Casual Game Crowdfunding: Duels, Dice, and Deep Space

Pick the Lock (Portal Dragon) – There is a vault full of treasure that you and your opponents are trying to break into. Of course, you also have to protect your own treasure, because other players will be trying to steal that as well. Every player has five cards numbered four through eight. When you try to pick a lock, you must play one of your cards. A second player then creates a combination out of three numbers. The numbers used to create the combination must be equal to or less than the card you just played. You then attempt to guess one of these numbers. If that number appears in the combination, you have successfully picked the lock and stolen a treasure. When stealing from other players, their vaults only have a one number combination, making it much harder to guess. But you can use the special effects on their treasure against them!

Deep Space D-6 (Tau Leader Games) – In this solo dice game set in outer space, you are in control of a spaceship and defending it against threats such as meteors and enemy raiders. Each turn, after you draw a threat card to see which new threat is attacking the ship, you roll your crew dice, and then assign them to different positions throughout your spaceship. If your ship takes too much damage and is destroyed, you lose the game. But if you are able to survive and defeat all the threats, you and your ship are victorious.

Princess Bride: I Hate to Kill You (Game Salute) – Players begin the game with six dice and ten cards. Each turn, players roll their dice and may then use one of their cards to modify the result, or the result of their opponent’s roll. The player with the highest number of swords on their dice, scores a hit! If you score a hit, you lose one of your dice, making it harder to strike a hit next turn. The first player who scores five hits wins the duel (and the game). So tell us, are you really left-handed?

Dark Mages (Eric Bleney) – Dark Mages is all about dueling wizards. Each player starts the game by drawing a wizard card to determine which character they will play. Players then draw five cards from the main deck and the game begins. The cards you draw include equipment which will give your mage powerful bonuses, creatures which will help you attack, or powerful spells with which to inflict damage. The game is for 2 to 8 dueling wizards, and the last wizard standing is the winner.

Buy the Rights (Tommy Day) – In this 4 to 10 player party game, players take turns being the producer. The producer listens to script pitches from the other players. Each player pitches a movie using cards from four different decks: genre, hero, hero descriptor, and plot. Combining the different cards results in different, absurd plots. The producer then chooses how to distribute his twenty-five million dollar budget around the scripts. Next round, a new player takes on the role of producer. The player who earns the most money by the end of the game, wins.

Burger Up (Rule and Make) – Players have to earn stars in order to own the best restaurant. Each ingredient card has two different ingredients listed on it. Which ingredient you use is determined by which way you rotate the card. But each ingredient also dictates the next type of ingredient you need to play on top of it, and it's only by careful planning that you will be able to match the symbols and add on to your burger. To make things harder you also have to meet specific orders placed by your customers. The longer an order goes unfulfilled, the more it's potentially worth.

Tavarua (Far Off Games) – Players are surfers, competing for the Grand Champion trophy. As the waves advance towards the shore, players have to choose which ones to attempt to ride, sometimes having to race another player to get to the wave they want. Once you're riding a wave, you can play cards in an attempt to perform tricks and score extra points. Different surfboards offer different strategies and play is simultaneous (there are no individual turns).