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.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: May, 2024Tag Archives: Kickstarter
Crowdfunding Carnival: April, 2024
Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for April! As you business types know the first quarter is over, and it’s time to kick things up! More realistically, ZineQuest is over and PAX East is recently in the rearview, meaning that the first set of product announcements in the tabletop gaming world have kicked off in earnest. Commercial con season runs from roughly PAX East to GenCon in August, so we’re in the height of major announcements and the crowdfunding campaigns which accompany them. As such, we have four major glorified pre-orders campaigns that you can check out. Beyond that there’s still a lot of momentum in the indie space, at least somewhere down in there. Sifting through the weird porn minis and 5e “supplements”, I’ve picked out five indie campaigns that are worth checking out and, quite possibly, worth a pledge as well.
Crowdfunding Carnival: March, 2024
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for March! We do have a bit of ZineQuest drop when it comes to crowdfunding in the late winter and early spring, but that doesn’t mean people are stopping. There are eight campaigns we’re going to discuss today, in addition to looking back to March of 2019. Of particular note is Backerkit; the up and coming platform is still contributing campaigns at a steady trickle, including one major and two indie campaigns this month. That’s more than can be said of any of the other platforms we began investigating when this series shifted from Kickstarter Wonk to Crowdfunding Carnival, at least unless you expand your scope to include 5e shovelware and oddly pornographic mini models. Nonetheless, the Kickstarter/Backerkit crowdfunding world that we live in is getting us some big supplements, dragon riders, the Gilded Age, and a superhero retroclone. Let’s take a look.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: March, 2024Crowdfunding Carnival: ZineQuest 2024
It’s February, and that means it’s still ZineQuest! We saw a large number of zines in the first round of Crowdfunding Carnival at the beginning of the month, but there are more, oh so many more. I’ve brought together a whole second round of zines to make sure that everyone who wasn’t live in the first week of the month still has a chance to be highlighted.
In addition to the zines, I’m continuing with our Crowdfunding Carnival five year retrospective, which was just a bit too much in the first week with all the zines to go through. I’ve disappointed myself by not starting ZineQuest coverage in its first year, but there were still a number of campaigns and a fair amount to say about them.
But first, the zines. I’ve, in theory, strived to be more selective among the zine wilds; there are over 200 zine projects live now and I can’t possibly cover them all. So for today I’ve brought 40 more zines to the front. These have all caught my attention and, in a few cases, I’ve thrown some money at them. Like before we have three categories, dividing the zines into standalone games, supplements, and zines which are entirely system-agnostic.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: ZineQuest 2024Crowdfunding Carnival: February, 2024
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for February! Uh oh…it’s February already? You know what that means…ZineQuest! This month I (mostly) put the big games aside and look at all the different zine campaigns that are coming up thanks to Kickstarter’s ZineQuest event. ZineQuest is now in its fifth year, and after some hiccups over the last two pertaining to both blockchains and scheduling, everything appears to be full speed ahead. Of course, this is a Kickstarter-specific event, and there is also a companion event, Zine Month. We’ll have coverage of some of those campaigns later on, but as these campaigns are all on Kickstarter, they’re all ZineQuest campaigns.
And as far as the great Zine agglomeration goes, Kickstarter is the place to be. Last I checked there over over 150 campaigns with the Zine Quest tag applied, and I’ve been able to pull out just about half of those as interesting little nuggets worth your attention. As that number is almost certainly going to increase, we’re going to have a second go-around of Crowdfunding Carnival in a couple weeks (that’s also where the five-year retrospective is going to go, in a slightly different form because it’ll be talking about ZineQuest from five years ago). For now though, check out a whole bunch of zines, as well as a couple more traditional big campaigns that happen to be running in February.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: February, 2024
Weekend Update: 1/6/2024
Welcome to the Cannibal Halfling Weekend Update! Start your weekend with a chunk of RPG news from the past week. We have the week’s top sellers, industry news stories, and discussions from elsewhere online.
Continue reading Weekend Update: 1/6/2024Crowdfunding Carnival: January, 2024
Welcome to the first Crowdfunding Carnival of 2024! We’re just out of the weird, liminal part of December, so excuse me if I’m still a little longwinded and full of cheese. Nonetheless, we have a number of campaigns to talk about, including one very large one.
It is a new year, and Shannon Appelcline released his annual Year in Review over at the Designers and Dragons website (a move from the article’s usual home on RPGnet). While the article covers much of the past year’s news very concisely, I want to call your attention to the top Kickstarters segment about ¾ of the way through the article. The top three campaigns of 2023 were all third party supplements for 5e. Since Crowdfunding Carnival/Kickstarter Wonk began six years ago, there were only two years where the majority of the top 5 best funded campaigns weren’t 5e supplements, 2018 and 2022. Even more damning, the only supplements in these lists which I still hear people discuss in social media in any fashion were all authored by the company which is currently running the largest campaign in this article. At least this new one isn’t (technically) D&D.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: January, 2024Crowdfunding Carnival: December, 2023
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for December! Well, folks, we made it. It’s nearly the end of 2023, and the holiday season is now upon us. It’s time to look back on the year, look forward to the next, and light lights to guard against the darkness of winter.
It’s also time for statistics! This year as part of Crowdfunding Carnival, I went into the archives and did retrospectives of the Kickstarter Wonk articles from 2018, the start of the series. With over 100 campaigns reviewed, I was able to collect some interesting data and reflect on the nature of RPG Kickstarters based both on trends within the sample as well as some reflection on what was included in my sample and what was not. While I don’t think anything I learned is particularly earth-shattering, it’s always nice to get a little quantitative nugget among the highly qualitative world of writing about games.
First, though, let’s talk about what’s campaigning now. The holiday season is when you want to finish, not start your campaigns, but there are at least a few that are worth highlighting.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: December, 2023Crowdfunding Carnival: November, 2023
Happy day after Halloween! Whether you had too many pumpkin beers, too much candy, or just stayed up too late doing the Monster Mash, it’s time for a little…post-holiday drop, let’s say. Luckily for you, I had no Halloween plans other than finding and cataloging some really phenomenal crowdfunding campaigns to help you start your November. On the big game side we have Southeast Asian tactics, dystopian game shows, and Ninja Turtles. On the indie side, Halloween is clearly sticking around with some witches, ghosts, cute cultists, and a big freaking multiverse to tie it all together.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: November, 2023Crowdfunding Carnival: October, 2023
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for October! We’ve got some horror games this month, appropriate for Halloween. We also have Tarot, Cryptids, and badgers and coyotes! The magic of RPGs only gets more magical with every new and offbeat game I see. As usual, we’ll check in with those major publishers, see what the indies are bringing forth, and then finally take a look back at the Kickstarters from five years ago.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: October, 2023
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 