Interesting Kickstarters (Week of 4/30/18)

We're moving into May, and Kickstarter is still hopping. Who knows what the rest of this year will bring? For now, here are a few more campaigns that are possibly of interest to solo board gamers. 

1) Kitchen Rush: Piece of Cake

Kitchen Rush is a real-time game in which you manage multiple timers and try to successfully manage a busy restaurant with a LOT of stuff going on. Now there's an expansion, and since it involves cake, it has to be pretty interesting! I have never played Kitchen Rush myself, and have only really heard comments about it as a cooperative game. At the same time, I can definitely see the appeal of trying to do crazy board game multitasking. Can you really do it by yourself? It seems like the cooperative game might be better for messing up and having a good laugh about it, while trying the game single player would mean challenging yourself to achieve maximum efficiency. 

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2) Villages of Valeria: Landmarks

Here's another expansion campaign, this time for Villages of Valeria. Villages is a building game where you generate and then manage resources, with the goal of recruiting adventures and constructing buildings quickly and efficiently. The expansion adds a new mechanic to the game, which—based on word-of-mouth—already offers a pretty solid solo experience. I am definitely curious about this one, and it's $54 + shipping to pledge for a "catch-up" pack that includes all Kickstarter releases for the game. I will note, however, that all of the previously released material for this game is available in the form of less-expensive retail versions, which might actually be more appealing to me. 

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3) Hellboy: The Board Game

​I like Hellboy, and I like sprawling co-op adventures. This game appears to offer a lot of both. However, it's also very expensive. The base pledge clocks in at $131, and I'm just not good for that right now. But if you want to explore, investigate, and fight as a paranormal investigator from the world of Hellboy, you might like this one. The game has some really nice-looking miniatures. But it also looks like the designers have tried to give players a lot of decisions to make, as well as plenty of replayability. 

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