We have finally left the month of Fools, Easter and Passover holidays, Earth Day and official Grilled Cheese Day. Trees keep getting greener as do the wallets of hundreds of Kickstarter creators. Starting from January, the platform helped in collecting over 149 million US dollars in pledges. This month we’ve witnessed many amazing successes and some surprising projects appearing out of nowhere. Without further ado: time for our April Kickstarter tabletop retrospective!
➤ Fiery Blast from the Past
A silly yet popular board game from the 80s managed to make a huge comeback. Fireball Island: the Curse of Vul-Kar was introduced on Kickstarter on April 3rd by Restoration Games, who have previously managed to bring 1979’s “Stop Thief!” back from the dead. The thirst for climbing up a volcanic island and getting hit by randomly released fireballs must have been huge as the game managed to collect 2.8 million dollars pledged by 23 thousands of backers.
➤ Indiana Trek of Thrones Rises & Morty
Not unexpected, but games based on popular movies and video game franchises are as strong as ever. This month we had two of these. Street Fighter, based on a cult fighting game series, made over 2 million dollars, mostly thanks to a huge collection of miniatures included. The game also had the highest average pledges of the month – a whopping 209 USD.
Pacific Rim, based on a movie series about giant monsters and robots fighting each other, was less successful, but managed to get funded with 247 000 USD on author’s accounts.
➤ Solitaires Stroner Than Ever
Solo gaming community seems to be getting more and more catered to recently. Titles like Zombicide, Dinosaur Island or Scythe have solo rules included in the base game. Some authors go even further, and create games aimed solely at single players.
This month we’ve witnessed the success of Unbroken, a solo card game about wounded adventurer surviving against all odds and taking revenge on typical D&D fauna. And let’s not forget about Graphic Novel Adventures, which turns your regular comic book into a single player adventure with multiple choices. Both games managed to get funded and reach multiple stretch goals.
➤ Accessories from the Depths of Hell
When it comes to game accessories, the Elder Dice campaign has easily topped all possible monthly charts. If you play tabletop RPG games, or simply feel like replacing your regular dice for Monopoly with something more otherworldly, these seem like a perfect fit. Pick your poison from: hellish horror theme, Cthulhu style and few other options. Everything comes packed in a sleek “magnetic grimoire box” with a metallic lovecraftian coin as a bonus. Campaign ended at over 390 000 dollars and the dice will ship by the end of 2018.
➤ And the Winner is…
Top spot in April’s highest grossing project list belongs to Zombicide: Invader by Cool Mini or Not. Eighth game in this never-ending undead soap opera performed just like its predecessors. In this one you belong to a group of survivors in a space mining outpost swarming with so called Xenos. Tons of figurines resembling popular movie characters surely had some influence on the game’s success. And let’s not forget about loyal Zombicide series fans. The game collected a total of 3.3 million USD, slightly below it’s medieval equivalent from 2015, but still above all its April competitors.
Monthly summary:
➤ Most money collected: Zombicide: Invader
➤ Biggest amount of backers: Fireball Island
➤ Highest average pledge: Street Fighter
