Weekly Kickstarter: Kobolds Ate My Baby

Avid readers will no doubt recognize the creators of this week’s Kickstarter, 9th Level Games, from hosting the popular Player#One event at Barcade and as the creators of the Kobolds Ate My Baby! roleplaying game. Well, KAMP! has been out of print for the last couple of years, and now Chris and Dan have taken to Kickstarter for a new edition… and this time it’s in color:

For many years, KOBOLDS ATE MY BABY! was a stack of photocopied pages stapled together with a garish orange cardstock cover. Somehow, that supremely low-budget humor game about fuzzy little carnivores being killed by the cruel whims of gods, wizards, and chickens became a fan favorite and cult classic.

KOBOLDS ATE MY BABY! struck a chord with gamers of all stripes – being funny, fun to play, and welcoming (and forgiving) to new players.  For veterans, it’s a funny parody of role-playing games (in the form of a role-playing game). From 1998-2005, KAMB slowly built up an audience of fun loving fans and spawned a host of supplements, revisions, editions and some truly amazing convention events.

With the addition of amazing new art by gaming comic folk hero John Kovalic (Munchkin, Apples to Apples, and Dork Tower) – KAMB! would go on to acclaim and notoriety being named “One of the Funniest Game of All Time” by Inquest Magazine and “Top Ten Humor Game of All Time” by Mike Selinker at Games Quarterly. Still, 9th Level Games was just these two guys from the suburbs of Philadelphia making games in the basement (often literally in the basement). When we started 9th Level Games, there really weren’t “indie rpgs” and “DIY publishers”. We were just as surprised as everyone else, when our games got into distribution and started to show up on game store shelves. But with changes to the industry, it became increasingly difficult for 9th Level Games to put out indie product – it wasn’t just not fun anymore, it became nearly impossible to get little games onto shelves.

Well, it’s 2013 and wow the future is different! We have access to affordable and powerful desktop publishing tools. Electronic publishing makes it possible to sell to customers directly. Social media means we have ways to market ourselves, and crowdsourcing means we can raise money to do something that we never thought that we could with Kobolds – DO IT RIGHT!

We have the opportunity to make a great book together.  Shiny pages filled with amazing color art. We don’t have to worry about page counts breaking our budget. We can have proper editing from real editors – so we don’t have a typo on the front cover*.  Indexing, hyperlinks, better charts, easy to read text, and full-color art from John Kovalic and more of it!  This will be the best edition of KOBOLDS ATE MY BABY! ever.

The project absolutely crushed its original goal in less than a day’s time, but there are tons of stretch goals and KAMB! continues to chew through them at a good clip. Backing this project is already a sure thing; get in there and help us close it out!

The Project: KOBOLDS ATE MY BABY!

Creators: 9th Level Games

Sweet Spot: $30 gets you a bunch of digital freebies, including a playable version of the latest edition of KAMB!, and also sets you up with a softcover version of the new, full color edition plus a Kickstarter exclusive special death chart. The real goods are at the $50 level, where you’ll get access to the Endless Buffet of Awesome, otherwise known as the stretch goal rewards. We’re already looking at 11 additional rewards as of this writing, with more to come.

Funding Deadline: April 3rd, 2013

More Info: Read up on Kobolds Ate My Baby! on the official site, follow them on Twitter, and check out the Kickstarter page for more videos and (lots) more info.

Every Monday Geekadelphia features a Kickstarter created by local Philadelphians. Check ‘em out and support our local geek scene. If you have a project that you’d like featured on site, contact [email protected]