've been driving a Dodge Grand Caravan.  It's not bad as a choice if we can't get a Windstar/Freestar as a newer vehicle.  We were thinking about getting a newer vehicle anyways so this allows us a bit more time to look.

Renovations - kitchen and bathroom flooring

Last week Ray’s Flooring changed the flooring in the bathroom and kitchen. We spent almost three hours on Sunday moving everything out of the two rooms. Then we got a call from the installers telling us that it would take two days instead of the one we had thought. I was already off that week so it wasn’t as much of an inconvenience as it might have been.


They came out on Monday and moved the fridge and stove into the living room – not quite where we had planned - so it was a little more cozy for that night. Originally they were going to put a skim coat over the old flooring and then the new flooring over top of that but the old flooring was worse off than they had thought – loose in spots, as well as the holes. So they pulled up the old flooring, removed the baseboards, patched the gaps, and put down two coats of thinset on the Monday.

On Tuesday they added a skim coat of thinset, put in the flooring, swapped out the toilet, put back the baseboards, and ran the flooring down the stairs. The vents Shan had picked up matched the edging on the stairs nicely. They put the stove and fridge back and were done.

We loaded back most of the rest of the stuff. We picked up a pantry unit from Canadian Tire to replace the old shelf unit we were using and the boy and I put it together. Once the roof is fixed, we’ll still need to remove the wallpaper, repaint, and replace the lights.

V & V again!

Back in the day, if you wanted to play a superhero role playing game you had a few serious options. Champions was the leader but as cool as Foxbat was, it had a large amount of modules and supplements. This made it a bit daunting to jump into starting with it. Marvel Super Heroes was another one (FASE RIP) that I ended up getting – but it was more of a simplified game. It eventually ended up with a large amount of books but it started out small – plus it was heroes from Marvel. When I decided to get into another one, I went with Villains & Vigilantes (2nd edition).


Besides having an ampersand, it also was written (with Jack Herman) and had artwork by Jeff Dee – who had drawn some of the pictures in the original Basic D&D book. They eventually had a bunch of supplements and modules as well as a set of comic books. Then they stopped. Eventually, they had come out with Living Legends game – which was effectively an expansion of the Villains & Vigilantes rules. We had a campaign that we ran for a while and I still think of my weight in how many Basic Hits it will generate. But the math formula for the carrying capacity was what really endeared the game to me.



There now seems to be new modules coming out for V&V. What is interesting is that they are being published by two separate companies. There is a legal dispute over who has the rights for the system.

FGU or Fantasy Games Unlimited used to publish V&V, plus a bunch of other games that I had also picked up. They were dissolved by the state but are still printing new modules at their new site. They have almost a dozen modules as well as some of the counter sets from the old modules.

Jeff and Jack have formed a new company called Monkey House Games and have also printed about a half dozen modules as well as a newer edition of the game.  They also have some character sheets and counters available as downloads from their site.