Casual Game Crowdfunding: Salem, Seeds, and Merchants

Town of Salem (BlankMediaGames) – Based on an online game (which was also originally funded via Kickstarter) Town of Salem has a lot in common with Werewolf. Players receive a unique role at the start of the game. Evil roles murder during the night phase, while good roles can help protect players or hunt down the evil ones. During the day phase players accuse one another and vote on who will be lynched. There are multiple roles with different powers for both the side of good and evil, which offers different combinations you can play with and adds variety to the game. The game also offers some pretty cute artwork.

Dale of Merchants 2 (Club Fantasci) – Players are competing to be the first to set up their merchant stall. This is a deck-building game, so you will slowly be drafting more and more powerful cards into your deck. But each card not only has a unique power but is also an item that can be played into your stall, and as the game continues you will also be removing cards from your deck and trying to fill up your stall by creating stacks of goods. It's a standalone game, but if you happen to own the first Dale of Merchants, you can combine the decks from the two games for more possibilities and variety. Dale of Merchants 2 also introduces a new team variant for the game.

3 Seeds (Chara Games) – You have time, money, and labor cards which you must choose to distribute on crops how you wish. At the start of the game, each player has a crop card face up, and a harvest card facedown. The harvest card has a number from one to seven which determines how many points each of your cards is worth that you played on its crop. Each crop card states how many time, money, and labor cards it needs in order to be harvested. On the start of your turn, you draw cards, and then may either look at one of the facedown harvest cards or swap any two harvest cards that are in play. A crop is scored as soon as its requirements are met and a new harvest and crop card comes into play to replace it.

Tak (Cheapass Games) – This abstract strategy game started out as a fictional game in a novel. The goal of Tak is to build a string of connected pieces from one side of the board to the other. On your turn you may either place one of your pieces on an empty spot of the board or move a stack of pieces that you control. You control any stack whose top piece is yours. When you move a stack, you must move it in a straight line and drop one or more pieces on each space you move over. You may also play pieces standing up. These pieces can move and block other pieces, but they cannot have other pieces move on top of them nor can they form a part of your road. Read about the history of the game here.

Betabotz (Zagar Games) – Betabotz has three phases. During the first phase, players bid on a robot. During the next phase you either bid on components to upgrade your bot, or take a code card which can be used during the third and last phase. Next up is the mission phase, in which all players attempt to complete a task. You may play your code cards to either hinder others or help yourself, and players can negotiate with one another in order to pass the mission together. Players who helped complete the mission get points which can be used to bid on more parts but are also needed to win the game. The second and third phase of the game are repeated ten times before a winner is declared.

Cavern Tavern (Final Frontier Games) – Everyone is working in a fantasy-world tavern full of elves, ogres, and dwarves. Serve drinks, work in the kitchen, do chores, and keep everyone peaceful and happy. This is a worker placement dice game. Players roll their dice, and must choose which of twenty-one different locations to place them on, based on which locations’ values match those on your dice. Gather ingredients to serve customers, pick up orders, complete chores, seek help from the friendly wizard, and take items that customers have left behind, or even go to your boss to tell on your coworkers. There are multiple locations that will match each number on your dice, giving you lots of choices to make.

Monster Misfits (Friendly Rabbit Inc) – Players are attempting to get rid of all their cards to win the game. Each monster belongs to one of four realms, and on your turn you may either play a monster of any realm that has a matching value to the one currently on top of the discard pile, or a monster of the same realm but of a higher value. Chaos cards can also be played at the start of your turn, which have effects such as swapping players' cards or shuffling everyone's hands together and redistributing them.