Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for May! The push in April means that the crowdfunding machine is quiet, at least in terms of big names pushing big games. For newcomers, though, there is some variety. We’ve got dystopias, we’ve got mecha, and we’ve got…maggots. Come with me, and see what games you want to throw some money to this spring.

Major Campaigns

Not many major campaigns to look at this month…in part because my co-contributors are beating me to the punch! Stewpot, designed by Takuma Okada and published by Evil Hat Productions, is the big campaign of note for May. Seamus has already gone into a great amount of detail on why you should check it out, and you can read that all here!

Recently entering the major campaigns billet is a game based on the Secret World MMORPG, being designed using Savage Worlds. …Wait. I swear there was already a Secret World RPG released. Hmm, let’s see. Ah ha! October 4, 2022, the Secret World TTRPG using D&D 5e was launched. That campaign was fulfilled…ten days ago. Huh. And apparently it’s the same team porting the whole thing over to Savage Worlds now. Will it take less than two years this time? Who knows! Well, I’m sure it isn’t suspicious that the 5e campaign isn’t even mentioned until the Project Risks section.

Indies of Note

First up we have a journaling RPG about the bounds between reality and unreality. Psychedelic this is not (well at least not technically), it sits more in the historical, pre-Medieval camp. The Kingdom of Prester John is a game that crosses historical events of the 1100s with some of the greatest hits of Christian mythology, including some truly weird monsters from illuminated manuscripts and a chance to venture all the way to the land of the Antichrist. Appropriately the game intends to use this backdrop to explore faith…and all the baggage that word entails.

The next game in the roundup is definitively psychedelic. Coming from Gavriel Quiroga, the mind behind Neurocity and Warpland, among others, is The Black Rainbow Society, a ‘tribute to 80s metal zines and William S. Burroughs’. The game runs on the same basic 2d6 system that powers Neurocity and Warpland and, loyal to its Burroughs influences, uses zine styling to build up the book into a bit more than just a roleplaying game.

Next up, coming from Nightfall Games, is Maggot Machine. This setting seems to combine Warhammer 40k with a bit of Spawn and a whole lot of, well, bugs. If the vibe seems similar to Nightfall’s earlier game, SLA Industries, it’s likely because it was written by the creator of SLA Industries, Dave Allsop. Maggot Machine also serves as the leading edge of Nightfall’s new V6 system, a game of dueling d6 dice pools between an Active and Reactive player. It sounds like a neat way to keep the dice to where they’re needed, but make it fun when they do come out. Nightfall has been building up a nice little back catalog, and Maggot Machine, weirdly enough, should fit right in.

The next game I’m looking at takes Mork Borg in a new direction…and I’m not talking about the mecha part. Mek Borg and Steel Psalm do take the Mork Borg formula into the mecha realm, which if it hasn’t been done yet I’m honestly a little surprised. What’s unique here, beyond leaning into the metal aesthetics and keeping everything aligned with the Mork Borg credo, is what happens on the Steel Psalm side of the campaign. Steel Psalm is actually a skirmish game that expands the rules into managing a whole detachment of ‘Mek Knights’ into a fight to the death. Steel Psalm is based on an existing Mork Borg skirmish game called Forbidden Psalm…and this is the first I’ve heard of any of it. Check out the campaign for some doom metal mecha, and check out Forbidden Psalm for bringing wargames to Mork Borg.

Next up we have a French RPG pushing onto the scene, Knight. While the setting of Knight has many obvious Arthurian overtones, I’d argue that the game isn’t a futuristic Arthurian analogue or anything of that sort. No, Knight is a mecha game. That isn’t to say that the game doesn’t adopt the naming and set dressing of Arthurian legends, but the core conceit is built around the ‘Meta-Armor’ and saving the world from the Anathema. It’s a clever mashup, but the mecha emphasis is driven home by the mecha/character rules dichotomy that’s shown in the example in the campaign. Knight looks like it’ll slot right into the slick trad combat-focused world, but the interesting idea and great art make it worth at least taking a look at (why must you always hurt me this way – Ed.).

Finally, we have Oceania 2084, which is pretty clearly inspired by 1984. In the RPG world this leads to ‘Paranoia but serious’, and the execution of the rules both leans into that but also presents something rather new. The game is intended to be adversarial, with players taking on characters in the resistance and the traditional GM role becoming ‘Big Brother’. This could work (and work really well) if the rules are structured in a way that keep the guardrails on ‘Big Brother’ and prevent them from sliding into a more omnipotent GM role. I’m personally very interested in seeing how this is executed.

Finally, a note I don’t like making, but will be making more often. I continue to review each campaign I cover for use of AI art. There was one I removed from my short list because all (and I mean all) the art was based on AI-generated ‘photographs’ (and if you think readers can’t tell…they can). Oceania 2084, additionally, used some AI-generated content in their teaser video, in part as commentary on the surveillance state. Their AI art statement ensured no other AI art would be used in the game. Now, I know some will take an absolutist approach to AI, and it is their right to do so. For me, though, using AI-generated material as part of one statement piece that is just in the Kickstarter campaign is very different than obviously displacing an artist and art director from a game. Still, I offer this information so everyone can make their own decisions. As usual, though, if any of the campaigns I’ve mentioned use AI art besides Oceania 2084 (I don’t believe any of them do), please let me know and I will amend the article.

Five Year Retrospective

May of 2019 had some high highs and some low lows. First, the good. Fate of Cthulhu was campaigned in May of 2019, and it did very well for Evil Hat; as the highest profile game in this month’s roundup, it’s perhaps not surprising it did well, but the weird fusion of Cthulhu and time travel was also a straight-up hit in the Fate library. Monsterpunk built out a nice tail, successfully outselling the initial campaign and supporting a few supplements. A Town Called Malice was also a modest success, following on its initial release with three volumes of Acts of Malice.

There were the normal Kickstarter campaigns that delivered successfully but without much buildup after the fact; Infinity’s Edge, Relics, and Charmed and Dangerous are all out there in the world, for whatever that’s worth. There were some definite downers, though. First Kings is the month’s one and only ghost; the campaign seemed to peter out and die last year. Zoetrope and Pater Asteri both failed to meet their funding goals, but deserve credit for their attempts. Once Upon a Time in Jianghu…this one looks like a complete mess. The game met its funding goal, but the publisher pulled it, possibly for some bad action on the part of one of the designers? Then there was a whole mess of an investigation, complete with death threats and all sorts of other bad behavior? Looks like Gallant Knight, which is a pretty solid business these days, was right to pull the plug on an impending disaster. Sadly, it means we’ll never know if the game was going to be any good.

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Spring is here, and the RPGs keep on blooming in the crowdfunding garden. If there are any other neat standalone games I missed, let me know! Any weird crowdfunding stories from five years ago? Probably not, but if so you can send me those too. Check out some new games, make some pledges, and I’ll see you next time for next month’s Crowdfunding Carnival!

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