Wallet Kickers of the Week

Here we are with another week of Kickstarters of a wide array from an election game, to a detective game, to a war game, so lets get started.  Up first, we have a card game based on an app called Cahoots, and being published by Mayday Games.  The game Cahoots is a normal trick taking game, but with a bit of a twist in that there are no follow rules and you score is based on which suit won the trick, not who won the trick.  But the question is, which suits will score for you?  That is determined by a card you receive at the start of the game and will have three of the six suits on them, and it's these suits that will score for you.  However, you won't be the only one scoring with those suits, so over the game you will be partnering with different people in order to score the suits on your card.  So each round you will play out a total of two cards, and whatever suit had the highest total value will be the winner and be scored that round.  After that you will choose some cards to keep, and some cards to remove from the game, shrinking the available card pool.  Once all the cards are out of the game, whoever has the most points is the winner.  So if this new take on trick taking sounds interesting to you, or you are a fan of the app, check out the Kickstarter page. Next is our war game entry, coming straight to you from the prolific war game creator DVG, this time as an air dog-fighting card game called Down in Flames: Locked On.  In this game you will be flying one, two, or three of dozens of different aircraft of the recent age like the F-15C Eagle or the Sea Harrier FRS1.  You will be taking these into battle trying to shoot down the opposing player's planes through clever use of your missiles.  At the heart of this game are the action cards, each with multiple uses from special abilities, to maneuvering, to attacking, and even countering your enemy's attack.  When you attack you will play your card, if your opponent counters with a card you then have the opportunity to counter that card, continuing like this until the final card is played.  If you managed to play the final card your attack succeeds, if your opponent, then the attack is canceled.  When an attack is successful you will then draw cards based on what you fired to then carry out another attack sequence with those cards.  If you succeed there, you have destroyed the enemy craft, and if they are all destroyed you win the game!  So if a fast playing, dog-fighting style card game with a healthy dose of real life accuracy is your kind of thing, then check out this Kickstarter today. Next we have a new detective game from Van Ryder Games called Detective: City of Angels.  This game I think is best described as Clue on steroids, with the main difference is that this game is more complex and is done as a one versus all style game.  One person is The Chisel, whose sole job is to lead the detectives astray and keep the case from ever being solved.  The detectives will be moving around the board, investigating locations and questioning suspects.  But here is where it gets tricky, The Chisel will be choosing the responses that he gives from those being question, and he can even outright lie to you.  However, if you challenge him on his bluff you can get the truth, revealing much needed information to solve your case, but challenge on a truth and he gets leverage over you to use against you later.  You can also bribe a snitch to be able to listen in on this info so even if you aren't there, you can get some critical info to help you solve your case.  Strong arm some suspects, get to the truth, and solve the case before the trail goes cold and you can win the game.  You can find out more on the Kickstarter page. After that is the unusual game of the article, and that is Electioneer, the Hong Kong election board game from Nightdreamer.  This game aims to do with the Hong Kong election system what Die Macher did for the German election system, and that is create a great game out of it.  This is an area control and resource management type game where you will be going around the various towns and cities trying to secure the most votes.  One way to get votes is through strategy cards, which show a number of territories that have some connection to them, like hitting the 12 different districts that are home to higher education institutions to get the college vote.  You will also get votes for holding the most influence in different zones on the board, as well as for holding the second most influence.  Basically there are a lot of ways to get votes, and this game shows it's designer's researching ability because all of these ways to get votes are methods used in actual Hong Kong elections.  Will you be able to manage your money well and get enough votes to be elected?  Check out the Kickstarter page for more information. And last but not least, we have a reprint and revamp of a previously Kickstarted game, and that is Endure the Stars from Grimlord Games.  This 1.5 version will not only allow new players to be able to acquire this game and it's many extras, but also improve the game for those who already own it.  Endure the Stars itself is a survival horror type game where you are passengers on a colonization ship a year into it's long journey.  However, unauthorized experiments have been conducted to try and engineer a new life-form to explore new planets, but those experiments were discovered and the lifeforms got out, killing everyone in their path.  Now people are living in small groups scavenging to survive, and it's up to your group to try and root out these creatures before they kill you all.  Fight back with all sorts of different weapons and ammo, and try to maintain your sanity as you play through the campaign to defeat this evil.  So if a sci-fi dungeon crawl game sounds interesting, or if you own the first edition, check out the Kickstarter page today.