Tabletop category on Kickstarter is slowly getting conquered by miniature figurines. Just take a look at the top campaigns currently being ran, and you’ll quickly notice that every second game puts focus on detailed models of dragons, tanks, barbarians with an occasional spawn of Cthulhu in the mix. Brazilian team called Dragari Games, authors of the recently launched Arena: the Contest, have also placed their bets on miniatures. And guessing from their current result, the bets were correct.
World Without Conflicts is Boring
Tanares is a land ruled by a very special law. Law that says: “no wars are allowed”. Some believe that gods themselves imposed it on humans and each attempt at war ended with natural disasters like floods, fires and earthquakes. Many eons have passed but people still adhere to this rule. A man named “Faceless Emperor” is one of the main reasons as he owns world’s only army, controlling every landmass in existence and making waging wars impossible.
People can’t live without conflicts though. Citizens of Tanares had to find their own way of resolving these, and that’s why the Arena was built – a huge colosseum, where heroes get hired by world’s most influential people and resolve conflicts by swords, axes and spells. All for a fistful of golden coins.
Customizable Gameplay
Fully customizable. This is probably the best word to describe gameplay mechanics of Arena: the Contest. Even the board itself allows for customizing your own colosseum. You get a bunch of rectangular pieces and connect them as you see fit adding things like traps, walls, obstacles and other stuff. Less patient players can use a finished arena provided by the creators.
Arena: the Contest can be played by up to 8 players. You can also enjoy it by yourself. Players can form teams or even leave their characters for someone else to play (if someone has to go early). In co-op PvE mode, you will defeat monsters controlled by a deck of cards. Other option involves PvP style gameplay, and competing with others to become the greatest champion of the arena.
Another neat idea involves taking pieces of the game out of the box and setting up the board. Arena: the Contest makes this process actually a part of the game, important for later gameplay.
The Biggest Forte of Arena: the Contest
Namely: the miniatures. Basic box contains 12 hero figurines. These include celebrities such as Morlogh the Minotaur, a paladin called Sir Erick and an ice sorceress Juliet. Each character looks super detailed: you can see single strands of hair, strings on Jade’s mandolin and ragged clothes of the Death Knight. Hero figurines are just the tip of an iceberg. In the box you will find a huge dragon and, if the campaign reaches higher stretch goals, a multi headed hydra and other equally interesting fellows.
A Debut With a Bang
The campaign of Arena: the Contest is doing well. Brazilians still have 21 days to encourage more people to support their project. At the moment they don’t seem to have any problems with that. Campaign has attracted over 2800 backers and more join that number every day.
Dragari Games make me feel that miniatures are one of the best ways to sell your board game on Kickstarter. As long as you can find a talented sculptor and a factory willing to cooperate, you should add them to your projects, because nothing attracts backers as strong as these. Well, maybe except commercials from the 90s.
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