Casual Game Crowdfunding: Snowball Fights, Explosions, and Bedlam

The Great Snowball Battle (Game Salute) – The Great Snowball Battle is a quick card game that intends to capture the energy, fun, and taunting of a snowball fight. Each player chooses a kid card (containing a special ability) and 3 pieces of gear (such as a hoodie, boots, or scarf). Players also draw location cards, snowball cards, and item cards. The location cards, such as a woodpile, tree, or fort, offer cover from the incoming onslaught of snowballs. Item cards include things like gravel, which strengthen a snowball, or pine boughs, which fortify a location. When the value of snowballs thrown at you is greater than the strength of your location, you lose a piece of gear. If you're all out of gear, you have to run home to Mommy and get ridiculed by all of your friends!

Two Rooms and a Boom (Tuesday Knight Games) – Two Rooms and a Boom is a social game in which players have hidden roles (similar to games like Werewolf or Mafia). There are two teams: the blue team (one of which is the President) and the red team (one of which is the Bomber). Players are randomly divided into two "rooms." During each of three timed rounds of play, each room must decide on a hostage that will be traded into the opposing room. After the third round, the bomb goes off and takes out everyone in his room. If the President is in the same room as the Bomber, the red team wins; otherwise, the blue team wins. This seems like a fascinating game that offers several improvements over other games of this genre. Plus, it seems simple enough that anyone can get involved and have a blast!

Bedlam (Madhouse Ink) – Bedlam is a witty card game that has players fighting to hold onto their sanity and finding the courage to face all sorts of terrible mishaps, laughable enemies, confusing technology, and so forth. The chaos ensues as players draw cards from The Dark and face the fears that await. A unique slider mechanism allows players to set their sanity and courage levels to face enemies, while also allowing other players to affect how these values relate to each other. This seems like a rather fun and chaotic card game for casual players.

Stak Bots (Tom Norfolk) – Stak Bots is a casual game in which each player has a stack of robots which he uses to try to destroy all the other players' stacks. Cards are played vertically—the location of the robots within the stack and whether or not they are visible (face up) determines what actions can be carried out. While this Kickstarter campaign is for the first expansion of bots, some reward levels also include the original game.

Thrash-Car (Solar Flare Games) – Thrash-Car is a whimsical and confrontational racing game in which each player owns a racing team and must decide on a crew, car, and racing strategy. Players then race around the track and are faced with outrageous racing conditions while also dealing with the attacks of other players. The length of the game can be adjusted based on the number of laps the players wish to complete.

Get Lucky (Cheapass Games) – Get Lucky is a card game that is a simpler, more streamlined version of Kill Doctor Lucky (released almost 2 decades ago). The premise of the game is that a bunch of twisted individuals are trying their best to take down Dr. Lucky, whose extremely good luck gets him out of nearly every bad situation. Each player controls two murderers, and Dr. Lucky is represented by a pawn that moves around the table (whose location determines whose turn it currently is). Players try to reduce his luck and land the killing blow to win the game.

Game Over (Eric Goscicki) – Game Over is a "casual party" card game in which the has-beens of the video game world fight it out to regain their self-worth. Each player chooses 3 different characters (a shooter, platformer, and adventurer) and on each turn draws a card from the play deck that is spread out in the center of the table. The player can choose to run away, equip a weapon, attack, perform a special ability, redeem gems for bonuses, or use a non-equip card. There are several ways to win, including being the last surviving player, reaching 25 points, or finding 3 enchanted items.