Some of my crowd-funding swag has turned up!

  
   

This week a bit more of my crowd-funding swag has turned up. Obviously just over a month back now my Tentacle Bento stuff turned up, which was the first of the projects I'd supported and backed on my Blog to deliver the goods. But, on Wednesday I had the first major bunch of swag turn up from the Bushido Ito Indiegogo campaign, and then a day later the first batch of stuff from my DreadBall pledge turned up. So stuff has begun to roll in. It's actually quite bizarre to see packages turn up and not really know what they are, so it's like a lot of mini Christmas's. Although I totally knew that the DreadBall package was DreadBall. So it's pleasant to get these little presents you've brought yourself months and months ago suddenly turn up. Obviously I'm still waiting on any of my Gruntz and Sedition Wars stuff... plus Relic Knights, Freebooter's Fate and some other stuff I'm sure I've long since forgotten about! Hopefully though I will remember what the hell they are and make sure people do actually deliver my swag.

Quirkworthy on the Dreadball launch

    
   

As always I try to be as balanced as I can be about things. In my article about the Dreadball launch I pointed out I'd heard Mantic had, had some supply / manufacturing problems, and that it was good they were getting things out before Christmas. I also applauded them for moving the January pledges forward, however I also questioned the wisdom of Mantic giving certain stores preferential treatment and shipping to them first, whether this is a 'pre-release' or not, whatever the hell one of those is. I fully accept that I am now firmly in the slightly miffed camp, and as such I'm more than aware I'm not going to be as impartial or as even handed as I normally am... so if you want the other side of the coin can I suggest you go and take a look at this article on Quirkworthy, Jake Thornton's Blog in the interests of balanced reporting as it were, and getting a more rounded picture. Peace out!

Dreaball launch

  
  

I've been keeping an eye on how Mantic would deal with the Dreadball Kickstart campaign ever since a few of you who backed the campaign sent me emails asking what the hell was up with shops getting the product before those who had pledged on Kickstart to back it. Now I'll be honest, the majority of the complaints were from those who had backed the Kickstart campaign as part of the January release schedule. Many claimed they'd done so because the tone of the statement from Mantic was that they'd now in effect sold all their first batch to Kickstart backers and the next shipment would be in January. At the time I assumed that this would mean stores would be getting it in January too... because they'd run out of initial prints. Or that's certainly how I read it at the time. I think a lot of people who emailed me seemed to be slightly miffed at me as well as they'd pledged after reading my support for the project. However, as I had a steady stream of emails coming into me, asking if I'd heard anything about shops getting stock for the Christmas period.

Industry Talk: Jake Thornton and DreadBall

      

Right with Mantics successful Kickstarter winding down to a close over the next few days of so I decided I'd try to badger the games designer with a few questions about the game, and how the campaign has gone. Luckily for me Jake Thornton is an affable fellow who was more than happy to answer my inane and asinine questions! So here's my questions and his answers:

Dreadball Kickstarter update

   
  

I know I said I wouldn't be doing these sorts of articles again... and I reneged on that promise with a brief reminder for Relic Knights... and an article about Dreadball and its Kickstarter. Well as you can see I'm doing it again aren't I? Trust me though it is for your own good. The Dreadball Kickstarter is coming to an end. It has only 9 days left to run. Here's the important bit for you guys though... they've had to limit the number of Jake and Striker pledges they've made available to ensure they can produce enough to supply everyone with what they have ordered. That means not only is the time frame limited, but the actual chance to get the best deals is now highly limited! Currently as I type this out there are only 126 Jack level pledges left and 210 of the Striker level pledges left. Now I'm not so sure they'll sell out of them all, but if you've been sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens it might just be the incentive you need. We all know that the last 72 to 48 hours in crowd funding campaigns is when it starts to get a bit metal don't we?

Any way here's what you currently get in the excellent value $150 Striker deal:

I can talk about Dreadball now!!!

 

Huzzah! I can finally open my trap about Mantic's upcoming game Dreadball. You see up until yesterday I was operating under the assumption I was still gagged by an NDA that I'd signed when I agreed to play test the game for Jake Thornton... soooo... I sought a bit of clarity. Turns out they're now perfectly OK with me spilling the proverbial beans on this thing. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about follow this link to their Kickstarter campaign for their game, or just watch this video:

So as you can see it's a new sports game from Mantic... and... that brings it inevitable comparisons with the grand daddy of fantasy type board game sports, Games Workshops very own Blood Bowl. Now I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in the past that I'm a pretty big Blood Bowl fan, even if it didn't make it into the 10 games that defined me as a gamer article, it nevertheless has had a large impact on me as a gamer. I loved it as a game, and my father had me playing the game from the very first edition, although it was the second edition with the polystyrene board that really got me hooked. So any game wishing to muscle in on this turf is going to have to front up to this behemoth.