Kickstarter Korner- Encounters: Shattered Wastes

What is this project?

Encounters: Shattered Wastes is a cooperative tactical game from new publisher Almanac Games. You and your fellow players control characters as you fight enemy forces. The game is a combination of dice and card mechanics. The game has an interesting mechanic where your hero characters have two version; normal and shattered. A hero flips to the shattered side after they have been defeated, essentially providing you with two “lives.” However, you also have unique abilities on the shattered side and are more vulnerable. This suggests an interesting tactical challenge. Do you let yourself take damage in order to get access to your shattered abilities?

What do I get?

For the price of $55 you get the full base version of the game. This includes the game board, all the necessary cards, tokens and colorful cardboard figures and stands for all enemy and friendly characters. The Deluxe edition gives you a nice storage box, upgrades all of the character standees to colorful acrylic versions, gives you a neoprene mat instead of a board and some fancier cards and dice. This is a $70 increase in cost but is still not a ridiculous price. I’ve seen many Kickstarters where deluxe editions run into the hundreds of dollars and the base game is well over a hundred. The character being standing templates instead of full miniatures is a mixed option. On the one hand, the artwork for the characters is very nice and in full color, so no painting necessary. I expect the deluxe acrylic version will hold up quite nicely, but the base game cardboard is well, cardboard.

Will it fund?

It funded within the first 24hrs so you can back with confidence you’ll be getting a game.

Stretch Goals?

There are several available. The first one adds in Location cards which can be used to increase the challenge for encounters you have already beaten. This feels like a fairly essential component to the game so its nice to be first and will be added to all versions as this milestone has already been reached. The second milestone doesn’t excite me as it is just some alt art for the play area but the third level adds custom inserts for game storage, which I personally am always a fan of. As of this writing that one is achievable but still several thousand dollars away.

Why should I back it?

The game looks fun and is from a new publisher, Ryan “Moisture” Farmer from the Fly Better Podcast. The podcast has been a staple of the X-Wing community for years and while this is Ryan’s first game he has a lot of gaming knowledge and experience. All indications point to him having done his due diligence and the game looking quite solid. I look forward to giving it a try next year.