Casual Games on Kickstarter: Sleeping Cats and Sumo Wrestling Gnomes

Calico (Flatout Games) – Calico is a game of cats and quilts! Each player is building their own personal quilt. On your turn, you select a patch tile from your hand and add it to your quilt, then draw a new tile into your hand from the three that are face up on the table. If you create a set of at least three tiles of matching color you add a button to your quilt. If you create a group of patterns that a particular cat is looking for, you will place a cat token on your quilt. Each player also has their own personal quilt design goals. Players score points at the end of the game for buttons, cats, and accomplishing their personal goals.

Sumo Gnomes (Peculiarity) – Players put their gnomes on the starting location and take the four dice that match their gnome's color. On your first turn you roll all four dice. You then place two in the reserve area and two in the action areas. On future turns, you will only roll the two dice in your action areas (not rerolling the reserve dice), and then choose two actions from all four dice. Actions on dice will often allow you to move yourself, your opponent, or both of you, but also include grab which will prevent your opponent from taking certain actions, and also allow you to make certain combo moves. If you manage to push your opponent's gnome out of the play area, you win the round. The player who wins best two out of three wins the game.

Sub Terra II: Inferno's Edge (Inside the Box Board Games) – In this sequel to cooperative board game Sub Terra players are explorers delving into an ancient temple. Each player has two action points on their turn which they may spend to explore new tiles, move, fight, or heal. At the end of a turn, players roll the hazard dice, which will activate certain tiles on the board and spawn monsters. In order to win the game, players must find the three keystones, deliver them to a specific tile, take the artifact and escape the temple with it. However, further complicating the matter is that at the end of every round the eruption marker moves, and eventually the volcano will erupt and begin to flood the temple with lava.

The Quest Kids (Treasure Falls Games) – The Quest Kids is a family friendly dungeon crawling game, designed to be playable by children as young as five. Each player takes on the role of an adventurer, with each adventurer coming with their own unique ability card. The board shows seven rooms in the dungeon, and during setup you shuffle and place tiles face down in each of these rooms. On your turn you may either explore a new tile or move to a previously explored one. The backs of tiles can be green (meaning it is a good tile), red (meaning it will contain the best treasure but also the strongest enemies), or gray (which may or may not contain a villain). Some dungeon tiles may provide players with new abilities. When an enemy is encountered it must be scared away by spending the appropriate ability cards, otherwise a player will lose health. Players can help each other out to get rid of bad guys by giving the active player ability cards. Players receive a bonus for helping. Once the last tile is explored, the game ends and the player who collected the most stars from things such as defeating enemies, helping out other players, and collecting items wins the game. The Quest Kids also includes a campaign mode which has sealed envelopes and special cards.

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs (Gamelyn Games) – In the newest game in the Tiny Epic series, players are dinosaur ranchers. Each round is divided into several phases. During the first phase, players harvest any resources from their ranch that is not already allocated to dinosaurs. During phase two, players take turns playing their workers, sending them out to purchase new dinosaurs, make upgrades to their ranch, acquire contracts, or research new dinosaur breeds. Players then arrange their ranch, placing their dinosaurs onto their personal boards, before moving onto the feeding phase. Next, matching dinosaurs will breed, increasing the dinosaurs in your ranch. At the end of the game players earn points for their contracts, research, and dinosaurs.

Vamp on the Batwalk (Gold Nugget Games) – Players are competing to become the most fashionable vampire. The score tracker is represented by a numbered catwalk. Each player selects a vampire character and places it on the catwalk on the start location of the tracker. You take the seven cards associated with each vampire, shuffle them together, and deal five to each player. Players hold their cards so they can only see the backs (which are colored according to the vampire they belong to) and the front sides facing the other players. Vamp on the Batwalk is a trick-taking game. In each trick, the first card played, the lead card, determines the suit. The person who plays the highest numbered card in the suit wins the hand and gets to move their vampire one point up the catwalk. There are a number of additional ways to win a trick, however. If you play a card that is the same value as the lead card, you win the hand, even if it was not the right suit. There are also cards with a star or garlic rather than a value. Star cards win the hand regardless of suit, unless a garlic card is played after it, in which case the garlic card wins. Once players have played all five cards, the round is over. The cards are reshuffled and everyone is dealt another five. After three rounds, the game ends.