I had two Kickstarter games arrive this week (Nut Hunt and Heroes of Barcadia – more on those later!) and I felt like it was probably a good time to look through my “BACKED” list and see what should be arriving in 2023!

Dungeon Pages

This is going to be a YEAR LONG campaign dungeon crawling roll and write. I actually just received the January files today and I’m looking forward to digging into this first dungeon over the weekend. You can pre-order the game from PNP Arcade now too!

Xenolanguage

Describes as “a game about alien language and human memory”, this sci-fi tabletop role-playing game feels like something out of the movie “Arrival”, piecing together alien communication using a special channeling board. Just reading the description on the Kickstarter page, it felt like something totally new. It’s definitely very ambitious, which is probably why the release date has been bumped back so many times, but hopefully it will make it to my table this year!

The Door Locks Behind You

This “puzzling dungeon adventure game” was part of Zine Quest 3 (2021) and draws inspiration from games like Legend of Zelda and other old school dungeon crawlers, but as a role-playing game for 2-5 friends. I am a sucker for these little zine games, even though I rarely get to actually play them (goal for 2023?).

Chai: Tea for Two

I’ll be honest, I’m kind of kicking myself for backing this game considering how long the delays were with the original Chai game. But, to be fair, this is a husband and wife team and they just had their first child and the pandemic was still going when this launched. This dice-rolling, two player game is supposed to be really fun and I love a good two-layer game. Hopefully the game will arrive sometimes this year. I went a little extra and I got the deluxe edition and this game is so small and niche, it probably won’t show up at my Friendly Local Game Store any time soon (though Games & Stuff does have a robust stock so I could be wrong!)

The Witcher: The Old World

This game is a lot. Like, I kept going back and forth on how much I wanted to pledge up front, what the odds were of finding it later in retail considering the popularity of The Witcher, and then the oh-so-many add-ons that were coming up as KS exclusives. I did give into the “Day 1” pledge temptation because they had a Roach miniature and it was too good to pass up. This game is HUGE and there is definitely some miniature bloat and some drama from the hardcore miniature fans in the Kickstarter comments when the first previews came out, but Go On Board Games handled it well and I think this is going to be awesome ones it actually manage to complete manufacturing. Right now, March is their most recent guess for when production could finish…maybe.

Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game

This one should be arriving very soon, the last few updates have been about shipping notices and ships in port so I should be able to create my own air bender or water bender soon and create an adventure of my own. This one was definitely the hype machine that got me. I love Avatar: The Last Airbender and was rewatching it when this launched so I was just like YES MORE PLEASE. Then I watched Korra for the first time and it kind of took the wind out of my sails oops. But I can fix it with this ttrpg and tell the story I want to see! That’s the best part about role playing games based on your favorite franchises – you can have your own adventure in that realm!

And, yeah, I got the physical books and custom dice…because how could you not?

Edge of Darkness

I blame my TikTok friend for this one! He was raving about the game and it felt like a crunchy deck builder where you got to level up cards a la Slay the Spire (this was before the Slay the Spire KS happened…oddly enough, I resisted that one!)

I backed at the level to get the base game and the expansion because why not go all in like a maniac even if I’ve never played the game? (I was still a little wild on Kickstarter in August 2021, it was before my first games started to arrive and my first PAX Unplugged, which made me think how I support my favorite game publishers).

Beast

I blame my friend Athena for this one as I had no intention of backing it and then she was RAVING about how cool it looked and the acrylic figures etc. and I gave in. This company is in the Ukraine though, so you can imagine they have had a rough year. But an update in December says that things are back on track for getting production wrapped up so hopefully this one will show up in the first half of 2023!

MonsDRAWsity: Unusual Suspects

Look, as soon as I saw “in collaboration with Shut up & Sit Down” I was all in on this one. MonsDRAWsity is one of my go-to party games and it never ceases to have everyone laughing. Unfortunately, the publisher had some struggles in 2022 and the game was in limbo for a long time, but I’m hoping they can pull it together soon for 2023! I would love to have this for summer gatherings.

Exquisite Crime

Hunters Entertainment is the publishing house behind “Kids on Bikes” and “Alice is Missing”, two games I enjoy a lot, so when ‘ An Exquisite Crime‘ launched in November 2021, I was all about it. It’s another tabletop role playing game but with an artistic twist as the players draw bits of the story. Banana Chan is part of the writing team, and she is a solid ttrpg writer but also has a sense of humor so I knew this would be something unique. The last update in December seemed optimistic so hopefully my physical edition will arrive in the early half of the year.

Titania Ascending

This has to be one of the saddest Kickstarter tales I’ve had to follow, up there with the studio behind Beast being in the Ukraine. The creator and game publisher had a tragic house fire last year which essentially wiped them out. The game is very far behind but they seemed optimistic in their last update in December that things could get back on track by the middle of 2023. I love a good flip and write and this is a cooperative one, which really appealed to me. I believe it also has a solo mode so I am all about that. Here is hoping their luck turns around in 2023 and I get to play this beauty.

Blazon

This one should be arriving soon as 25th Century Games updated in mid-December that the shipments had arrived and just had to get through the holiday queue. This is a really unique board game of making a family crest. I almost resisted, but they were a few little nice bonuses in the Kickstarter that convinced me to back the deluxe edition to get those extras.

Seas of Havoc

Pirate games are the new hotness – there are SO MANY of them out this past year and still going strong. Rock Manor Games made one of the first games I added to my collection, Set A Watch, so I have some publisher loyalty which lead me to back this. I’m hoping it is a fun one, they are really good at making compact but complex games. They have an estimate up for March fulfillment so fingers and hooks crossed!

The Fall of Home

Part of Zine Month 2022, this game suffered some delays after the creator had a rough few months. BUT this is at the printers and just waiting to be put into the mail. It will ship from the UK so it might take awhile to cross the pond. It’s a GM-less storytelling game. For some reason, I am drawn to these melancholy story games and I don’t know why.

Ocean Tides

Did I back this because I was right in the middle of watching “Our Flag Means Death” and completely in love with the show? Yes. Yes I did and I regret nothing and I can’t wait to have my own awkward flirting pirate adventures.

Okay, this list is ridiculously long, I had no idea how many I was still waiting on. All the items listed above were backed in 2020, 2021 or very early 2022 (they had estimated delivery dates of 2022). The pandemic really through a wrench into game manufacturing and it is still strange to me to find out how little is made in the United States. Like, we can’t do bits of cardboard and plastic here? (well, we can but it is apparently expensive and lots of work to negotiate).

I’ll post a part two later on featuring games backed in mid-late 2022 which probably won’t arrive on time because honestly the one games that I have received in a timely fashion were the print and play titles I had to print at home.