Kickstarter Lookback: Tidal Blades 2, Way Too Many Cats and More!

0:08 Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel and welcome to Kickstarter look back where I take a look at games that I've backed for the Dice Tower um on Kickstarter and this has been years ago and I take a look at what I think about the game now, where the game is ranked, things like that and we see what's going on with that game in particular. So, we got a few games we're going to be taking a look at today. Let's get started. We're going to start with a game from Weird Draft Games called Way Too Many Cats, which for me, the answer to that is one. I just Cats are cute. Um, but that's what this game is about is about collecting cute cats and putting them into a grid. Now, there's a lot of games about putting things into grids, but this one had a really cool concept to it where you also are collecting kittens and toys and putting them on the grids.

0:53 And honestly, once I played this game, I was very impressed by it. If you notice, I've given it an eight. This game did well. We draft has a a nice following. Uh how well did this game do? It made uh 33,000 with 700 backers. So, that's nice. And uh on Board Game Geek, unfortunately, it's ranked 13,733. I don't know if it's the name or anything else, but I'll tell you what, we're draft makes a lot of good games. I definitely think this is one of their best. Some really interesting concepts here. You should check it out. Then we have Malia Lands of Legends. This one did 581,000 euros from 5,000 backers. So, this is a giant adventure style game uh where you can level up your heroes and face dangerous enemies, learn how to wield your weapons, save your progress easily.

1:44 I've heard a lot of good about this game. It's sitting at my house. I got this game. I don't know when this came into the Dice Tower. Several months ago, and I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to go try this out. I'm going to try it out. I promise I'm going to get to it." But there's just so much involved with it. And so, it's Laboot Deju. So, the ratings here are pretty decent. It's 6,36. So, let's see where the ratings are. There's a lot of tens. A lot of tens. A lot of ones, though, too. That probably means they're yelling about something. Oh, a bad rule book with no index. That's right. So, that's the thing. I got to I got to kind of batter my way through the rule book. I think that I'll get around to doing it. I'm hoping this one's good. There's so many, you know, dungeon crawl style games. We'll have to see.

2:34 Title Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders. This one did very well. Almost made a million dollars with 8,000 backers. Now, this was kind of a weird one. Title Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders be plus an RPG, which I don't know anything about. Um, but this Rise of the Unfolders, this is called Title Blades 2. Well, it has nothing to do with Title Blades one. I really think they messed up here by calling it that. You really shouldn't call it game two when it's a different game than one, cuz people are going to think it's a sequel. It should be very similar. Title Blades one was a fine game. Title Blades 2 is an excellent, very immersive theme, which the first game also had, but with a great dungeon crawl boss battler type experience. Here it is. ranked 1,913 on Board Game Geek, which is pretty good. I ranked it an 8.5 and I think I'm one of the least liked it here in the Dire Studios. I It's such a fantastic game.

3:27 It has a great system where you have this 3x3 grid of sliding cards. I just It's such a fantastic game. Rove expansion collection. Now, I want to be clear, this one's interesting because I played two games called Rove very close to one another. One is the big giant dungeon crawl game that's similar to Gloom Haven in some ways, but the other is this one. This is from Jason Tagmire. And so I never played the original Rove. So I got this expansion collection which did really well. 3,000 backers, 100,000 for a game you can fit in your pocket. I got Rove Jr. and Rove and I played them. I think Rove Jr. actually I liked a little better. I think Rove is fine. This one does pretty well though. Again, it's ranked at 1,355, which for a pocket game is pretty high.

4:14 Um, it's kind of a slide puzzle game. You're placing things out and moving them around based on different rules and things like that. And I found it to be a somewhat interesting puzzle, although it's very difficult. Um, but yeah, Tagmire is a company that you can back with the knowledge in your heart. They will deliver. Casting shadows. So, this is from Ramy Batty. Uh, $36,000. This made $4 million. This is one of the biggest Kickstarters that we have backed. And for some reason, I've not played this one. I think it came into the Dice Tower Studio. I'm I'm pretty sure we got this one backed here with all the different cool things about it. But I I never got around to playing it. I don't know. The Ta- Turtle stuff, Unstable Games. I've played some of the games. This one's ranked 5,769 in Board Game Geek, which is not particularly high, especially considering how many ratings it has. But you can see there's a lot of there's there's a few high ratings, a lot of sevens, a ton of sixes here, really, but even a good chunk of fours, threes, and twos. Not a lot of comments, though. So, yeah, maybe I'll get around to playing this at some point. Not sure why I didn't.

5:29 Bosa, this is a small little game. This did not do very well. 300 backers made 2 million, you know, yen. I'm not really sure what the that works into here. Um, but it is a small little game about putting dice in order, putting dice in your side, using actual dice, but also using dice tiles. I thought it was fine. I wanted to like it more. It comes in a really nice case. Look at this little case where you put all the dice in. I It just It feels very classy. It's this little back and forth uh dice game for two players. But it was fine. I'm always in mused by these and intrigued by them and there's always a good chance that I will back them. But yeah, fine. UND1C1, the best soccer game ever. So, I'm guessing this one got shipped. I think we unboxed it. I don't I did not play it. This one had €228,000 onto it. Is there an unboxing video for the Dice Tower? Uh Mark previewed it back in the day.

6:36 Man, I really hate the name of this game, but yeah, I just I will say the box is very uninspiring. The whole thing does not look particularly great. What's it ranked in Borg Geek? 5,230. Let's look at the ratings. A lot of very high ratings. So, I don't know. Maybe I think it's really hard to take soccer and make a good game out of it. It just is. because it's such a fast game football is. But um yeah, who knows? Maybe someone can in the comments can persuade me to try this unitition. Five clans, one war, two ways to win. So this is a weird little game. Only 395 backers, only 14,000 and they hit their funding goal. They did well. Um and the game was promptly forgotten. It's ranked 17,939 on Board Game Geek, but I liked it. I don't think it's amazing, but it's a game where you have these different colored decks and each color does various things and it's just a other than that a pretty solid straightforward deck building game where you attack the other player and I found it to be amusing. It's a two to five player game.

7:42 Plays better with more, I think. Yeah, you can check out my review to see more about it, but yeah, I like this one. It just didn't it just didn't take off. Didn't not a lot of people played it. Encyclopedia. This is from the unfortunately now defunct Holy Grail Games, but this one did really well. 310,000 euros, 4,700 backers here. And this you've been hired as Darwin's helper here to uh oh, his predecessor, sorry, to make the first encyclopedia. And you are making this encyclopedia and filling it up with these things about animals. And I remember very much the first time I played this game thinking that's it. Now, there is a definitely this game has done well. My rating is on the low end. If you can see, it's 1,329.

8:28 Uh, high production values. The articor is fantastic. I just found it to be very boring and a lot of work for little payoff for me. So, I I didn't end up on the good side of this, but some people enjoy it. Mercurial. This is from, I believe, Good Games. Um, this is a this game made 450,000 with 5,000 backers. This is a game about like casting spells and you're using dice and then you use these dice and you're converting things and there's a a good and bad meter on the bottom going back and forth. There is a lot going on in this game which is what kept me from enjoying it. As you notice, it's I ranked here at 5,000. It's ranked on boarding geek at 5,000. I gave it a five. I wanted to like this game more than it did. It seemed like it lasted way too long. There's a lot of cool things. There's a lot of icons and unfortunately it just didn't take off.

9:28 This is sometimes good game stuff does this. I think there's too much for the amount of fun that the game gives you. Good art and I like the theme, but it just didn't work for me. And finally today, Silicon Valley. This is from Scott Arms. Mixing Polyomino and economics doesn't sound particularly good. And I think this is the other game was from Holy Grail. Uh this one's from Grail. This one made 37,500 backers. So not a lot. And I think part of that is the Silicon Valley theme isn't really one that attracts people very much for whatever reason. But uh it's ranked 13,584 here. I liked it. I didn't love it. There are some issues. And I know that the resident Eurogamers here at the Dice Tower, Wendy and Chris, also were not they were not huge fans of it. Not not not as much as I liked it.

10:14 There's definitely some take that. There's definitely a little bit of engine building, but I found it amusing and I liked the theme. Although, as you can see, I'm more in the in the small amount. And not to mention, there's only 86 people have rated this game. It really And not a single 10. That's always I guess that's always weird when your game doesn't No one says it's a 10. That's kind of an odd thing. Um, but I liked it, but not enough really to, you know, keep talking about it, raving about it. I haven't thought about it since uh until doing this video. So, there you go, folks. Some more games that I took a look at going through. Um, of the games we talked about today, you know, I Well, Tidal Blades is is my favorite. Although, I want to say, hey, check out Too Many Cats cuz not a lot of people have. But, Tidal Blades 2 is my favorite of the ones here. What is your favorite? Is there one of these that I should be giving a chance? Should I get around to playing Malia? I'm I I I I'm going to. I promise at some point. Um, but uh, yeah, these are the games that we I took a look at on Kickstarter.

11:18 Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Vasil. We'll see you next time. Hey, uh, thanks for watching another video here on the Dice Tower. Uh, we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at the Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support the Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video, and we have links to lots of other things we do down there. So, definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched us. Tell your friends about the Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vassel, and I hope you enjoyed this video.