Friday, September 19, 2014

Sea Kings Kickstarter now open

The Kickstarter for my tabletop game "Sea Kings" is now open on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1456271622/sea-kings

Worthington Publications is running a first-class KS.  The video provides the context for the game as well as details, another video teaches you the game in a couple minutes (it's quite a simple game), and the rules with art and layout are a click away.

There are no "pre-reviews", which I personally distrust as a fertile ground for shenanigans.  Worthington has been publishing games for 10 years, My games were published as long as 35 years ago.  You can read the rules and see the board.  I hope that's enough to help you decide whether to support the project.

This is a simple hybrid game (avatar-based, between wargame and peaceful game), not a wargame.  It's a short game (depends on # of players but pretty much 45 minutes).  It accommodates a wide range of players (at least 7).  So of course it's a filler game.  I was finally convinced of its value during playtesting when we set out, at the university game club one day, to play Sea Kings (the "Rogue Viking" version) while waiting for other people to turn up so that we could play two of my longer wargames.  When the meeting ended (less than 4 hours) they had played a 7, 6, 6, 5, and 5 player games (no, I didn't play, almost never do), including participation in all five games by one fellow's girlfriend who doesn't play the wargames.  Sea Kings uses an avatar, which suits people who don't want to figure out the movement of lots of pieces at one time.

Anytime people play a natural filler game again and again, there's something in it.

I hope Worthington do well with this Kickstarter and this game.  They want to get out of what I call the "wargame ghetto", and they have several of my other games lined up, some wargames, some not, if things work out.


As for Brit, I hope to restart on Epic soon and write the advanced rules (intro rules already posted).  Conquer has been played a few times in the past 11 months, not many.  Balance is a pain, especially of a smaller game.  But I've had so many other things going on (still on track to have five non-Brit games published next year), and online classes (may as well put those below, too, hope no one minds), that Brit has taken a back seat.  And sometimes letting a game "lie fallow" helps.


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Lew

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