Come one, come all, to the Crowdfunding Carnival! It might be summertime sadness, but things are a bit quiet here at the carnival. That said, at least one barker has taken the opportunity to put a fresh coat of paint on the old tent. Kickstarter has rolled out a new search page, including significantly more filtering options. Also of note is the new ‘TTRPG’ category. While this first appeared last month, the line between it and the old Tabletop Games category was still blurry, so I opted not to bring attention to it. There’s still crossover between the two, but it looks like the more specific categories should help with searching. In addition to TTRPG there’s also STL being added as a category, which should help filter minis and other accessory-specific campaigns away from your search page if that’s not what you’re looking for.

While I don’t have proof I’d anticipate that Kickstarter is responding to the ever-increasing competitive pressure from other providers like Backerkit. While Kickstarter is still dominant in the broader crowdfunding space, Backerkit has brought the heat in TTRPGs as well as other toys and games categories. This month’s campaigns come from both services, and as is often true in the doldrums of July, it’s the indies that have come to play.

Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for June! June is a great time for all the small, weird games in the world: It’s several months after Zine Quest and Zinetopia, so the attention and designer attention isn’t focused there. At the same time, while it’s not close enough to GenCon to suck the air out of the room, it is close enough that most of the major publishers will wait a couple months before any big announcements, giving the little guys a chance for some more spotlight. We’re seeing it now and, as you’ll see later in the article, we saw it five years ago as well. With that said, let’s get into it. No major publishers this month, but we do have the newest campaign from one of the most successful singular designers going.

Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for May! Spring is here, and next to the flowers there are new RPG ideas blooming! It’s a big month for game materials broadly, but May is also OSE Month on Backerkit, and we’re starting to see a bunch of campaigns popping up with supplements and adventures for Old-School Essentials. Even with all that, there are still some gems in the original games space. We’ve got storytelling games, we’ve got solo games, we’ve even got a Lego game and a social deduction game. First, though, we have a trendy game.