Casual Game Crowdfunding: From Kathmandu to Outer Space

Reviving Kathmandu (Lemery Games) – Players bid on two cards in the market that are horizontally or vertically adjacent to where they place their bid. Players then collect two cards each, either cards they win or, if they did not win two cards, drawing extra from a separate deck. Players then try to use their cards to complete sets to build monuments, scoring points for completed monuments. Each player also has a mission card that lists buildings they are trying to complete to earn bonus points.

Tether (How To Steam Broccoli) – Every card in the deck has a two-digit number on it. When you rotate the card, the digits swap around. In this two-player game, players are trying to tether astronauts together by making connections with the cards, playing numbers that are numerically next to each other. Both players will see different numbers on each card, giving both players different connections to work with. One player will be making connections to cards horizontally and the other player will be doing it vertically. Players will be working on multiple different groups of astronauts. When a group reaches six cards, you score it, with the horizontal player earning points for how wide it is, and the vertical player earning points for how tall the group is. You score a group again once it has 10 cards in it and finally when it reaches 14 cards. The game ends once a group has 14 cards, and the player with the most points wins.

River Wild & Ancient Realm (Button Shy) – Two new solo wallet-sized games: in River Wild, each turn you choose one card from three available, adding it to your river to extend its length and create valleys. Match wildlife with scoring goals in your valleys, to determine your score once you’ve played 18 cards. Meanwhile, Ancient Realm is a civilization-based puzzle game where you try to balance your limited resources with the buildings at your disposal and also choose which buildings to use as points and which to build over to trigger their effects.

Alpujarras + Fisheries of Gloucester (Dr. Finn's Games) – Two new games from Doctor Finn's Games. In Alpujarras you are a fruit tree farmer, earning silver by growing and delivering fruit. The player whose mule is furthest back on the action track moves it forward to the next available action he wants to perform. The actions provide different ways to collect fruit and silver and interact with the board. The Fisheries of Gloucester is a two-player game in which you race against your opponent to catch fish, moving their limited number of ships across the board on the ocean tiles, spending hours to move the ship to try to catch fish. Once a ship lands on an island, it must stay there for the rest of the game. The game ends after 'six days' and the player with the most points wins.

The Score (Tin*Star Games) – A casual take on the role-playing genre, this game is made up of 18 cards, is played in 18 minutes, and has players working together to pull off a heist. The cards are shuffled and 12 are dealt out to the players as evenly as possible. These are your character’s talents, and you write them down. All the cards are then shuffled back together, and two new ones are drawn. Each card has an object or target you can steal at the bottom of the card and a location at the top. Together, players choose which card’s target they will be stealing, using the location from the second card. The deck is then shuffled again, four cards are randomly removed, and the act cards are added to the deck. Players reveal cards from the deck to determine the next scene or step of the heist, with the card drawn going to the player who has the talent matching that card. That player then describes the scene based on what the card says, with the act you are in determining the general tone that the scene is supposed to follow. If the card drawn is a talent card that no one has, then it goes to the player who has received the fewest cards so far, with the card representing some kind of obstacle in the way of the heist, which they must describe.

The Quest Kids: Giant Adventure (Treasure Falls Games) – This life-sized family board game features large, over-sized tiles that spread out across the floor. On your turn, you turn over a tile to explore, choosing any tile that is adjacent to an already explored tile. Instead, you can choose to go to a previously explored tile that is not yet resolved. Ability dungeon tiles give players an ability token that they can discard on future turns to defeat villains. Monster tiles list which abilities they need to be defeated. Defeated monsters give you point tokens. Monsters that are not defeated stay in the dungeon and can be defeated on a future turn. Another player can help you to defeat a monster and gain a token that can be spent as any one ability on a future turn. There are also gem tiles that grant you a large number of points if you are able to discard the appropriate ability tokens, and when you reveal a card with a treasure icon, you draw a treasure token from the treasure bag which tells you what you receive. Once the final tile has been explored, the player with the most points wins.