Mage Company, the Bulgarian tabletop publisher behind Raid and Trade and Aether Captains has launched a new Kickstarter set in their fantasy storybook world of 12 Realms.
The original 12 Realms is a cooperative miniature game where you and your friends team up to take on, and hopefully stop, the Dark Lords’ overwhelming hordes from pillaging the 12 Realms. As you battle the Dark Lord's minions, you and your team work to collect artifacts before the major bosses of each realm invade. This game is similar to cooperative games like Pandemic.
Mage Company has launched four expansion packs already for 12 Realms, three of which started out on Kickstarter. 12 Realms: Dungeonland isn't just another expansion pack though, this is a completely new adventure.
With Dungeonland, instead of protecting the entire realm, you and up to three friends are taking the fight straight into the dungeon. As you are crawling through, room by room, you will encounter randomly generated beasts and objectives that offer both experience and gold allowing you to level up your character to acquire new skills and weapons. Dungeonland reminds me a little bit of Imperial Assault or Decent.
Like most dungeon crawlers, Dungeonland offers the standard campaign mode. This mode features 60 total scenarios in which each campaign uses 9, and adapts based on the choices you make. In this mode, your heroes grow stronger with each scenario they face as you prepare for the ultimate boss fight. The Master Quest mode offers similar combat and progression as the campaign mode, but it's designed like an endless runner. You can continue to add scenarios until the Dark Lord is truly defeated, or your group passes out. Whichever comes first.
An interesting addition to this set is the inclusion of an Arena mode. With this mode, 8 players can join up to face off against each other or fight off waves of enemies in a horde mode. With The Duel mode, each player can fight for themselves, or create teams of up to 4 players each, to take on the other squad.
Three days into funding, the Dungeonland Kickstarter hit its goal of $30,000 to launch the project. Since that point, Mage Company has raised an additional $10,000 to unlock both the Mushroom Knights and the Trickster Goblin enemy units. If the campaign raises an additional $5,000 this weekend, the game would also include the Tengu characters and bonus cards.
The game with all stretch goals and the Kickstarter exclusive boss, Crystal Golem, is available for $95. If you want painted figures, you will have to shell out quite a bit more at $220. There are also 2 tiers for retailers that include multiple copies of the game at $250 for 3 copies, or $300 for 5. All tiers include free shipping with an estimated delivery date of March 2018.
If you already have 12 Realms or its expansion packs, make sure you pick up the conversion kit which allows you to bring your heroes from the other games into the dungeon! While $15 may seem like a lot for this, it does include 34 hero sheets and cards to accommodate every character released to date. I've been rocking the Sugar Plum Fairy in the 12 Realms base game that Mage Company sent over. Being able to take her into the dungeon and the arena has me interested in this Kickstarter. A couple other campaign add-ons of note are the two additional characters, Poos in Boots & the Frog Prince for $10 together, and a really cool looking dice tower for only $5.
Throughout their 29 created Kickstarters, most of Mage Company's campaigns have delivered without trouble. 24 of their campaigns have been successfully funded with the other 5 canceled to rework the scope of the game to create a more market friendly product and price. While the company has had an impressive track record, it is worth noting that a recent campaign for 12 Realms: Bedtime Stories ran into supply issues and many backers in the United States are still awaiting delivery. It looks like Mage Company has been upfront and honest with their new timetable for delivery, but as always with Kickstarter, backer beware.
If you're interested in trying out a scenario from the game, check out the free digital demo over on Tabletopia. There are also some good video reviews and previews of the game up on the Kickstarter page as well. The campaign will end this weekend, so there are only a couple days left to secure the Crystal Golem if you're interested.
Have you played 12 Realms before? If so, are you interested in Dungeonland?
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