Heebie Jeebies - A Game Of Unsettling Notions On Kickstarter

One of the fun things about being a blogger is that I sometimes get to see things before they come out, or in early/beta versions. People either want critiques of their stuff, ideas for direction of their game, or just to help generate some buzz. It makes the work that I do as a blogger feel worthwhile.

So, one day a prototype of this strange little card game called Heebie Jebbies showed up in my mail box. I will openly admit that I don't play many party games, of any type, but flipping through the cards made me interested. The cards are funny without being hurtful, and without trying to be edgy (protip: trying to be edgy on purpose rarely works). It looked fun to me.

Over the 4th of July weekend, I took the game out for a spin. The rules are easy to explain, and easy to play. A player draws four cards and lays them out on a numbered board. The player decides which of the cards gives them the most "Heebie Jeebies" and then reads all for of the cards out loud. The other players have Voting Cards, numbered 1-4. They play the voting card of the number that they think is the card most likely to give the player the "Heebie Jeebies." The correct votes get points. Rotate to the next player and repeat. The person  who reaches 10 points first wins.

Not in the rules, but from actual play experience, I would suggest that adult beverages improve the quality of play. This is probably more of a house rule.

So, right now, Heebie Jeebies is on Kickstarter, trying to raise the money to fund the production of the game and get it into distribution. I think it is a worthy goal and you should definitely check the Kickstarter out and throw them a few dollars. The game play was fun and easy, I'm not sure how family friendly the game would be, and definitely converted this non-party game player to the cause. The campaign is in its last 10 days (at the time of posting) and could definitely deserve some love. Let's see more independent creators get into distribution with their games.

Combat Description Cards Kickstarter

I've covered several RPG Kickstarters so far for Dorkland, and this project is indeed involved with RPGs -- just in a bit of a different way. So, have you ever been sitting around the game table (or webcam) and thought, "Wow, combat is so boring -- I wish it could be spiced up a bit"? If so, the Combat Description Cards Kickstarter might be the project you need to liven up the play session.

How does it work? Pretty simply, it seems. There are three different suits of cards -- blunt, slashing and piercing -- each with three different types of styles -- stylish, power and ranged -- that each have two descriptions -- damaging and death. Need a descriptive way to describe something that just happened in combat? Pull a card from the respective suit, read the style and description that best fits the situation -- or just use it as inspiration and wing it a bit. That seems to be about it. There are some 100+ cards in the set (around 120+ now, with the stretch goals, I think) so there are plenty of descriptions to use. One aspect that the Kickstarter page made sure to point out, and that I think is good, is the lack of detailed information in the descriptions -- so they can be used with any weapon in nearly any setting or situation.

Interested? Then read on for the tiers and pricing and such.

The first tier of interest is at US$10 where you can get a digital PDF of all the cards to print on your own. For a physical deck the lowest tier is US$25 (includes free shipping within the US, additional for outside), and then several tiers of additional deck, digital and other goodies in a mix. Some of these other goodies are the Conflict PvP Rulebook from the same company (Conflict Roleplaying) and other gaming aids like battlemaps. If I have read the FAQ correctly, it also seems that backers at the US$25 tier and higher will receive the physical stretch goal rewards, too, of which there are several. Overall, not too expensive considering the cards look to be pretty well made.

Now for my favorite segment: the judging of the Kickstarter page. I really don't have to do it for this project, though, as it has already more than smashed through its original funding goal and many stretch goals -- clearly, it has done something very right. Still, let's run through it quickly -- starting with the video. The video is well made -- seems like there might have been a company hired to do at least the first half of it. The one problem I had with it, though, was the bright ball of light behind the text -- that was a bit blinding and made it a tad difficult to read some of the words. Moving on to the page content -- there are quite a few images that clearly show the product, images that show the different tiers and their rewards, and images that show off the stretch goal rewards. You hardly have to even read the page and you know generally know what's going on and what it's about. I like that. The written portion is okay, as well, and does thoroughly describe the product and its uses. It's a fine Kickstarter page all-around, but I feel it is all the clear images that really help take it a bit further.

And there you go -- liven up the deaths in your game with some ready-made descriptions. If you'd like to know more about the Combat Description Cards, feel free to check out its Kickstarter page. For more information on the company behind the cards, Conflict Roleplaying, be sure to check out their website.