🌆 Neon, Nostalgia & New Beginnings
6 crowdfunding campaigns that offer cooperative deckbuilders, neon-soaked noir, and campfire confessions
What’s Inside: Whether you’re drawn to high-speed deckbuilding, fiction-first dice pools, or tactical eurogames with story-driven endings, this week’s collection has something for every type of backer - plus a graphic novel that’s equal parts wrestling ring and haunted house.
1. Mad Dog Morgan
Upcoming Page | The Wrestler meets The Shining
The second Kickstarter project by The Lab Press, Mad Dog Morgan is the successor to ESSENTIALS, the wildly successful graphic novel that was funded back in 2024. Written by Adam Lawson with art by Maxi Dall’o, the 155 page graphic novel sees a washed up wrestler wander into a crumbling house that’s more than it seems. Morgan finds himself in a supernatural world of horrors that feeds on the hopeless. The house tries to break him, but Morgan quickly learns that their failures led them to this moment…
2. Honor’s End
Upcoming Page | A fresh take on deckbuilding
IV Studios have found a lot of success on Kickstarter, and have taken multiple games from inception to release. Their last title, Moonrakers, did particularly well and they’re following it up with Honor’s End. I suspect like Moonrakers, it’ll blow up when it opens its Kickstarter and with 10,000 Followers already, it’s sure to burst through its funding goal. There’s a great overview of the project here but the TLDR: it’s a high-speed cooperative boss battling deckbuilder where players work together to defeat enemies and progress through the story.
3. Dirt City Blues
Upcoming Page | Sin City if Tarantino got blackout drunk on Tab and cheap bourbon
Dirt City Blues, from The World Anvil Publishing, is a TTRPG where retired legends get pulled back in for one final score. The game unfolds in a faded 1980s metropolis drenched in neon lights, old grudges, and lingering regrets. It’s heading to Backerkit very soon.
One player becomes the Boss, crafting challenges, embodying the supporting cast, and escalating the stakes.
The remaining players are the Badasses: folks who walked away from the violence, vendettas, and fame, only to find themselves drawn back into the life they left behind.
4. The Wildsea: Tigers of the Wire
Upcoming Page | Prepare for a new adventure inspired by Sunless Sea, Bastion, and the Bas-Lag Trilogy
Created by the incredibly talented and award winning Felix Isaacs, The Wildsea: Tigers of the Wire is a TTRPG that supports 2-6 players.
It uses a fiction-first d6 dicepool system
Inspired by Belly of the Beast, Blades in the Dark, and 13th Age
Set in a world where empires are toppled by a vigorous wave of fast growing greenery
You play a wildsailor, part of a motley crew consisting of humanity’s weathered descendants
Its story revolves around a broadcast that thrums across the airwaves of Pomingko Lagoon that none have been able to find…
✅ Lingo check: A fiction-first d6 dice pool system is a tabletop role-playing game mechanic that uses a pool of six-sided dice (d6) to determine the outcome of actions, with the system’s design emphasizing the narrative result of the dice roll over a simple numerical success or failure
5. Laužas
Live Page | How well do you really know your friends?
I backed Laužas today because of one line from its Gamefound page: “If you like Dixit, Codenames or Wavelength, you’ll love Laužas.” That’s all I needed to hear. Now live with 27 days left and with over 100 backers, it has already reached its funding goal. It’s a small camping themed game where players will need to work together to alleviate each others stress’ before the fire burns out. Beautifully packaged and it looks fantastic.
6. Grifoni - Blades for Hire
Upcoming Page | It’s time to build your band
If you’ve never played a tactical eurogame, they’re described as “blending indirect conflict, resource management and victory points with a focus on short-term, granular decisions about specific units or placements, rather than long-term grand strategies.” Grifoni looks fairly unique in this space, because unlike other eurogames, it’s story-driven.
It takes about an hour to play and supports between 2 and 4 players
You’ll need to gain riches, trade and arm your mercenaries
Ambition and Chronicle cards determine the fate of your band
Comes with 27 different endings
Final Turn
SPACE RELIC HUNTERS: Smugglers, Rebels, and Sacred Ruins has just finished its Kickstarter run, achieving over £45,000 from almost 1,500 backers. Created by Neurobellum Productions they’re no stranger to crowdfunding and delivering excellent projects. Space Relic Hunters offers explosive action, a ragtag crew of adventurers and a richly imagined universe teeming with alien cultures and forbidden lore. Think GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY meets INDIANA JONES.
Thank you all for reading this week's newsletter ❤️