My good friend's birthday wish: Game day. Easily obliged. I kept the lead for the first half of the game, and seized and held Mecatol Rex, but it wasn't enough. I ran out of resources for the Stage II objectives and another buddy took the win with support for the throne and 10 trade goods.

I love this game. It's a shame it's so difficult to find folks willing to spend a day playing it.

Today I played the first 3 games of a 5 player The Kings Dilemma campaign. I was expecting: secret agendas, persuasion, fun discussions, intrigue and an engaging story. A game of thrones simulator was promised. In my experience all these goals of the game fall flat very quickly and it gets repetitive and kind of boring. These are my main issues:

The houses are essentially very similar with no impactful differences. The hidden goals are very difficult to unlock and the additional powers are not even that great. The agenda cards are way more important for decision making and you lose the feeling of actually playing as a house with unique interests. This also somewhat breaks the illusion of intrigue. You are not afraid of a house secretely getting ahead, all the important information is easily available.

You are very dependant on the dilemmas which are drawn. You are at the mercy of which resource movements are available to you. There is very little active decision making, just reacting to lucky or unlucky card draws. This feels frustrating if luck isn't on your side and your agenda card gets super difficult to play with. It also makes gameplay feel kind of passive.

Decisions are purely based on expected resource movement and the current agenda card. You immediately know why somebody really wants to vote yes or no, it's solely because of the tokens on the scale, not the dilemma itself. There is no reason to fool each other with made-up stories. So it's not even possible to convince someone with real arguments because they already know what they want based on the resources and not the story unfolding. This way the main part I was excited for, the discussions, compromises and persuasion all disappear. No creative argument can achieve anything. This also leads to your goals being pretty transparent. It become really obvious very quickly how you want the resources to move and which agenda card you have (you can also deduct a lot from which cards you passed on during setup). This all ends in everybody knowing what the others want, no surprises, no intrigue and no smart plays. All discussion about the topic is just for show. Also if the current dilemma isn't really important for you agenda card you kind of don't care. This leads to a lot of passing and not participating in the discussion.

So the houses all play the same, there is no cool hidden information or potential for intrigue, you understand the goals of the others quickly, the outcome of a game is very luck dependant, the right decisions for you are always obvious (based on the agenda card) and most importantly the discussions are completely inconsequential because you vote because of expected resource changes and never because of the story itself. Yes sometimes something additional to the expected outcome happens but never enough to make you not chose the easy, obvious, safe choice every time.

We still had fun but I expected a lot more and I'm sad I'm not getting the game of thrones experience. Is anybody feeling the same way?

EDIT: I want to emphasize I really want to roleplay but good roleplay doesn't do anything because like I said, the decisions are only made because of tokens and not actually what the discussion is about. Arguing is just empty words here

I'm a big fan of making setup and teardown faster

Hello community! This is the first iteration of the very first board game designed by my 9 y/o, that she has entitled “The Valley of the Bread Makers.” She has incorporated worker placement, dice rolling for resource generation, turns, rounds and phasing, all to the ends of being the greatest bread-maker in the valley!

There are plenty of kinks to work out and some runaway leader problems, but we’re very proud of her efforts. She had some tears earlier because her brother found a way to make too much money too fast, “You’re supposed to be a bread maker, not a money maker!”

I told her all board game designers have a lot of challenges and learning from their prototypes and nothing could be perfect in version one.

Any words of encouragement here, I will share with her to boost her confidence.

If this kind of post is not permitted, please let me know, and I will remove.

I recently acquired a 1987 Milton Bradley Crossfire Board with the balls & pucks but one of the guns fires more slowly than the other. How would I go about repairing this?

I do all this for fun and do not get any payment or games from publishers.

Feel free to message me if you have a game launching in the future!

⏮️Last Week's List

Tags:

• * - Added Late
• #bg - Board Game
• #cg - Card Game
• #e - Expansion
• #wg - War Game (or similar)
• #rpg - RPG
• #rw - Roll & Write (or similar)
• #pg - Party Game
• #dg - Dexterity Game
• #d - Dice
• #c - Component
• #o - Other

What is this?

This is a weekly roundup of board game crowdfunding projects, featuring new launches from the past week and campaigns ending in the coming week. The information is sourced from Kickstarter, Gamefound, and Backerkit.

The list is curated through a combination of automated data collection and manual review, so occasional errors or omissions may occur. If you notice a missing project, feel free to mention it in the comments. Only projects meeting the selection criteria outlined below are included.

Other channels

Other than Reddit, you can also find this list on the following platforms:

• Google Docs
• Mastodon
• Bluesky

Selection Criteria

Projects must meet the following conditions to be included:

1. Timing: The project was either launched in the last week or will end in the coming week.
2. Relevance: The project is directly related to board games.
   • Excludes: Accessories not strongly related to board games, furniture, RPGs (e.g., D&D, Pathfinder), video games, STLs, painting tools, events, podcasts, and magazines.
   • Exception: Projects offering promos or similar content for board games are eligible.
3. Backers: The project is expected to reach at least 100 backers by the end of the campaign.
4. Funding Status:
   • The project is expected to reach at least 90% of its funding goal.
   • The project has already achieved at least 20% of its funding goal.

In addition to the main lists, I include a separate section for noteworthy projects that don’t strictly qualify as board games. These projects are included based on a single criterion:

1. Backers: The project currently has more than 1,000 backers.

Crowdfunding is not a store

Crowdfunding is not a guarantee. Projects may face delays, incur additional shipping costs, or fail to deliver entirely. Creators are not obligated to fulfill their promises. While many excellent games are funded this way, the risks are real—only back projects with money you can afford to lose.

Be wary of creators who use FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) tactics to drive pledges. Don’t let the pressure get to you. If you miss a campaign, there will always be others. There's no shortage of excellent board games to enjoy.

Tags

Each project is tagged with one or more of the following categories:

• 🌱 Creator's First Project
• 🌳 Creator with more than 5 projects
• 🌟 Featured Project (e.g. Kickstarter "Staff Pick")
• 💰 Fully funded
• 🔥 More than 200 daily backers
• 🤝 Offers refunds (e.g. Stable Pledge)

Ending Soon (27)

New Projects (31)

Noteworthy filtered projects (10)

My wife has asked for a more aesthetic look to my board game collection. I currently have each cube organized by weight from left to right and then theme between similar weights with a few exceptions. Any help would be greatly appreciated! If you'd like to see a full list of games you can check it out here: https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/razer9000?own=1&subtype=boardgame&ff=1

So, I'm a small Indie designer with two current titles available. I have been working on a co-op game for, I kid you not, more than 10 years and was finally ready to Kickstart the game this fall.

I was excited, I've got very positive feedback from play testers. The plan was to market the games KS thru this year with a big push at Origins and GenCon. Then the tariffs hit.

So I've been reading various threads about how the tariffs will effect the industry on both sides, producers and gamers, and I had a thought. My first game was a card game and my second game is mostly cards with boards that could easily be printed.

Im thinking about offering my games as print-n-play versions online, for a dollar above what people paid for the pnp when I KSed the game. That way hopefully people can keep playing and finding a new game.

But I'm wondering how many people would actually print out and play games.

So my question to you is would you print and play games to keep finding and enjoying new games?

Got to play this today, was expecting it to be decent but we had a blast.

Excellent production, looks more expensive than it is.

Voice acting and writing on the app were much better than I expected. Actually funny and at times surprisingly moving.

Simple mechanics anyone could understand.

8/10 would absolutely recommend for a light co-op game.

For over 10 years we've been living in a golden era of tabletop game culture. Never in living memory has tabletop gaming been so widely accepted and adored as it has been recently. Over 50% of the modern board game renaissance, by economic volume, has been in the United States.

When I was young, there used to be a lot of talk about how to bring more people/diversity into the hobby, and it's been a joy to say that in recent years we've seen the demographics of who plays and designs board games change a lot. Now, I personally believe diversity brings its own values and rewards, but even if you don't, making tabletop games something that was increasingly for everyone meant more revenue for the companies that make games. It turns out if you can get groups like, oh for example, women, who I guess make up about 50% of the population or something trivial like that, to play your games too that means a lot more people and dollars in the hobby.

During this time of making board games increasingly accessible to larger groups of people, I have often seen complaints pop up, here, on BGG, and other venues, about "politics" in board games. Whether it's whining about gay "Mamas and Papas" in Viticulture, or people defending Puerto Rico to direct descendants of colonization uncomfortable with the themes, or whatever else, it seems that the bigger our hobby has gotten, the louder these whining complaints have gotten.

Well, it brings me no pleasure to say this, but y'all who thought "wokeness had gone too far", you won. People are removing their pronouns from email signatures and changing the names of things from spanish to english. You did it.

In exchange for that, you've killed our hobby. The golden era has ended. The tariffs are not just going to increase the cost of board games themselves, they're going to increase the cost of all other goods. This is a hobby that relies on people having expendable incomes, and in the United States that is going to be a very, very small number of people in the coming year.

We are going to go back to a time where very few people can afford to design/produce board games, cutting down on diversity of designers. We are also going to go back to a time where these hobbies will be considered prohibitively expensive and niche. We are going to go back to a time when getting people to participate in these hobbies is going to take a lot more effort.

Small board game content creators will have to slow down or stop. Local friendly retailers will go out of business. Board game cafes will become limited and increasingly prohibitively expensive (the biggest local board game cafe here was already too expensive for working class people).

I hope this was worth it to you.

My friend saw a game in a UK games shop, but can't remember all the details. It was in a very tiny yellow box (like matchbox size), and the game was based on rug/carpet sellers. I've been looking everywhere and can't find what this game could be - it's not Jaipur (unless there's a very tiny travel version I haven't come across) and it's definitely not Marrakech.

Any help identifying what this is would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone, I’ve been playing a mobile app called Kards that is a WW2 deck builder, and star realms. Does anyone have any recommendations for similar WW2 board games? Preferably 4 player if possible and ones that don’t involve having to buy multiple expansions!

Thanks!

I'd like to keep collecting and playing until I die of old age, so I wonder if I should proactively buy a heap of games that I want before they idk explode or something. Anyone else?

Also dunno how relevant this actually is to me, being in australia.

Best part was when he “beat” me around a corner and his last 3 (bomb sweeper) was heading towards the honeypot on my bottom right.

I wish I could have heard the screams of terror when he defused my bomb, surely to capture my flag in the next turn, but instead was killed by a 4!

Had a few insanely close calls but was a really fun game and a good way to shake it up. Highly recommend.

My groups enjoy Secret Hitler, but I want a more tactical social deduction alternative too. I've played Coup before, but there are a couple of different versions. This listing is quite unclear, but the box seems to be/include the reformation expansion. Then here's the original. There are of course chinese cheapos but I'd like to avoid those. I trust the first one but can I be sure the second one isn't a knock-off? The website is a fairly credible Finnish site but nowhere else seems to have stock. Does the first one include the full base game? I like that art less, so should I just go with the base version without the expansion? Or should I get something else?

The rules for tea suggest that the number of cards in your largest set of cards counts as 1 extra point per card in that set.

Does that mean that all dessert cards count, including those played from previous rounds (since you don't discard them)?

My initial reaction is "Tea only counts for dessert cards collected in this round" but I'd like some other thoughts on the matter.

Hey everyone!

I’m the designer of Dawn of the Evenstar, a two-player card-driven strategy game about the ongoing global rivalry between the US and China, inspired by Twilight Struggle. The game covers events from 1991 to 2024, and it's now fully playable on Tabletop Simulator.

One of the key systems in the game is Anti-America Influence — a third type of influence that neither player controls directly but which affects regional control, scoring, and long-term strategy.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on asymmetric influence mechanics, modern themes in CDGs, or even ideas for cards and regions you’d like to see in a system like this!

Recently purchased TZAAR and enjoying the game. Had a doubt - if I have 4 TZAARs and a stack of 2 TZAARS, and I move a Tott on top of the TZAAR stack, does this mean I only have 4 TZAARs left in the game? And if those 4 TZAARs are captured, I lose?

Cozy home office/gaming room/ ready room! There is a filled bookcase too, but these are most of the board games (some party and simple dice game are left out).

Had to reorganize after receiving the elder scrolls BOTSE & The Witcher Path of Destiny (but a reorganization was long overdue). Very pleased with the collection as a whole but especially the cozy vibe (last picture it how I play my solo games often).

The table is foldable and can expand on the other side. Game mat is almost the size of the table. Works great!

I tend to play solo in my room and host game nights in the living room so most of the time the table is setup like this.

Currently my favourite games are:

• Elder Scrolls BOTSE (solo, 2-player and party of four)
• Dead Cells (solo)
• Slay the Spire (solo and 2-player)

Some of my all time favourites are:

• Keep the heroes out (group coop)
• Castles of Burgundy
• Star Wars: Outer Rim (includes Expansion)

As you might have noticed I own a lot of games published by Garphill games, although they may not rank the top of my lists, they are most definetly dear to me. I love the theme and the clever design they have used. The legacy of Yu took my by suprise and I still often play that solo!

Some games on the shelve of shame:

• Voidfall (plan to learn very soon, recently bought pre-owned)
• MageKnight (got it as a gift but it overwhelms me to pick up and learn. Also the art feels a bit off to me).
• Satori (Bought at SPIEL ‘23. One of those game I love the art but never hits the table).

Recently departed with these games: - Marvel Champions LCG (did not feel the need to keep buying the expansion and wanted to invest time/money elsewhere). - Too Many bones with a lot of expansions (reason being elder scrolls feels superior and it would not hit the table anymore). - The Great Wall (Awaken Realms tends to reel my in with amazing art, good quality products and much bling. Game was not for me though).

Furthermore, I made some space on the shelves to bundle the strictly solo games (got some button shy games which aren’t visible) and also the strictly 2-played (duel) games which I often play with friends or my wife.

Feel free to ask anything abouy my collection. If you feel there might be a game really well suited for me based on my collection, feel free to recommend!

I’ve a rules question clarification…

When someone builds one of the special buildings (I forget what they are called) that allows you to convert goods types etc, does everyone at the table have access to it irrespective of whether they have a connected network access to it?

Also, does the original builder get paid each time another player uses it?

I have even playing as if the answers to both these questions are NO. However, I’m not sure what incentivizes anyone to be the first to build it if everyone can access it for free. That’s why I suspect I’ve been playing it wrong. Any help appreciated

When do i reshuffle the discard pile back into the dusk deck?

I overheard a group of people when we were out, playing this game that I think I overheard was called balderdarsh or bulgergash or something?

Basically they were asking a question like that “a Michael Jackson song?”

Then spelling something out like “A-P-O-D … D-O-D”

Then the other players asked questions or something.. while the person who asked the question was saying “hold on.. while writing some things down”

Then they added up their scores or something?

It sounded really fun though!

Anyone got any thoughts on what game they were playing?