I know a guy who designs and builds board games. His name is Matt Duhan, and his company is Gozer Games. Today I got an email from Matt, asking me to @Kickstarter his newest game. I don't play many board games, but this one got me really excited. It is called Titans of Industry, and he's using Kickstarter to fund the final development of the game.
Kickstarter is one of the new crowd-sourcing funding concepts that authors, game designers, artists, and others are using to fund new projects. There are some cool projects that have been funded or are being funded by Kickstarter. It is sort of like the "storyteller's bowl" on steroids. You know, when the storyteller stops at cliffhangers until some more money rattles into the bowl sitting in front of him...
Well, I'm in. I am officially a backer of Titans of Industry.
If you want to help get young people, and even adults (grin) interested in manufacturing, here's another venue. Here's Matt's blog post introducing the project:
What if Boardwalk, Park Place, or Reading Railroad was named after you?
We all know the names of the properties of the best selling board game in the world from countless hours of rolling the dice and landing on these properties, going bankrupt or wiping our friends out. How incredible would it be to have a degree of immortality by having those properties named for you?
Gozer Games, the Chicago-based brainchild of its founder and president, Matthew Duhan, is offering just that. People who support the Kickstarter for their fourth and newest game, Titans of Industry TM, can gain a degree of immortality by having properties in the game named after them. Kickstarter is a crowd-funding web site for creative products that Gozer Games has used to launch previous games. For a pledge of $250 or more, you get a building named after you or your company, along with a copy of Titans of Industry TM and other bonuses.
Titans of Industry TM is a competitive board game for gaming entrepreneurs set in the 1920s, a time of much industrial building and growth. It is what is known as a Euro-style game, which has seen a dramatic increase in popularity lately, appearing everywhere from Time and Wired magazines to popular TV shows like Big Bang Theory. In Titans of IndustryTM, players invest in building factories and businesses, in order to produce goods and sell them to gain victory points. It is a delicate balance of money, production, and goals. The person who best manages their buildings and goals will win.
You can find the Kickstarter page for Titans of IndustryTM at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gozergames/titans-of-industry-board-game
