2014 Kickstarter Game Update: Week 3

[spacealien_vamp]

Games I Viewed:

Japanese: The Game

Status: Funded

This is a card game that attempts to help players learn to speak and read Japanese by printing vocabulary words and example sentences on each card and coding them with the part of speech so that players can arrange them in the grammatically correct order. I wouldn't need it for myself, but I know a number of people are studying Japanese, and this might be a nice tool to make learning more fun than plain flash cards.

Scoville

Status: 67% funded

In this game, players plant hot peppers (colored cubes) on the board and then place pawns in between the peppers to "cross-breed" them and obtain new hybrid peppers. Various color cube combinations can then be submitted for points. As someone who majored in plant breeding, I'm finding the theme of this game hard to resist. I will probably end up backing it.

Shadowrift: Archfiends

Status: Funded

This expansion for the cooperative deckbuilding game Shadowrift adds boss monsters for the various enemies that must be defeated after the shadowrifts are sealed. The aim is to make the game more challenging for players who are constantly beating the base game. Since I haven't yet beaten the base game, I'm hesitating about backing it. I don't know that I will play Shadowrift often enough for the expansion to be necessary.

Honorable Mention:

The Dice Tower Season 10

Status: Funded

This is a group led by Tom Vasel that is prolific in producing board game review videos. This campaign is to raise money so they don't have to put advertisements in their podcasts. I don't listen to the podcasts, so I'm not particularly interested in the campaign, but I do watch the video reviews quite a bit, so I thought I'd mention them.

Comments

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

The Japanese game looks really fun! I'm definitely tempted, especially since I often have trouble forming grammatically correct sentences (though maybe more at the intermediate than at the basic level). I'm flagging that one to send me a reminder before it ends.

[mangaroo.livejournal.com]

I had supposedly sworn off Kickstarter because it is such a drain on my budget and I am trying to save for the impossible -- 3 trips to Japan in 3 years (I am crazy) -- but I had to pledge for Shadowrift. Not because I want the expansion (this game does not need to be harder), but because I want the base game.

Like Sara, I've flagged Japanese: The Game for a reminder. I know this is a weird thing for me to say, but the sample cards make it look too simple to teach me anything I don't already know, plus I think the backgrounds make the cards too busy for a serene learning experience. It seems to me if you want to teach grammar through a game, it would need to be app-based for flexibility. And then you could conjugate your verbs!

[jojobruin.livejournal.com]

Shadowrift looks really cool! Any chance I could try it with you if it's not too much trouble? Like at a coffee shop that's convenient for you?

If not, no worries! Thanks for reviewing all the games!