Carcassonne Central

I happened to stumble across this game on it's first day on Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1191798117/ace-of-spies-0 (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1191798117/ace-of-spies-0)

I found the style of gameplay and theme appealing, and the promise of forthcoming stretch goals usually gets me. It's also one of the Staff Picks on Kickstarter.

It reached 40% funding in the first 24 hours. It's at 62% right now with 24 days remaining.

The intro video is VERY well done. :)

Unfortunately, it wasn't its first day on Kickstarter - it has appeared before. This is the second run for the project. The first project was cancelled. Although I backed the first campaign, I will not be backing this one - and this is why:

The first time around the game was offered at a straight $40 including shipping anywhere in the world. Quite a few US based geeks complained that they should not be subsidising international shipping. Albino Dragon (the publisher) said that US backers were not subsidising the international shipping and that they were taking the hit on the shipping, just so they could get the game out there. The goal of the project was a massive $40,000 and it was a very slow climb. The project was prematurely cancelled with a promise that they would come back with a better campaign.

Now the new campaign has been launched, I notice that the price has actually gone down for US based backers (to $25), whereas the price has gone up for us international backers (to $55). That does not balance with the statement during the last project run that US backers are not subsidising international delivery - it seems they were all along. So, as far as I can see, it is OK for Albino Dragon to lie to its customers.

Backers of the first project were also told that the card decks were not the only thing that backers would be getting in the box - Richard Borg (M44, C&C) was also finalising playtesting of the additional content. However, I spoke with one of the designers at the UK Games Expo on Saturday (just gone) and he mentioned that this additional content would probably not be included now.

Early opinions is that the game feels like Ticket to Ride game without the board, but unfortunately, I did not get a demo game on Saturday (at the UK Games Expo, where it was on demo) so I can't confirm this one way of the other. It appears to be four decks of cards, which at $55 (to me) is far too expensive.