Casual Game Crowdfunding: Castles, Crowns, and Camps

Catacombs & Castles (Elzra Games) – This dexterity game can be played either cooperatively (as a team against one player taking on the role of overlord) or competitively. Each player chooses a set of heroes to either defend the castle or invade it, and flicks their pieces around the board, using obstacles to their advantage as they attempt to accomplish their goals. Different heroes have different abilities. Some can lay down shields for extra protection or fire ranged attacks from a safe distance, and each hero has a special ability which may only by used once per game.

Dice of Crowns (Thing 12 Games) – In this dice game, players are hoping to claim the crown by earning three claim tokens. Each crown you roll on your turn earns you a claim token, as does rolling five fate symbols. If any of your dice roll scrolls, you must choose an opponent to give the dice to, and they then roll to see if they keep it, can use it against another player, or return the dice back to you. If you roll a dagger on your turn, this represents betrayal and cannot be rerolled. If you roll three daggers, your turn ends.

Clash d'Ardèche (Gaudete Games) – Build your own camping grounds and fill it with various attractions and upgrades in order to attract more tourists than your opponents. If you set the right price you will also be more likely to win more visitors. And there's always the option of bribing the mayor in order to win special favors for your camp grounds. Each player will also have a secret objective to complete, so everyone will have to adapt a different strategy if they hope to win.

Exoplanets (Greater Than Games) – Players are building planets in a solar system and evolving life and species on these new worlds. On each turn you add a planet to the solar system and use resources to evolve life and claim planets as your own. Each player also has special tiles which can be either used for an immediate special ability or upgrade to a planet, or saved so you can score its long-term goal at the end of the game. Players are trying to complete various goals throughout the game in order to score points. Play continues until the sun runs out of energy and the player with the highest score wins.

Lab Wars (Alley Cat Games) – In this card game, you control your own research team and lab in order to make the next great scientific discovery. On each turn, you play one of the scientists from your team which grants you bonuses and sabotages your opponent, but only if you can guess which of their own characters they'll be playing. There are also action cards for special effects, equipment you can buy to upgrade your lab, and the option to specialize in various scientific areas to maximize your lab’s effectiveness. The game is based in fact, featuring real historical scientific breakthroughs and experiments.

Honeycombs (4 Sisters Games) – Honeycombs comes with 55 hexagonal tiles, with one symbol on each side of the tile. During the game, players must match symbols in order to lay a tile. There is a special honeybee symbol which acts as a wild and can be matched to any other symbol. The game comes with three different sets of rules. In one version of gameplay, the players all race to build their own individual set of tiles. In the second ruleset, players take turns laying down tiles onto the board and score points equal to the number of connections they’ve made. In the third set of rules the game is a puzzle, with players working together to lay down all the tiles correctly.

Subtle Much? (Moresome Games) – This clever little game of deception is designed to be played with any other game (board, card, party, role-playing, or even video game). Each player draws a card which gives them a secret objective — for example, they must ask for the time thrice or ask another player to clarify the rules several times. Each time you complete an objective without being called out, you score a point and draw a new card. But if you are called out, the player who caught you scores a point instead. You can read our review of Subtle Much? here.

Squaremino (Frost & Frost, LLC) – In this domino-style game, each player has a hand of 12 square domino tiles and are vying to be the first to empty their hand. On your turn, you may play 2 to 4 tiles onto the tiles already in the center of the table, in order to create lines of dominos with either all the same number of dots in different colors, or of all the same color with different numbers of dots. There can never be more than four dominos in any row. The game can either be played in a single round, or played over multiple rounds, with each player scoring points until a winner is declared.