I recently highlighted a handful of games being crowdfunded, but the pool of publishers looking for backers is vast, so let’s sample other projects underway, this time leaning into smaller games that are getting a second chance on the market.
• Designer Taiki Shinzawa has released more than two dozen games in Japan, and many of those titles are finding new life in licensed editions from other publishers.
In 2022, Japanese publisher Twins Lion Do released new editions of Shinzawa’s American Bookshop and Cinderella’s Dance, and in 2023 it will publish Planet etuC, a new version of Ambiente Abissal, and Twinkle Starship, a new version of §egment Trix. (Kickstarter link)
Planet etuC is a shedding game for 2-3 players in which cards have both a number and a suit, with each of these being ranked. If you lead a pair of the same color, other players must play a pair of a higher ranked color; the same goes for playing a pair of the same number. If you lead a single card, the next player can play a card of higher number or color, setting what other players must follow. Once all but one player have passed, clear the played cards, then the last to play leads something new. Empty your hand first to win the round, and reach a point threshold first to win the game.
Twinkle Starship is a trick-taking game for 3-4 players in which you must follow suit, if possible, but you can manipulate the value of the card you play by placing sticks on the calculator-style number. Transform a 3 into a 9 with just one stick! At the end of the round, if you want to score, the number of sticks in your reserve needs to match the number of tricks you took.
• U.S. publisher BoardGameTables.com, which released Shinzawa’s Time Palatrix as Ghosts of Christmas in 2022, is transforming his 2021 design Suroboruos into Big Top. (KS link)
The twist of this auction game is that you want to make certain bids in order to cover spaces on the cards in front of you, whether a card you started with or one you acquired in an auction. If you cover all of these bidding spaces, then the card will be worth points at game’s end. You have an incentive to bid on stuff you might not want, unlike most auction games! James Nathan, who serves as a game scout for the publisher, wrote an appreciation of Suroboruos that provides more details of gameplay.
• BoardGameTables.com has two other remakes as part of the aforementioned KS project, with Pollen being a new version of Reiner Knizia‘s Samurai: The Card Game, with Beth Sobel art to inject a 2020s sensibility to the design, and Roll to the Top: Journeys from John Brieger, Peter Joustra, and Corné van Moorsel, with this being an updated version of 2018’s Roll to the Top!, in which you use die results to climb up through landmarks from around the world.
