Welcome to the first Crowdfunding Carnival of the year! No way around it, it’s a slow January, like many that have come before. Indie designers are often holding their cards until ZineQuest (formally announced in December), and major publishers are focused on closing out the year, which often means entering the new year with no projects on the slate (lest there be liabilities with no revenue recognition). As such, coming out of the New Year’s holiday there is often a small slate of projects, if any worth reading at all.

But fear not! This month’s update will be short but sweet, with three projects that are certainly worth looking at. While there are no major publisher campaigns active at the moment, there are two small format games tackling ambitious topics: Civilization building and mashing up time travel and giant robots. Then, we have a large-format labor of love which, though it follows in the footsteps of those before it, is still worth some consideration.

Indies of Note

A storytelling game on a larger scale, Civitas: Rise and Fall aims to chronicle an entire civilization as it rises up and eventually falls, with the story taking place over multiple eras. The game is explicitly cooperative, citing both Microscope and The Quiet Year as inspirations, and is all packed together in a zine form factor. While the game’s ideas do remind me a bit of another one of Ben Robbins’ games, Kingdom, the specific focus on an empire, a national entity, is an interesting take for storytelling. I’m curious to see how Civitas comes together.

Another smaller format game, We Dig Giant Robots is an exercise in just how many different mashups can most get my attention. The time travel/mecha mashup is pretty clear from the description, but then the two key rules inspirations are Teenagers from Outer Space and Maid, the designers digging in their collective heels for not just anime, but goofy anime to boot. The implied plotline reinforces this beautifully: The protagonists have gotten their hands on a giant robot from the future, but despite the fact that they need to, essentially, save the world with it, they don’t know what it does and attempting to use its high-tech weapons means rolling on a random table as you press buttons and hope they do something cool. As much as this is intended to be a micro-RPG, I still think it’s dripping with potential.

Next up is the polar opposite of a micro-RPG. Knight Errant is a 500-page doorstop of an RPG manual, with a crowdfunding campaign for, at least in part, funding custom artwork including charcoal drawings and oil paintings. The game as described is a maximalist heartbreaker of Pendragon, but I mean that lovingly. The listed influences, AD&D, RuneQuest, and Chronicles of Darkness point to a game with old-school sensibilities, but with certain innovations like a maneuver-based combat system that carries some Burning Wheel influences. While it’s stepping into a domain clearly ruled by Pendragon (and with a recent incursion by Mythic Bastionland), Knight Errant is a labor of love that may very well bring some new ideas into the arena with it.

Five Year Retrospective

January is a slow crowdfunding month most years, and indeed 2020 also started out slow. There were five campaigns discussed this month, although the ratios ended up being pretty good; all five funded and fulfilled, and two, Last Fleet and Glitch, saw continued success and recognition. Considering these campaigns would be doing a lot of their fulfillment at the peak of COVID, it’s somewhat incredible that the ratio was as good as it was; skimming the campaign updates there were a number of shipping difficulties, but that didn’t stop any of these games from getting released.

Will 2025 be like 2020, with the small crop producing a few sweet fruits? Only time will tell. For now, check out the campaigns above, cement your New Year’s gaming resolutions, and come prepared for the feast after the famine: ZineQuest is next month! We’ll go from three campaigns to fifty (at least) in the next Crowdfunding Carnival!

Like what Cannibal Halfling Gaming is doing and want to help us bring games and gamers together? First, you can follow me @LevelOneWonk@dice.camp for RPG commentary, relevant retweets, and maybe some rambling. You can also find our Discord channel and drop in to chat with our authors and get every new post as it comes out. You can travel to DriveThruRPG through one of our fine and elegantly-crafted links, which generates credit that lets us get more games to work with! Finally, you can support us directly on Patreon, which lets us cover costs, pay our contributors, and save up for projects. Thanks for reading!