Casual Game Crowdfunding: Crabs, Bears, and Monsters

Frutti di Mare (Black Box Adventures) – With a delightfully absurd theme, in Frutti di Mare each player has a group of seafood, including a king crab, and are trying to take control of a plate of pasta. Each player is also given a menu which shows the various types of seafood that they can recruit throughout the game. Players can win in one of several ways. You win if your king crab reaches the center of the plate, if one of your other royal seafood reaches the center and spends an entire round there, or if you eliminate all your opponents’ king crabs. Each round, there is an income phase during which you earn money based on the various potential placements of your seafood on the plate. Next, you move onto the recruitment phase in which you can grow your collection of seafood. The final phase is the action phase, during which you move and attack with your seafood.

Ursa Miner (Room and Board Games) – In this game, each player has a team of honey mining bears who are exploring a mountain full of honey. As you explore the mountain you flip over tiles in search of honey which you can use to play special cards or expand your team of bears. The goal of the game is to be the player who finds the most tiles of jelly. The mountain is three-layers of tiles which are randomized every game. Plus there are adorable bear meeples.

Archmage Origins (SolarFlare Games) – In this abstract card game, monster cards are laid face down in a grid and two to four players are handed a deck of numbered cards from one to eight. On your turn, you peek at two of the monsters in the grid and then place a numbered card facedown along a row or column of the grid. At the end of the game, all power cards will be flipped over and for each monster, the player who has the highest combined power cards along the row and column that intersect at that monster card, wins it. Different monsters are worth a different number of points and players and spells can move around the cards in the grid, so you have to have a good memory and choose wisely which cards to peek at. You can read our preview here.

AEGIS (Breeze Grigas) – Players choose five robots, selecting them from dozens of options in five different categories. Different classes of robots consume and produce energy in different ways, but ultimately all of them share an energy pool with each other. During the game you can combine your robots to create new, more powerful ones, choosing how many you want to combine together. All five can even join up into one, powerful killer robot! Battle arenas are customizable and combat is done with dice. The game also comes with multiple different game modes.

Bullets and Teeth (Last Ditch Games) – The zombie apocalypse has struck and your only hope for survival is to outrun your opponents. In this game, one player starts with the bait card. Every turn, more zombies come out to join the horde but will only attack the player with the bait card, and only on that player's turn. Players draw and play bullet cards, which give them resources and actions to make it harder for their opponents or to attack zombies. If you have the bait card and can survive your turn, you pass it off to another player, and hope they're not as lucky. You can read our preview of the game here.

Tournament of Towers (Iron Hippo Games) – Each round you decide which pieces you want for your tower by choosing one card from your hand and then passing the rest of the hand to the player on your left. You then choose another card from the hand that has just been passed to you by the player on your right. You continue choosing cards and passing your hand until you have seven cards selected. Each card represents one of the possible building pieces. Once all your cards are chosen, you take the pieces shown on the cards and then must decide on the order in which to use your pieces. You next begin to build the tower. If any piece falls off the tower, you immediately lose. Once a piece is placed you cannot move it with your hand, but you can adjust it by moving it around with the piece you are currently placing. After each player has placed all seven pieces, players score points based on various factors. After a second round of drafting, ordering, and building, the game ends and the player with the highest score wins.

Glory (Slightly Twisted Games) – Each player takes on the role of a champion trying to earn glory. There are different levels of creatures of varying difficulty levels and abilities. Different creatures need different amounts of sorcery and might to defeat. During every round, each player takes a single action and play continues around the table. After you no longer wish to take any more actions, you pass, and earn a certain number of strength and sorcery based on your champion. Players defeat creatures to earn glory, but you can also use glory in order to win a creature over to your side instead of killing it, which will earn you more resources between rounds. Glory can also be used to buy spell cards which give you special abilities and advantages.