We’ve got a double feature for this week’s Kickstarter-Watch. As mentioned in last week’s 5 on Friday, we’re looking at both Touched by the Gods and a new dice game based on Terraforming Mars. Both grabbed my interest, though for quite different reasons. There’s a lot cover, so let’s just jump right in…
Touched by the Gods
I’ll be honest, I kind of misjudged what this was when I first saw it. I knew that it was a roleplaying game with fantastic and fantastical art which uses the game system from Fria Ligan’s Mutant: Year Zero. I saw this banner and also jumped to the conclusion that this was some sort of fey-themed game:
It’s not, though.
No, this is based on Slavic mythology, taking place in central Europe in a fantastical, alternative ‘First Millennium That Could Have Been”. In it, you take on the role is a doomed hero of a long-ago people. You have been touched by one of the 8 gods and been imbued with some of their power. This is a power that no mortal should hold, and although you now have the strength to complete great and heroic feats, it will consume you from within and lead you to your ultimate demise.
The pantheon consists of 8 Gods:
- Dola, goddess of faith and destiny.
- Mokosh,goddess of fertility and abundance.
- Marzanna,goddess of winter and death.
- Gevanna, goddess of hunts and the Wild.
- Perun, god of thunder.
- Svarog, smith-god of fire and artisans.
- Yarovit, god of war.
- Veles, god of creativity and the underworld.
The setting seems interesting, and the artwork is mostly really great. There are a few bland pieces that I’d seen, but there are far more really cool ones:
If you want to get a good preview of both the game itself and perhaps the design and production quality, there’s a free Quickstart PDF available:
For a freebie, there’s actually a lot of content in here. The core rules are here, as well as some premade characters, character sheets, some details of The Wild, and more content. I really like that you can develop your ‘Folk’ in a similar way that you would develop your Ark in Mutant: Year Zero, which is one of my favourite parts of that game.
If you’d like to check it out for yourself, you can click here to grab the Quickstart PDF from Dropbox.
In terms of the cost of this game, we’re looking at $29 for a PDF version or $49 for the hardback and the PDFs. At $69 they’ll chuck in a couple of packs of dice, and at $88 they’ll also add a pack of cards and the GM screen. Here’s a picture of the whole bundle:
The campaign doesn’t seem to be doing that well. They have a little over a week to go and aren’t really near their goal of a little under £9,000. I’m concerned that if they don’t see much interest in the next few days, they may well take the campaign down with a view to relaunching in the future. This would be a pity, but it’s pretty understandable. I think a bit of advertising might have helped with this, but it’s hard to say, really. I’ve certainly not been seeing this getting pushed anywhere.
That’s a pity, because I really think that this could be a good game. It’s well-presented and it seems to integrate the Year Zero system very well.
You can click here to visit the campaign page over on Kickstarter.
Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game
I love Terraforming Mars. I haven’t done a top 50 list since 2019 (tune in this year for our first list since the Covid-induced hiatus!), but that year saw Terraforming Mars take the top spot. It was well-earned, too. The game saw a lot of play at our local club, both in person and online via Tabletop Simulator. I have the video game as well, ut I’m really not a fan of the interface. It takes a pretty bad UI for me to prefer the TTS version of the game!
I was doubtful when the card game version of Terraforming Mars, known as Ares Expediton, was announced. I’ve generally not been a fan of smaller, card-based versions of existing games. I tend to find them a lot less satisfying, and just a worse game with an appealing theme pasted onto it. At NoRerolls we do not like a pasted-on theme.
I was wrong.
Ares Expedition might be better than the original game. I miss the board, as the card game does not see players putting down their cities and forests to transform and claim chunks of the red planet. Other than this element, there’s not much else that I don’t think Ares Expediton does better than the original Terraforming Mars. I’m willing to give up the board portion of the game to get a smoother overall experience and I utterly adore how phases and turns now work.
I’m quite happy to have been wrong.
It’s this admission that makes me pause at this Kickstarter campaign. Usually, I would likely dismiss this is a cynical spinoff of Terraforming Mars, but I’m happy to concede that my instincts may well be wrong on this. Let’s take a look at the campaign, shall we?
I’m going to assume you said yes.
At its core, the game is pretty similar to the other two versions. You play project cards. You increase temperature and oxygen, and place oceans. Like the first game, you are also building on the map. Each corporation has, as usual, a unique set of abilities/starting resources. It just feels like a Terraforming Mars game. An unkind soul might point out that not much is really different here. I agree, but I see this as a good thing. I’m seeing this as a version of Terraforming Mars with a little bit of randomness put in there, largely through the rolling of the dice. It also promises to be a bit quicker and simpler, which can be good for some groups and players:
Production quality looks pretty good, and the game also has a solo mode. Solo play isn’t that important to me though; I’ve no intention of sitting there and just playing with myself.
In terms of price, we’re looking at a very reasonable $35 for the game. For UK backers, we’re looking at an additional $22 for shipping. That’s not bad at all. It’s possibly worth a punt, particularly if you’re already a fan of the series. I do have to say, if you’re not already a fan of the series, you need to jump into it. The Terraforming Mars series is proving to be a truly fantastic set of games. I’ve got higher hopes for this latest instalment than I had expected, too.
You can click here to visit the campaign page over on Kickstarter.
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