Golf Gambling Games: Five Formats You Should Be Playing

“I want X for Switch”, “when is X coming to the Switch”, “X is perfect for the Switch!” How often have you heard or said these sentences? Quite a lot, probably, especially about Nintendo franchises. Nintendo fans really like first-party games, and they’re always asking for their favorites to come back. Problem is, even though Nintendo owns dozens of franchises, there’s only a few that are guaranteed to show up during any given console, so fans of smaller franchises are left wondering when they’ll play them again.
Well, today I’ll try to mostly answer these questions. I’ll take a look at several, Nintendo-owned franchises and try to figure out what are their chances of coming to Switch. I’ll be basing myself on this such as release schedule, success of previous entries, popular demand, market niche and internal interest at Nintendo.
However, keep in mind two things. One: Nintendo owns a shit-ton of IPs, and I won’t cover them all. I’ll focus on the ones that have multiple entries, and even then, I might skip a few if I feel I have no meaningful insight.
And two: No matter what I or anyone else says, the chances for any of these games to come back is NOT ZERO. Nintendo is unpredictable and they’ll sometimes bring something out of the blue when you least expect it. This year alone we saw the return of Brain Age (a franchise not seen since 2012), Clubhouse Games (a sequel to a game from 2005), and Famicom Detective Club, a franchise with two games from 1988/89, which then received a remake in 1998 and then nothing until twenty two years later. Granted, it’s another remake, but it is still a modern installment in a franchise twenty two years dormant. If Famicom Detective Club can come back in 2020, so can your favorite franchise. Now, let’s begin, in alphabetical order:
Art Academy
Starting off with a small one. Art Academy is a series of drawing games that started on the DS in 2010 and then released pretty consistently over the following years, with three entries on 3DS and two (well, one and a half) for the WiiU between 2010 and 2016. Already this feels like a franchise with a pretty consistent release schedule, even though it hasn’t been seen for four years now. I don’t think any of the games were blockbusters, per se, but they also don’t need to be. They’re small games, probably inexpensive to produce that seem to do consistently well enough to get new sequels.
There are several obstacles that present themselves to the release of a new Art Academy, but I think all of them are easily overcome. For starters, AA is the type of casual game that thrived during the DS/Wii eras, a Touch Generations game. Since the Switch released, many have noted that Nintendo may want to distance themselves from that era due to the failure of the WiiU, and there may be some truth to that, but I feel like this is starting to change. Again, this year saw the return of both Brain Age and Clubhouse Games, both casual, Touch Generations DS games. I feel like, at the start of the Switch’s life cycle, Nintendo was indeed trying to focus on core gamers, but now that they have secured that core gamer audience, they may be more comfortable releasing more casual fare.
Furthermore Art Academy is developed by Headstrong Games, a British developer that doesn’t seem to do much other than AA. However, in 2017, that team was absorbed into its parent studio, Kuju Games. This move, which happened the year after the last AA game released, may have something to do with the franchsie’s MIA status. But, Kuju games is still active, having released a game just last year, and I don’t see why they couldn’t take up the mantle.
Finally, some speculated a few years ago that AA was dead due to the Switch not having a stylus but, OH WAIT, Brain Age fixed that too!
All in all, even though Art Academy is hardly a hot franchise, there’s very little standing in the way of its return, and little reason to doubt that it will.
Chances: Good
Chibi-Robo!
We may have started on a positive note, but here comes a downer. Chibi-Robo is probably not coming back anytime soon. This cute little robot debuted in his self-titled Game Cube game, developed by Skip Ltd. Like most games by the developer, it was quirky and fun, and not very popular, but had its fans, and Chibi-Robo must have endeared someone at Nintendo, because he kept showing up here and there. He got two DS sequels, though the second one was Japan-only, already a red flag. In 2013, he starred in a 3DS eshop game that was very different from the main games, more of an experimental spin-off, and was not well-received.
But the real final nail came in 2015, with Chibi-Robo Zip Lash! The game was announced to be a 2D platformer, and many fans identified the change in genre (from a unique adventure game to one of the most over-saturated genres in Nintendo consoles) as a total sell-out, and they were totally correct! The developers basically admitted that they did it to try and get more players (red flag). Series producer Kensuke Tanabe then said that if the game didn’t sell well, it could be the end of the franchise (RED FLAG). And then, the unfortunate but inevitable happened. Zip Lash was a critical and commercial bomb, and neither the developer nor the franchise has been seen again. Aside from the inevitable Smash Bros mentions, Chibi-Robo has only been seen on that infamous flaming tweet from 2018 (I told you someone at Nintendo really likes them). To make matters worse, there are increasing signs that Skip Ltd may be going under
So, a struggling franchise makes a desperate move to gain fans, a developer expresses concerns for its future if the game bombs, said game bombs and now the developer may be going out of business? It seems the writing is on the wall.
Now, even if Skip goes under, that is not necessarily the end of Chibi. Nintendo would still retain the rights, as they did for Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk after developer Cing went under. As for whether or not Nintendo would want to give the franchise a second (third? Fourth?) chance, it doesn’t look good
Chances: Very bad
Custom Robo
From one diminutive robot to another, the Custom Robo series is and robo-battle series that began on the N64. It was Japan only, as was its N64 and GBA sequels. Afterwards, Nintendo did try to expand it, releasing a GameCube game in NA, and a DS game in NA and Europe. However, despite the fact that players of these games will attest to how good these games are, they didn’t seem to do very well, and the franchise has not been seen since 2007.
There was one statement of internal interest, when a developer in 2014 said that he heard demands both inside and outside the company for a new entry, but that there were no plans for one, and he was unsure when there would be. Six years on, it seems there still aren’t. In fact, the developer itself, Noise, is also strangely MIA. Though they are officially still active, with their website being updated for 2020, they have not worked on a game since 2015.
Then, in 2018, many fans watched in horror the news that Nintendo let the trademark expire. Some have pointed out that this isn’t as bad as it seems, as it refers specifically to games on optical discs, which Nintendo doesn’t make anymore, but I don’t know enough about the subject to say for certain. Regardless, it’s evident that Nintendo still owns the franchise, as Custom Robo content appears in Smash Ultimate.
On the other hand, one of the series creators, Kohji Kendoh, is still thinking about it. He is working for another developer, and released a suspiciously similar game called Synaptic Drive just this year, as well as talking about Custom Robo in social media. It seems like a Mighty no9/ Yooka-Laylee/Bloodstained situation, in which the owner of an Ip is not using it, so the creator releases a spiritual successor.
Bottom line, there seems to be demand for Custom Robo. A developer saw it six years ago, and the creator is seeing it now. Whether or not thinks this demand is enough to revive the franchise, is tough to say, but doesn’t look great.
Not as bad as Chibi-Robo, though
Chances: Bad
Daigasso! Band Brothers
Here’s a franchise Americans never got. Daigasso! Band Brother is a rhythm game released for the DS in 2004 and stars Barbara the Bat, who has an uncharacteristically risqué design for Nintendo. The game was Japan-only but seems to have been successful, it received a sequel in 2009 (released in Europe, but not NA), and another in 2013 for the 3DS. Despite not having received new games since then, the series is far from inactive. Barbara the Bat in particular, like Chibi-Robo, seems to have fans inside Nintendo because she pops up everywhere. She had cameos in a few other DS games, she was an AT in Brawl and a spirit in Ultimate, she was a costume in Mario Maker, she appeared in a comic strip with WarioWare’s Ashley, and the series has a Twitter account that was super active all the way up to April of this year (more on that later). In 2017, that account even tweeted a comic strip of Barbara demanding a Switch. That was probably not a tease of anything, as it’s been 3 years and nothing, but stuff has happened with the franchise even more recently.
Last year, in 2019, six years after the release of the 3DS game, there were 30 songs added to the game in celebration of the series 15th anniversary. So as late as last year, Nintendo was celebrating this franchise with an in-game event. Now, the servers for the game were shut down earlier this year (hence the end of the Twitter account), and the game was removed from the eshop (as it is basically pointless without the servers), but with recent news that the 3DS has ceased production, it’s pretty clear that the game’s end is a consequence of the 3DS’ end, and not a lack of players. So if the series is alive, but can’t be on the 3DS, it has to go somewhere, no? Bottom line: the games are successful, the series is active, and the character is popular. I don’t know if Barbara the Bat’s next tour will be an international one, but I’m confident it will happen
Chances: Very Good
Dillon’s Rolling Western
DRW is a unique western-themed tower defense game released on the 3DS eshop in 2012. It received mixed reviews, but had a dedicated fanbase, and was successful enough to spawn two sequels, one in 2013, and a post-apocalyptic themed one in 2018. With a game having released just two years ago, its reasonable to say the series is not dormant, so the prospect of a new game is always likely. The developer, Vanpool, who mostly works on smaller scale stuff like this, is both still active and still working at Nintendo.
So, really the only reason to believe the series wouldn’t continue would be if the latest game bombed really hard. It’s hard to say that it did, as sales figures are unavailable, but it was a 3DS game in 2018, probably didn’t set the charts on fire. But then again, unless Nintendo had some really unrealistically high expectations, I don’t think it could have bombed hard enough to kill the franchise that fast.
There’s not much more to say. There aren’t any rumblings of a return, but also no reason to be pessimistic.
Chance: Above Average
Earthbound
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: There will not be a Mother 4
The Creator of the series, Shigesato Itoi, has said that he would not work on a fourth installment, as he feels the story is complete. Now, normally, Nintendo could just say “screw creative integrity, let’s make a fourth game anyway!” but Shigesato Itoi directly co-owns the series’ copyright so they actually can’t. So unless Itoi changes his mind, or he dies and Nintendo decides to ignore his wishes (neither scenario is completely outside the realm of possibility), Mother 4 is not happening.
So, if new Mother content is made, it’d be either a remake, or Mother 3 localization. We all know demand for this last one is overwhelming, Nintendo themselves have acknowledged it multiple times, but it still hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t seem things have changed. A remake is possible, but don’t hold your breath for it.
Despite the series’ popularity, I think all we’ll see of it is the first two games in NSO.
Chances: Bad
Excitebike
This is a hard one to pinpoint. Excitebike is one of those classic NES games that Nintendo likes to reference all the time, like Ice Climber, Balloon Fight, Wrecking Crew and Duck Hunt. Unlike those, Excitebike actually received sequels and established a franchised. There was a great entry on the N64 and three entries on the Wii, but nothing more since. I can’t imagine the Wii entries were super successful, and there really hasn’t been any word from Nintendo about any interest in reviving the series, either from developers, or the fans. The developer of the Wii games, Monster Games, is still active, and still makes racing games and extreme sports games, but hasn’t worked with Nintendo in 5 years.
Now, one point I see often, and that I’d like to address, is the idea that Nintendo doesn’t want multiple games from the same genre on the same console. I can’t agree. With the exception of the WiiU, every Nintendo home console since the SNES has had multiple Nintendo-published racing games released for it. WiiU didn’t but that console is an exception to many norms. I don’t see why Mario Kart, behemoth that it is, would stop any other racing game from being made, especially when they are so very different (although the fact that MK8 has an Excitebike track doesn’t inspire confidence).
No, I don’t think Mario Kart is the problem, I think is just lack of interest. And though Excitebike is not a franchise Nintendo will ever truly forget, it’s not really revving up for a comeback either. It could happen, it could not
Chances: Medium
Fatal Frame
This horror franchise wasn’t originally a Nintendo product, being released on the PS2 by Tecmo. However, since the fourth game, each title in the series has been published and copyrighted by Nintendo, and this seemingly applies to all future entries, as the series producer said the series’ future is up to Nintendo. So, how does that future look like?
Well, the last game in the series, Maiden of Black Water, was a WiiU game, which means it didn’t sell well, but not as badly as you might think. From all I could find, which is admittedly not much, sales for the game seemed to be only slightly less than previous entries, a gap more than explainable by its console. So, if the series was getting sequels before, the WiiU game’s sales wouldn’t be the reason why there wouldn’t be more. And though Nintendo of America has had to take baby steps into accepting the franchise overseas, Nintendo of Japan seemed satisfied with it, releasing four games between 2008 and 2014.
So sales aren’t an evident problem, what about the developer? That developer is Tecmo Koei, who is not only active and buddies with Nintendo, their current project is none other than Nintendo’s big holiday title. There’s obvious trust there. As for interest, there is a lot. From Koei Tecmo calling it a valuable IP, to the series producer stating multiple times, including this year, that he’d like to bring it to the Switch
Now, this comment pretty much confirms that a new Fatal Frame is not in development as of now, but it has a chance of happening. And remember, the last game is on WiiU, and if we know anything about those, is that they like to come to Switch. And though I don’t see Nintendo breaking their necks to make a new entry, I don’t think they’d oppose it if Tecmo pitches it to them, especially if it’s just a port.
Chances: Good
Fossil Fighters
This game is not Pokémon, or so its fans tell me. Fossil Fighters is a DS game from 2008 where you collect various species of dinosaur and battle with other ~Dinosaur Trainers~ Fossil Fighters in RPG battles. It didn’t receive great reviews, but was successful enough to get a sequel two years later, and another one on the 3DS in 2014. Three games in six years is a pretty good release schedule, and things were looking alright, until that 3DS game came. It was primarily developed by a different studio, and it showed. The game received abysmal reviews, and fan reception was similar. Sales weren’t awful, but not great either.
Since then, the series has been completely quiet. The developer, Red Entertainment, is still active, but hasn’t worked with Nintendo since the 3DS game. As for interest, there hasn’t been a peep from Nintendo about this series at all. No interviews describing vague interest in bringing it bad, no acknowledgment of fan demand, no cameos in other games (aside from Smash, which doesn’t count, Smash has everything). Even fan demand doesn’t seem too high, most of what I’ve seen is a Change.org petition which has been up for a year and has not reached its 2500 signatures goal.
It looks like this series could become a fossil itself. Someday some might dig it up and revive it to use in battle, but I’m not feeling it.
Still not as bad as Chibi-Robo
Chances: Bad
F-Zero
This is the reason you’re reading this.
Oh, F-Zero. If fan demand alone was the deciding factor, F-Zero would be top priority. People want F-Zero, people beg for F-zero, people who have never played, beg for F-Zero. And Nintendo knows this, they’ve acknowledged it. They themselves haven’t forgotten it. Even putting Smash aside, there was an F-Zero minigame in Nintendo Land. There are F-Zero tracks in Mario Kart. They’ve done everything but make a new F-Zero game, but why the hell not?
Well, it’s important to understand that the F-Zero series declined in sales throughout its life. The best-selling game is still the first, and though the following games were fantastic, they sold less and less, and yet, strangely enough, between 2003-2004, Nintendo released THREE F-Zero games. Around the same time, they also released an anime. There are several great articles and videos about what happened to F-Zero, but the best point I’ve seen is that Nintendo tried, in 2003, to really push F-Zero, but it didn’t work. So, with their attempt failed, they let the series sleep, and just never woke it up, even as fan demand increased.
In 2015, Miyamoto commented on the series, and said that, though he heard the demand, he was unsure on what to do with the series, on how to make a new game. Many fans scoffed and said he’d just need to make a modern F-Zero and that’d be great, but I think internal concern runs deeper. Just doing F-Zero failed in 2003, so why would it work now?
That said, I think there is hope. Fan demand is powerful, and more and more we see a new generation of Nintendo developers pushing the company forward. These younger developers are the ones behind new IP like Splatoon and ARMS, and great reinventions of existing ones like Odyssey and BotW. It’s possible that these same younger developers could hear the fan demand, and want to take on the series without the hesitation of their older peers.
It’s been 16 years, but Kid Icarus was gone for 19, wasn’t it?
Stranger things have happened
Chances: I want to believe
Golden Sun
And here’s the other one.
Few Nintendo fans are as vocal and dedicated to their dormant franchise as Golden Sun games. For those who don’t know, Golden Sun was a couple of excellent GBA RPGs released in 2001 and 2002, with a DS sequel in 2010. Such erratic release schedule would make predicting the series’ future difficult at the best of times, but the DS game was seen as a disappointment by many fans and sales were unimpressive. With ten years having passed with no new game, is the series done for? Well, let’s look at it.
In 2012, one of the developers gave an interview in which he straight up said that, if there was fan demand for it, there would “naturally” be a fourth game. We know that developer interview doesn’t immediately guarantee a sequel, but this is also a much more positive statement than Custom Robo and F-Zero’s “We know there’s demand, but we don’t know what to do with it”. This is “If there’s demand, it will happen.” So, is there demand?
You bet your ass there is. And it feels like it is growing. There was a high-profile hoax about a fourth game in 2017 (a similar hoax happened some time before the third game, by the way). The series received notably more content in Smash Ultimate than series of similar standing (quite possibly an acknowledgment of its popularity). And last year, Cory Balrog, director of 2018’s GOTY God of War, tweeted about all the franchises he would trade for a new Golden Sun. Nintendo could hardly have asked for a higher profile endorsement within the industry.
So if fan demand is there, why hasn’t it happened yet? Well, it helps to look at the development history of the series. The first game took eighteen months to develop, considered a long time for a handheld game at the time. And though the eight years between the GBA and DS games may have you believe it took a long time to greenlight a sequel, that’s not the case. Signs point to internal discussion about a sequel to the GBA games as early as 2002, with developers quoted as saying that Nintendo was asking them to make a new one. One of the series producers also said that the series takes a long time to make because of its complexity. After the DS game failed to meet expectations, its understandable that Nintendo may not have been as enthusiastic for a new game as it was before, but it seems like, even if the series is alive and well, the long hiatus would not be uncharacteristic. In that same interview quoted before, the developer even said that a new game would take a long time. In fact, if GS4 had started development shortly after that interview, if it took as long as Dark Dawn, the game would be wrapping up production around now.
Then there’s the developer, Camelot. Aside from Golden Sun, they pretty much only make Mario Tennis and Mario Golf. They release schedule is also super consistent, with a new game every other year, sometimes every year. We already got a Mario Tennis on Switch two years ago so, if not for COVID, their new game would probably have released this year. All things point, then, for the next Camelot game to hit the Switch next year. Smart money would be in Mario Golf, but maybe it is finally Golden Sun.
Finally, I don’t think, as others do, that Xenoblade is the reason GS is not happening. Again, I don’t see evidence to support the idea that Nintendo doesn’t want to publish more than one game in the same genre. Both the GBA and DS had more than a dozen Nintendo-published RPGs, and the Wii and 3DS got RPGs even after Xenoblade released for them. I don’t see why Xenoblade would stop a Switch Golden Sun, especially when they are very different kinds of RPGs. GS is actually closer to Octopath Traveler, whose success was enough to impress SE, why wouldn’t Nintendo want a piece?
Really, I think the biggest obstacle is that Nintendo might want to prioritize the safe investment of Mario sports games over Golden Sun, but the more I research, the more I feel like GS’s chances are higher now than they were at any point in the last ten years.
I feel there’s hope this sun will rise again
Chances: Above average
Kid Icarus
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Kid Icarus was an OK NES game that had a forgotten Game Boy sequel and then nobody cared about it for 19 years until it was unexpectedly revived for the 3DS in 2012. This story is a testament to the fact that, just because its been a long time, it doesn’t mean it will never happen. But in order to know if it will happen again, let’s understand how it happened in the first place.
It’s important to mention that reviving Kid Icarus was not the intent behind KI: Uprising, it was the idea of its director, Masahiro Sakurai. Nintendo had given him a project and Sakurai decided to use an established franchise for it. He briefly considered Star Fox, but decided to use Kid Icarus, for which he probably had a soft spot, considering he had added Pit to Brawl some years earlier. So, there wasn’t an exec at Nintendo who woke up one day and decided to bring Kid Icarus back, they gave the director a project, and, after some deliberation, he decided to use Kid Icarus for it.
That director is currently busy developing Smash Bros DLC, but even after that’s over, he probably won’t revisit Kid Icarus. He has shot down the idea of him working on a sequel or a port. His words were: "For now, my thought is that perhaps we'll see someone else besides me make another Kid Icarus in another 25 years." Yikes. That’s pretty damning. Sure, Nintendo could get someone else to make the game, but if it was only Sakurai that was interested in the series in the first place, what is the hope of that?
Well, that statement is not super accurate. Before Uprising, there was actually a Kid Icarus reboot in development for the Wii. It was cancelled, and thank God for it, as it was an awfully stupid gritty reboot, but it showed that there was interest in the franchise even before Uprising. Naturally, you’d expect interest to be bigger now than before.
The fact that Uprising not only grew the series’ fanbase, but the that there are Kid Icarus characters in Smash Bros, means that the franchise has a permanent place in the interest in Nintendo fans. Smash in particular means that there are 18 million people who know Pit and Palutena and would turn their heads if a new game was announced. Furthermore, Nintendo’s new CEO is interested in bringing 3DS franchises to the Switch after the success of the Switch Lite, especially now that the 3DS is officially dead, so the opening is there for it.
There is definitely demand for a new Kid Icarus game, but it is too sporadic a franchise to be certain, and if it were to happen, Nintendo would have to find someone new to do it. But, in the end, the series is definitely in a better place now than it was 10 years ago.
Chances: Medium
Legendary Starfy
Legendary Starfy was a 2D platformer for the GBA that was apparently really successful, as it received four sequels in the span of five years. Not only that but, like Barbara and Chibi-Robo, Starfy himself was quite popular. He had cameos in Mario & Luigi and Super Princess Peach, music of the series was in Donkey Konga, he is a regular Assist Trophy in Smash and was a costume in Mario Maker. Though the series took until the last game to come to the West, there were plans to bring the first four games too, as well as consideration for expanding the series to the Wii. The series was widely advertised, with animated commercials and tons of merchandise, including plush dolls, CDs, pencils, birthday balloons, casino cards and two manga series. When asked if there were plans for a sixth game, the developer answered “Yes!”, no ifs, not buts, straight-up Yes.
And then… nothing. The series just stopped. And the reason why is: I have no idea. Maybe if the last game bombed spectacularly, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Sure, Japanese sales declined with each entry, but not by that much. Maybe NA sales weren’t what Nintendo was hoping for, but surely not enough to kill such a steady franchise.
The confusion only grows when we look at its developer, Tose. Now, this is interesting. You’ve probably played a Tose game without knowing. They have worked on over A THOUSAND GAMES, but they never receive credit. They merely assist with development in the shadows. As one exec puts it: "Our policy is not to have a vision. Instead, we follow our customers' visions. Most of the time we refuse to put our name on the games, not even staff names." They are a ghost developer. Even its Wikipedia page admits that the list of games on it is purely speculative. There are probably hundreds more, that we don’t know about.
The only exception is the Starfy series. That series was their vision. So why did they stop? Could they have decided that it was against their vision to make a game of their vision? We can only speculate.
The fact that the series’ end was so unexpected, and its developer so mysterious, means that any speculation about it is a shot in the dark. All I can say is that there’s no particular reason to expect it.
Chances: Not Good
Nintendogs
Here’s a big one. Nintendogs was one of the biggest successes of the casual era, on par with Brain Age and Wii Fit, but unlike those, it remained a multi-million seller during the 3DS/WiiU generation. And though Nintendo may have tried, at first, to distance the Switch from that era, the return of Brain Age and Clubhouse Games indicates that other casual games would follow, and Nintendogs would be a no-brainer.
There is, however, one big problem: the Switch does not have a microphone. While Brain Age on the DS also used the microphone a lot, it was not essential to it. You could easily make Brain Age without it. But not Nintendogs. Issuing voice commands to your virtual pup is integral to the experience. No microphone means no Nintendogs.
But with that said, Nintendo did go to the trouble of making a Switch stylus, seemingly just for Brain Age, so maybe they could make a microphone peripheral. Sure, a microphone would be more complex to make than a stylus, but not inconceivable. They did something like that with the Wii Speak. I’m sure for that nintendogs money, Nintendo would do it.
Worst case scenario, Nintendo releases Nintendogs and forces you to use the NSO app’s voice chat to talk with your dog. You know they’d do it.
There’s also the fact that another developer released a nintendogs clone for the Switch last year, but I don’t think Nintendo gives a shit.
Chances: Good
Nintendo Wars
You may know this series better as “Advance Wars” and you may also know that it is fantastic. In fact, it is one of the highest rated Nintendo franchises on Metacritic, and had a pretty consistent release schedule between 1988 and 2008. All was looking pretty god. But unfortunately the series has been dormant since the last entry on DS. Part of it may be because the series, though originally Japan-only, was never all that popular in Japan. In fact, that last game only saw a limited release as a My Nintendo reward in the region.
There is, however, still demand for the series, both externally and internally. Producers from both Nintendo and developer Intelligent Systems have expressed enthusiastic support for a new entry, although they’ve also expressed some uncertainty on what they’d do with it, similar to the Custom Robo and F-Zero responses.
The developer for the series is Intelligent Systems, who do a ton of stuff and will be discussed multiple times in this post. They used to release multiple games a year, but have slowed down this past game to just one or two games a year, another possible reason why Advance Wars has been deprioritized, especially in comparison with that boogeyman of Advance Wars and Smash Bros fans alike: Fire Emblem. There is real concern that Nintendo might not want to make a new Advance Wars when they could just make the similar but more popular Fire Emblem instead.
That said, IS has already released a Fire Emblem and Paper Mario for Switch, and though we definitely will get at least one more FE during the Switch’s life cycle, there’s enough years left for IS to release some other games, whether they be AW or one of the three other franchises we’ll discuss in the future. Problem is, of those franchises, AW might be the most difficult to produce, and the most risky, so it could probably be lower priority. When asked about the series last year, one IS producer gave a pretty evasive answer, so things aren’t looking too good, but they aren’t hopeless either.
Chances: Medium
Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents
This rhythm series for the DS is widely beloved by those who played it, but its life cycle was pretty limited. One game in 2005, and Americanized version in 2006, and one sequel in 2007. Nothing more since The games were critically acclaimed, but not blockbuster hits.
The series creator said back in 2016 that he would love to create a new game, but nothing else has been said about it. The game’s developer iNis, doesn’t appear to be super active either.
All in all, there is very little pointing to a return
Chances: Bad
Pilotwings
The biggest obstacle to seeing this series of arcadey flight sims on the Switch is that the series has a very specific purpose: it’s a tech demo. All three games were launch titles for their systems and explicitly meant to show off each system’s new tech. The original game was made to show off the SNES’ Mode 7, the N64 game was meant to show off the console’s polygonal graphics, and Resort was meant to showcase the 3DS’ stereoscopic 3D. With the Switch’s release far behind us, and its graphics not really needing a showcase, Pilotwings chances seem low. Granted, Pilotwings doesn’t need to be a tech demo, but it could be how Nintendo views it as.
There is some fan demand for it, but not as much as F-Zero or Golden Sun, and no developer has commented on the possibility of a return. Pilotwings has always been moderately successful, but not enough to justify constant releases. The only glimmer of hope is the comment from Nintendo’s CEO about wanting to bring more 3DS franchises for the Switch, but it’s quite possible that he didn’t have Pilotwings in mind when he said that
Chances: Bad
Punch-Out!!
Another series popular enough to get a Smash character but not popular enough for consistent sequels, Punch-Out is a beloved classic with a consistent fanbase, but with a very erratic release schedule. After the SNES game in 1994, the series lay dormant for 15 years until it was revived for the Wii in 2009 and then laid to rest again. One explanation is that the series was never really popular in Japan. Neither the NES or SNES games were even available as full releases in the country, being instead, distributed as prizes or rewards. And though the Wii game got a full retail release, it sold very poorly. It’s always been a game more for Americans, so it is understandable that the Japanese developers at Nintendo aren’t super enthusiastic about it. That said, it was Nintendo who pitched the reboot in the first place, so they may want to do it again someday.
The developer for the Wii game was Next Level Games, who release a game every three or two years, and they also develop Mario Strikers and Luigi’s Mansion. Having already released LM3, it’s likely they’ll release another game for the Switch some time soon. That could be Punch-Out, but it is just as likely that it could be Mario Strikers, or something else entirely.
Some think that the series use of flagrant national stereotypes would impede it from coming back in today’s political climate, but frankly, I don’t think that’s as definitive a problem. Worst case scenario, they simply make a new cast, just like Super Punch Out, but less racially insensitive.
Another interesting development is that Mike Tyson has been talking about wanting a new Punch-Out this year. I don’t think Nintendo cares what he says, and they definitely don’t want to associate with him again, but it is a pretty high-profile person talking about the series, which is bound to raise interest. Whether that’s enough for Nintendo to consider a new game? I don’t think so. But regardless, Punch-Out is popular enough that the door is never truly closed for it.
Chances: Not Good
Pushmo
This acclaimed puzzle game was released for the 3DS eshop in 2012 and was successful enough to get three sequels. Although it hasn’t been seen since 2015, there doesn’t seem to be anything impeding its return. The developer is our good friend Intelligent Systems, and, of the aforementioned IS franchises still to launch on the Switch, Pushmo, being a simple, but beloved, puzzle game, seems like the safest investment. It likely could be developed alongside another major game.
There is demand for it, and considering Nintendo’s eshop efforts, Pushmo would fit in perfectly alongside Snipperclips and fellow 3DS eshop puzzle star Boxboy. All in all, there’s no reason not to expect Pushmo to come back.
Chances: Good
continued in comments

McClain's Mailbag - lotta frustration here

Thank you for making this the longest Mailbag we’ve posted. Most of you wanted to vent, so I ran your comments first and the ones that required answers come afterward.
Most of you have given up on the season after the 0-2 start that should be 0-3. I’m guessing you gave up on them after the 0-3 start in 2018. Titans fans gave up last season when they started 2-4. Ravens fans wanted John Harbaugh fired with a 4-5 record in 2018. And don’t forget the Colts’ 1-5 start in 2018 and 10-6 finish, including a victory over the Texans at NRG Stadium? I predicted in August the Texans would start 0-3, so I’m not surprised. Now, if they start 0-4, it’s time to hit the panic button.
Oh, I almost forgot, stunningly, a few of you want Bill O’Brien fired. Imagine that.
Please check out the Chronicle’s two television shows this season: “Texas Sports Nation” airs at around 11:30 p.m. Sundays on KPRC (Channel 2) after NBC's football game. “Texas Sports Nation: In Depth” runs twice a month on AT&T SportsNet Southwest, which also reruns it at different times. The staff is putting a lot of time and effort into the shows, and we hope you like the content.
As always, thank you for contributing to the Mailbag, reading our stories in the Chronicle's print editions and online at Texas Sports Nation, where we also have multiple weekly podcasts. As you do every week, please send your comments and questions to [email protected]. Note: questions have been edited for clarity and/or brevity.
Q: Same BS again this year. There have been many changes, millions of dollars spent, lots of new coaches and plenty more excuses to come. Bill O’Brien is the one constant. He is not a great coach, not even a good coach and still a worse GM. By the time McNair realizes we will be auditioning the next quarterback to lead them nowhere. The excuses are so old. — David P.
Q: Your grade of the HC/GM should be an F. It’s hard to write this during the fourth quarter of this game where I knew, as well as you, the Texans wouldn’t win. But going for it on 4th down in the first half again on our side of the field is flat out stupid. I would have been OK with it in the 4th quarter on Baltimore’s side of the field because we were down by two scores and a field goal wasn’t going to help. If the guards can’t run block or pass block any better than this then I have to call out the GM. Does Bill understand that the rest of the NFL coaches know the offensive line cannot block long enough for a deep route to hurt them. It appears he has built a quick-strike offense fantasy built around deep pass routes that does not reflect the offensive line’s ability to block. Use Cobb and the TEs more and run the clock because our defense is not built to be on the field for long stretches and we surely haven’t scared the opponent defensively. Please do not say we played Baltimore better this time then last time. We lost and until the coaching/drafting/trading gets better, the Texans will always be full of noise and nothing else. — Glenn P.
Q: It's amazing that the Texans still keep getting national television slots. And every time they do Bill O'Brien uses it to showcase really stupid coaching decisions. That David Johnson trade looks bad now, with no one to block for him, and no one to pass protect for Deshaun. And Hopkins is enjoying great success with a dynamic QB and 2-0 record. The more things change, the more things stay the same. The Texans are again proving to not be ready for the start of the season. Those poor guys are bad at everything, poor offensive line play, no pass rush, poor tackling, and boy do they get outcoached. Teams take on the personality of their coach. And OB is never prepared and extremely unpredictable. That offense looks the same to me and so does the sad sack defense. Poor Deshaun deserves better than running for his life game after game. — Ronald J.
Q: I just want to say that I'm sorry you had to sit through the entire Ravens-Texans game. At least I could switch to the U.S. Open golf tournament. I'm not going to rag on anybody this morning. Just some thoughts that seem to me to be reasonable concerning Deshaun Watson. I was prompted on this subject by Brian Smith's first paragraph of his column. To paraphrase, one of these days he is going to shout, “REALLY?” when another questionable 4th down call comes in. There are just a few gifted QBs that have an innate gunslinger quality about them. Watson, Jackson, Mahomes, Favre, and Russell Wilson, to name a few. I think Watson is being mismanaged. The GM/HC is trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. He is by nature a gunslinger. He is unconventional and they are trying to make him conventional. Turn him loose! Let him use the play called as a suggestion. See what happens when he is allowed to be who he is. My observation is he’s not a pocket QB. I see nothing in Kelly's play-calling that differs from O'Brien. Tim Kelly is an O'Brien clone. He studied and was groomed by O'Brien. What did we expect? I know, it's early. They were expected to lose this game. I just wish they would have gone out on their shields and not pouting on the bench. I know eventually O'Brien will be let go. My recommendation for replacement is Ravens DC Wink Martindale. Have you ever seen a more ravenous defense! You just wonder why we can’t be like that. They do trade film don't they? Weaver should study them until his eyes bleed. — Joe K.
Q: Hopkins is making Kyler Murray an MVP candidate. All Texans fans wish OB would go away. I worry about your sanity if you can't get over the Hopkins trade. Normally when you have fourth-and-1 at your 34, you punt. Why wouldn't you punt? Because your defense is arguably the worst in the NFL. Odds are they’ll be even worse if they are tired. It's one thing to know it another to announce it to the Ravens. Perhaps OB forgot, it's an emotional game. How do you think the Ravens felt then? OB’s got one of the most gifted QBs the NFL has ever seen at eluding a pass rush. What does a pump fake do? It gets DL to raise their hands and DBs to make a move. This is why the Texans are so damn frustrating. Yes, they stink on defense, and yes, they can barely block on most plays, but they still have the magician, DW4. What makes him so elusive? Body movements — subtle and not so subtle just like Air Jordan. It happens so quickly for these phenomenal athletes. It’s more instinct than thought. If you know anyone who has any influence with OB, pay them to whisper the words "pump fake." I bet you DW4 can sell a pump fake better than most. — Juan B.
Q: I was hoping the Texans would not start the season 0-2. The Ravens again beat the Texans. The Texans were outcoached and outplayed. The Ravens organization is clearly at a higher level than the Texans. The Texans' defense again was not effective against the run. The offensive line was not consistent with pass blocking or picking up the blitz. Then there was the fourth-and-1 at their 34. The coaching staff is hired to give you the best chance to win. This was not the best call, ever, on your side of the field against the Ravens defense. The play that was called had no chance of succeeding. This has become an alarming pattern for this team every year. Can we win in Pittsburgh? Not with this play-calling, poor defense and sporadic offense. I’m hopeful for a Texans win, but I see this year being very long and disappointing. — Darryl K.
More Texans Coverage
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JOHN MCCLAIN JOHN MCCLAIN John McClain's takeaways: Less is more for J.J. Watt
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TEXAS SPORTS NATION: TV & PODCASTS JOHN MCCLAIN, AARON WILSON Podcast: How can Texans win in Pittsburgh?
JOHN MCCLAIN BY JOHN MCCLAIN, STAFF WRITER McClain: Texans lacking that opening drive
JEROME SOLOMON BY JEROME SOLOMON, STAFF WRITER Solomon: Bill O'Brien lucky to have the only supporter he needs
TEXAS SPORTS NATION: TV & PODCASTS JOHN MCCLAIN, AARON WILSON Podcast: Why the Texans sit at 0-2 Q: The Texans looked a little more competitive but did not show anything to convince me they can beat the Steelers so I'm seeing an 0-3 hole. Hope springs eternal which is essential for Texans fans. This looks like my year to adopt the Cardinals as my team. I lived in Phoenix for 50 years so it's not a random choice. With DeAndre Hopkins playing like he's a Cardinals veteran alongside the ever-reliable Larry Fitzgerald, I'm sure they're a fun team to watch and a nightmare to defend against. I'd like to become convinced that Bill O'Brien knows what he's doing, but the mountain of evidence to the contrary just keeps growing. — Greg G.
Q: If Houston played KC and Baltimore nine more times each, they would lose all nine to both teams. They're probably not in the top five in the AFC! These are the teams they must compete with just to reach a Super Bowl. Houston is not even in the conversation to win it all. This sucks again for loyal Houston fans begging for a winner. O'Brien is the problem, not the solution. I fear we have many years before being able to make and succeed in the playoffs. I see easily an 8-8 team this year. — Rhett D.
Q: I listen to Sports Radio 610 and read the comments from everyone and its all the same old thing — it’s O’Brien’s fault. When do all these high-priced prima donnas start hearing the comments about them? O’Brien got rid of Clowney because he wanted too much money, the same reason that he’s with his third team in three years. He got rid of Hopkins because he had three years left on the contract he signed. When is enough enough? These guys talk about helping people, then buy more cars or more jewelry or go to the strip clubs and make it rain. When do the owners that took the chance and spent their money to buy these teams say enough is enough and lock the doors and say no more, let’s get real on all these demands and I own the team and it’s my way or the highway? They don’t need the players — the players need them. — Tommy P.
Q: Football 101: You can't expect to win by trading away your best players. — Tim H.
Q: Bring DeAndre Hopkins back home. Please get rid of BOB, he's ruining the teams. Get rid of everyone in organization staff and the medical staff as well. — Billy W.
Q: I have lived in Houston and followed sports and Houston is just not a winning town. Look at the poor play in this year’s first two games. You gave them an F. I give them a big F-minus. Okay, you don't win every game, but you should be at the top. We had a few times where we did get to the top but not near enough. Now the best was the Luv Ya Blue days with Bum Phillips. The owner did not like Bum getting all the credit so off went Bum, down went the Oilers. Sports is just way out of control. Look at the pay they get, the best heart surgeon does not come anywhere near. Now the real problem is kneeling when our beautiful flag is presented and the national anthem is played. Protest is no problem as when done in a positive and proper manner. These kneelers have a nationwide audience. What a disgrace for this great country. Remember, these guys are able to kneel because of the veterans. Just find another place and method to protest. I look at the headstones of our military with KIA (Killed in Action) and look what they gave for little pay. This protesting by kneeling has to stop. I and many others no longer watch or purchase commodities from the advertisers. This virus will also hurt. . I stand for the veterans. — James M.
The Houston Chronicle’s Brian T. Smith discusses Texans coach Bill O’Brien’s curious decisions In their loss to the Ravens and whether anything has changed with the franchise. Video: Houston Chronicle Q: It all goes back to coaching and a head coach is only as good as the personnel around him. Frank Broyles passed that on to me a long time ago. And looks like he might have known what he was talking about. — Jim D.
Q: I couldn’t agree more with you on the grade you gave the Texans against the Ravens. It’s probably not too late or too early to get rid of O’Brien as we all figured they would start out slow. That being said even if they go 10-6, they’re nowhere near the quality of the Ravens or the Chiefs. They have way too many holes on defense and even though they’ve got some big-name wide receivers, they are not on the same page. And the defense is absolutely horrible. Why have Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins been able to get on the same page so quickly while the Texans are struggling? I looked at their schedule and based on how they’ve played even though it’s been only two weeks I figure them to be no better than 8-8. That being said, I think O’Brien should be fired. I don’t know who should replace him. It looks like trading Hopkins is a catastrophic mistake and trading Clowney he has also been a catastrophic mistake. Not resigning Reader is a catastrophic mistake. — Glen K.
A: Glen, why was trading Clowney a catastrophic mistake? He didn’t do much in his one season with Seattle and had fewer sacks than Jacob Martin. He’s still getting in shape with the Titans. Would you have given him a $100 million contract? Nobody else has. As for D.J. Reader, good against the run, but over the last nine games last season, including the playoffs, they allowed like 166 yards a game rushing. And they still can’t stop the run.
Q: Any idea why the Texans elected not to have crowd noise pumped into the stadium? Also, what the hell was Bill O’Brien thinking going forward on fourth and 1 on his own side of the field? — Jimmy B.
A: They had crowd noise, Jimmy, but they didn’t have the volume turned up. As for the fourth and 1, the Ravens blitzed and nobody picked it up and the pass was incomplete. Sometimes you’re the bug. Sometimes you’re the windshield. OB was the bug.
Q: I am a Texans fan and will watch and try to be positive, but nothing helps. Why doesn't offensive line push these teams back? Why is our QB constantly trying to throw 30 yards? Why is our center always standing after a play, typically backward and not forward? — Stephen G.
A: The offensive line is off to a bad start against damn good defenses, Stephen. Watson is running for his life and trying to find receivers down the field, and he’s still thrown a lot of short passes.
Q: Your article said Bill O'Brien called the fourth-down tragedy. Later in the article it said Tim Kelly is calling the plays. It looks like an OB call to me. Is O'Brien still calling the plays and Kelly is just a puppet or what? I was ready to turn the game off right after that call. I knew how the rest of the game would go. More of the same with stupid offensive calls. Both KC and Baltimore have active, varied offenses. Coach puts Watson in a position where the offense can't even operate. He continues to try to jam up the middle with his running plays. Isn't there some creativity somewhere? — Chuck W.
A: Chuck, O’Brien made the decision to go for it, and Kelly called the play.
Q: No takeaways about the coaching? I know you graded them F in your report card. Just curious if you had a more profound opinion? Remember OB’s the GM as well. No opinion on any of his trades so far? I know it’s early but I don’t see progress but then again that’s why as fans we look to you for insight. — Francisco M.
A: Francisco, I wrote a column that included OB. I try not to duplicate things in my On the Texans column with my takeaways. Plus, I have to pay attention to what our columnists, Brian T. Smith and Jerome Solomon, are writing. Brian wrote about the fourth-and-1 call and quoted O’Brien. I wrote about it but didn’t quote Bill because we’re not supposed to duplicate quotes if we can avoid it. After a game, we try to cover every single angle in the Chronicle's print editions and on our sports website, Texas Sports Nation. As for OB’s trades, I’ve written about them often.
Q: Now that we are two games in, who is the best quarterback in the AFC South? I know I have heard a lot of hype suggesting Deshaun Watson is the best, but if you go with wins, he is not the best. If you prefer using stats, he is buried behind such stellar talents as Gardner Minshew, Baker Mayfield and Justin Herbert. He is so far below Ryan Tannehill, Deshaun would need a telescope to see up that far. So is it the QB, the O-line coach or the BOB that is the problem with Deshaun? What irked me the most about the coverage of the team is trying to blame the defense. The defense was not good against KC but they held the Ravens to 16 points through three quarters. The lone touchdown was set up by the first of three turnovers by the offense in the first quarter. When you go for fourth and 1 in your territory, you need to make it. Three offensive turnovers in the first half is awful. The defense did let down in the fourth quarter but you could see it coming with their body language. You could tell they knew what we all knew. This offense is awful and they were never coming back. It is going to be a long year. I hope Deshaun survives it. — Tim M.
A: Tim, they didn’t commit three turnovers in the first quarter. As for who’s the best QB in the AFC South, if you ask GMs and coaches around the NFL, I imagine everyone will tell you it’s Watson. You’re already written him off after two games against the best teams in the NFL.
Q: I had a chance to hear your national radio interview on the Sirius NFL station Sunday morning. I thought you were really informative and brutally objective and really gave the rest of the country a sense of how many of us feel here locally. My questions are: How do you prepare for these things? My sense is that you stay immersed in your subject matter and then almost speak a verbal article in the Chronicle. And when did you start feeling comfortable doing these things. Finally, thank you so much for speaking in complete sentences. — Ray M.
A: Thank you for listening, Ray, and taking the time to write. I do so many talk shows, podcasts, Zooms and a weekly television show and write six days a week for the Chronicle — every day but Saturday — and it just comes out when I open my big mouth. I love what I do, and I’m blessed to be doing it for a 45th year at the Chronicle. I try not to turn down anyone who calls me for a radio appearance, Zoom, podcast, etc. if I can work them in. I try to accommodate everyone on a weekly basis.
Q: I'm curious as to why Bill O'Brien never provides specific details on what the team needs to work on after a bad game. It's always, “We need to do better" types of comments. I don't know why he will not provide specific details to the media and fans. Why is he always so vague? — Dan W.
A: Dan, he addressed the bad run defense, Keke Coutee’s fumble, lack of consistency, etc., after the Baltimore loss. He does say they need to play and coach better. He’ll never single out players for criticism, and they appreciate it even if the fans don’t.
Q: I know it’s a long season, but how much longer are the McNairs going to tolerate Billy O’s slow starts and faith-based personnel decisions. For the better part of seven years we have been hearing Billy say, “We have to start faster.” And the last few years, Billy has let go of or traded the best players on the team — Duane Brown, Brandon Brooks, Ben Jones, Glover Quin, JD Clowney, D-Hopkins, D.J. Reader. How do other teams figure out how to pay all these guys but Billy can’t? I know it’s not all Billy’s fault, but after the past few years, shouldn’t the McNairs realize Billy’s a below-average coach, at best? — Louis L.
A: Geez, Louis, you’re so off base on some of your comments. Rick Smith traded Brown and let Quin go in free agency to sign Ed Reed. Brooks, Jones and Reader left in free agency. Would you have paid all of them what they wanted? Would you have paid Clowney $100 million? Teams have to make financial decisions on the salary cap. They can’t pay every player what he asks for. Nobody does.
Q: I am amazed what Jacksonville has done the first two games. Jay Gruden has Minshew playing rather well and his offense looks to be pretty good. Is it possible that Cal's football team is imploding and the brain trust he has in place doesn't know that it is happening? I kind of got excited when the KILT 610 talking heads were saying things about all the speed at WR, and having two RBs who can catch the ball as well as run. And the fact that there were three new coordinators, bringing in new ideas and things should be different and much better. Looks like the OC is simply a clone of the previous one. Not sure about the DC. I still see opposing WRs and TEs running free like last year, and as you have pointed out many times, the run defense has disappeared. But Anthony Weaver is not missing gap assignments and trying to arm tackle ball carriers. Several of the players have gotten paid, but Cal is not getting his money's worth so far. When you predicted an 0-3 start, I figured you probably were correct and I thought those losses would be 2- or 3-point affairs, much like 2018. What I am seeing this season reminds a whole lot of 2005. Seemingly good players and coaches, but terrible execution and suspect game plans. From what you have said and written, Cal will not be making any changes unless the wheels completely fall off. Right now, I think his organization might be riding on the rims, but the wheels are still turning. Albeit slowly. Before the Baltimore game started, I watched the last 20 minutes of Arlington and Atlanta. Can you imagine Cal's team ever doing what Jerry's team did in that game? I feel bad that you have to endure another season covering Cal's team. I would truly love to see you cover a championship team before you retire. — Dennis W.
A: Dennis, if they finish 2-14 like they did in 2005, I expect OB will be fired as Dom Capers was. But I don’t see them finishing 2-14.
Q: I'm holding off any opinion on Kahale Warring at this point thanks to Bennie Joppru, a second-round pick in 2003 who never played a game after going on IR three years in a row. He seems to have played in one game in his fourth year and wound up in Seattle getting into five games and was never heard of again. Saved on laundry bill never having to wash his uniform. It's so easy and fun to be mean when you are a fan. — Larry V.
A: Larry, unfortunately, when I see Warring going on IR for a second consecutive season, I think of Joppru, too. Unfortunately. Maybe he’ll figure it out and make something out of himself because he’s got talent but hasn’t learned how to use it.
Sign up for the Daily Playbook newsletter Texas sports are back! Get the latest scores, news and analysis. Enter your email By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy. Photo of John McClain John McClain Follow John on: mcclain_on_nfl John McClain, a Waco native who graduated from Baylor in 1975, is in his 45th year at the Houston Chronicle and his 44th covering the National Football League, including the Oilers and Texans. He worked for the Waco Tribune Herald from 1973-76, when he accepted a job with the Chronicle. to cover the original Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association.
McClain has a plaque in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio as the 2006 winner of the Dick McCann Memorial Award presented annually by the Pro Football Writers of America to a writer for his long and distinguished coverage of the NFL. He is past president of the Pro Football Writers of America. In 2019, he was voted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame’s second class of media inductees.
He's a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Seniors Committee and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
In 2015, he was named as a Gridiron Legend in Texas, becoming the third member of the media behind Dave Campbell and Mickey Herskowitz. In 2019, he was voted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame's second class of media honorees.
McClain can be heard six times a week on the Texans' flagship station Sports Radio 610 in Houston. He also does weekly sports talk shows in Nashville, Knoxville, Waco, Austin and San Antonio.
McClain also has appeared in eight movies: The Rookie, The Longest Yard, Spring Breakers, Secretariat, Invincible, Cook County, The Game Plan and Make It Rain.

Clubhouse Games: 34 Frustrations

VW chief defies sceptics with ambitious plans to overtake Tesla - Herbert Diess wants to sell 26m emission-free vehicles in 9 years, overtaking rivals including Californian electric pioneer

Joe Miller and Peter Campbell in Wolfsburg
When Volkswagen unveiled its first battery-powered prototype in 2009, chief executive Martin Winterkorn warned about “electro-hype” — the idea that this new technology could be as affordable and ubiquitous as its fleet of petrol and diesel cars.
A decade later, VW’s incumbent boss Herbert Diess is spending more than €33bn on proving him wrong.
The German group has launched a wildly ambitious plan to produce 26m emission-free vehicles in the next nine years, leapfrogging Tesla to become the world’s largest electric carmaker.
But perhaps the most radical element of the scheme is its focus on generating profits almost from the get-go, in defiance of dire industry-wide projections.
“When it comes to pricing for the next generation . . . [profitability is] on the level of a Golf [VW’s best-selling combustion engine car],” Mr Diess told the Financial Times.
The first car to make Golf-level margins will be a battery-powered model the size of VW’s Tiguan sport utility vehicle released next year, and built on VW’s purpose-designed modular electric skateboard, he added.
This forecast puts the company in pole position, ahead of some of the automotive world’s largest players, including Toyota and General Motors, who caution that their electric cars are years away — perhaps even a decade — from being able to generate petrol-level profits.
“This is a very bold statement,” said one person close to VW’s top investors, upon hearing about Mr Diess’s projection. “It would be a surprise if that was possible.”
McKinsey estimates that midsized electric vehicles cost $12,000 more to produce than their petrol or diesel counterparts, forcing carmakers to charge more or face squeezed margins.
VW’s rivals “face three or four years of pressure on their profit margins” due to electrification, said Jürgen Pieper, a car analyst at Metzler bank.
What sets VW apart, Mr Pieper added, is its “very tough” culture. “I probably wouldn’t like to work there,” he said. “There are hirings and firings all the time, but what I like is the culture of ambition.”
That culture of ambition was in part what led to Dieselgate, the 2015 scandal that saw VW admit to having sold 11m cars worldwide fitted with devices that under-reported emissions of nitrogen oxide.
The fallout is still being felt five years later, with VW on Friday agreeing to an €830m settlement in a lawsuit brought by more than 400,000 affected drivers in Germany.
The scandal also made the company a lightning rod for criticism of the industry from environmental groups and European lawmakers.
Today, Mr Diess admits the company is the “focus” of EU rules that force carmakers to lower CO2 emissions. “We are happy with it,” he said, “because if society decides, ok, we’ll go for electric cars, actually that’s good for us.”
Ever since he ascended to the top floors of VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters in 2018, Mr Diess has been insistent: despite concerns about the lack of consumer demand, inadequate charging infrastructure and bottlenecks in battery supply chains, the company’s decision to bet the farm on electric vehicles is more than a high-risk gamble.
“There is no other alternative to electric cars,” he said, in an office overlooking the sprawling factory halls and railway tracks that criss-cross VW’s historic home.
In a week that saw the production of Audi’s electric e-tron model grind to a halt due to battery supply shortages, Mr Diess added he was confident that the company had identified enough lithium-ion cell supply to see it through to the end of 2023, by which point it hopes to have produced 1m emissions-free vehicles.
But the former BMW executive, who first arrived at VW just a few months before the diesel emissions scandal broke in 2015, wants to do more than just shepherd the company out of its self-created crisis.
His long-term aim is to convince capital markets to treat VW more like Tesla than an old-world car manufacturer, propelling it to a market value of €200bn, more than double its current €75bn valuation.
Investors are yet to be fully convinced.
VW boasts annual sales of almost 11m and has suffered only two lossmaking years in the past three decades, on Friday reporting a 17 per cent increase in pre-tax profit for 2019, and pledging to vastly increase its dividend.
Yet the company is eclipsed in market value by Tesla, which has sold fewer than 1m vehicles in its 17-year existence, and has yet to post a yearly profit.
Mr Diess, who was on stage at a car industry award ceremony in Berlin when Elon Musk announced Tesla would be building his first European factory a mere 150 miles from VW’s base, has gone out of his way to compliment the Twitter-keen chief executive, crediting him with “paving the way” for electric cars.
“[Mr Musk] is taking risks which we couldn’t,” said Mr Diess. “So I think we make a good pair because he is pulling ahead and we are fast followers, we try to keep as close as possible.”
Despite Mr Diess’ confidence, the odds of achieving this goal appear to be stacked against the German carmaker.
Its unique ownership structure, in which the Porsche and Piech families indirectly own a majority stake, and the state of Lower Saxony has a blocking minority, prevents the company from rushing through seismic shifts in strategy. The strength of the unions on its supervisory board also makes radically reducing VW’s 300,000-strong German workforce almost impossible.
Additionally, while Tesla can raise more than $2bn overnight by issuing new shares, “Mr Diess would have to sell 2.5m cars to get that money,” said a person close to investors.
VW has to rely on debt to finance its overhaul, and has “de facto no equity capital market access”, he said.
“What Diess is doing is braver than what Elon Musk is doing. He needs to fund this transition with 4 per cent profit margins from VW [brand].”
It is, therefore, unsurprising that improving returns is high on the VW chief’s agenda.
Addressing 120 of the company’s managers in Berlin this year, Mr Diess made it clear he would happily halve Bentley’s annual sales in exchange for higher earnings. Returning to profitability in the US, where VW has languished for years, is also a priority.
But the fate of the world’s biggest carmaker, he emphasised, is not merely dependent on boosting margins, but “more about managing the transition [to electric] better than others”.
“If you look at Tesla’s evaluation, it’s not about profitability,” Mr Diess said. “It’s a new game, and that’s also what I have always said.”
The rules of the game have partially been set in Brussels, which has fuelled the shift to electric vehicles by forcing car manufacturers operating in Europe to lower their fleet-wide CO2 emissions drastically over the next few years, or face billions of euros in fines.
Thousands of miles away, the likes of Google and Uber in the US are threatening to rewrite the carmaker playbook, betting that decades of auto-building expertise can either be aped or acquired.
It is a threat Mr Diess takes seriously. “[Tech companies] have to invest a lot [to become carmakers],” he said. “It’s still scary because they are so rich that they could. If you have 100-and-something billion in cash, you can buy whatever you want. The question is, do they really want to?”
Before waiting to find out the answer, the VW boss is intent on taking the battle to Silicon Valley.
In a country whose postwar economic growth has been driven by hardware excellence, Mr Diess hopes to attract the necessary talent to help VW write the 300m lines of software code that will power electric and semi-autonomous vehicles, as well as battery-management tools and entertainment systems.
“The big differentiator in the future will be software, direct customer contact, the car becoming an internet device,” said the chief executive, who is pouring roughly €8bn into software development in Berlin, Bavaria, the US and China. “This is our biggest effort.”
The effort is focused on the ID. 3, VW’s talismanic electric model, and its first emissions-free mass-market hatchback.
Launched in November to great fanfare by Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, the car, which will be priced at about €30,000 and is due to go on sale in August, will feature a 4G-enabled, centralised software system.
VW needs to sell hundreds of thousands of ID. 3s, and other electric models, to bring down its fleet-wide CO2 emissions and comply with EU regulations. For 2020, every electric car it sells will be counted twice by regulators — in future years the added weight given to them decreases. But its production at VW’s east German Zwickau factory has been plagued by complications over the installation of complex technology inside the car.
Other short-term risks could prove an even bigger hurdle for VW.
Last year’s contraction in the global car market shows little sign of being reversed in 2020, while the impact of the coronavirus on China, its most profitable market, all but wiped out sales in February. The disease, which forced the cancellation of this week’s Geneva Motor Show, has also thrown the industry’s complex supply chains into chaos.
But Mr Diess is adamant that neither the outbreak nor an economic downturn will curb his commitment to electric vehicles.
“There has been a major cultural change at Volkswagen, and it has to do with [wanting to move on from] Dieselgate,” said Metzler’s Mr Pieper.
All the more reason, he said, to consign the strategies and soundbites of Mr Winterkorn, who is facing criminal charges in the US and elsewhere, to the past.
Source (with Paywall)

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OC Tournament #5: Round 1 Match 20: Casey Williams and Manta Malaise?

The results are in for Match 18.
The game was lasting quite a long time, with Red Carpet Renaissance’s more aggressive playstyle hardly giving the room to breathe to the carefully-crafted tactics of the Sharp Lookers, but those very same plans at once keeping them from finding themselves getting clicked.
Violet Lange was watching, still, invested in how the hell this could keep on going, what might finally turn the tides, only for her cell phone to vibrate, a text message appearing on it from a contact registered under: “C. Williams”

waiting at docks
we still on?

“Oh, shit, what time is it?” Violet glanced upwards slightly, and cursed again as she realized what hour and minute read. “Yeah, I gotta go. Uh…” She waved at the ongoing game. “See ya ‘round, guys, you’ve been totally great!”
Nobody noticed her walk away.
Nobody wins! For an equal score of 66, everyone’s time was wasted!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Sharp Lookers	19-10	Things seemed even for most of the voting period, with many of the votes being split, but late into it, a modest number of Sharp Lookers votes translated into a massive lead. For the first time, this resulted in votes splitting perfectly by .5s when the division was done, and since it would mean taking a point away from one side to give it to the other, that thirtieth pop point simply vanishes into the aether…
Quality	Red Carpet Renaissance	20-22	Reasoning
JoJolity	Red Carpet Renaissance	17-24	Reasoning
Conduct	TEAM	10-10

Half an hour later…
“Uh… Kisa?” Masa asked, earning his partner’s attention. “You know how I said I’d watch the girl to make sure she didn’t pull somethin’ weird?”
“Hm?” Kitose Saiko turned to face his friend, and noticed the lack of anybody he was standing beside. “Oh my god. How… How, Masa?”
“I dunno!” He answered, sounding similarly bewildered, waving his hands as Kisa, in his frustration, lit up the entire remaining pack of his cigarettes and took a drag from each of them at once. “She just sorta… Was gone when I stopped paying attention.”
“The woman is… Gone.” Dimitri was incredulous as well. “And there goes our hints on this Black Angel! The library is surely closed by now, so we’ve wasted a day and this town knows we’re looking.”

pranked again… violet lange, u r officially… epic

As Nebula’s synthetic voice remarked that and moved to silence, Ace couldn’t help but laugh. “Vitus is gonna be pissed too, that we were dragged off to play some game instead of tailing Peres… Haahhh, man, what were we thinking? This was her job, I bet. She just needed to waste our time awhile, get us heated and fighting each other, throwing piss around and playing dirty… Gave us the slip soon as our attentions were off her. Well played, I must admit… Well played…”
“Distracting us from the Black Angel…” Dimitri stroked his chin. “And also from Peres? But I remember Laverne saying the Black Angel vigilante was banned from the Devil Blue, the hotel she works at. What could the common thread between them be..?”
“Well, I’m annoyed too… Don’t just bail on an agreement you make…” Masa answered, before adding with a slight smile. “But hey, in some good news…” He held up a gift card, waving it between his fingers. “She left the CaraMel’s gift card, 200 USD just like she said, and that place? Not just to die for, from when Ray came back with stuff from there the other day, but I hear the ‘goss’ is ‘hot’ there too, as she said in that super-exaggerated little Valley Girl voice. What say I claim this card and treat you all? Call it a, uh… Ceasefire, for now.”

gonna be annoyed if its stale by the time i can actually eat it
but ok sounds good

The game of assassin was fruitless, but the fruits of an assassination are still born, and two pairs of Stand Users fight to protect their local leaders from them. There’s still about a day to vote in that when this goes up.
Scenario:
South Aurelio - East of the Wormwood
“I am so sorry, I just lost track of time… I got these four roped into this big assassin game, and I didn’t wanna bail, but…”
Not long after Violet Lange officiated that little college game and the evening began to roll in that, again she found a Stand User’s company. Casey Williams, MFA member, sat in the passenger seat of a vibrant purple convertible, occasionally staring either at passing suburban scenery in the transition between the college town and suburban hellscape, or the way her companion’s lavender scarf billowed in the wind.
“Look, I get it, I get it, shit happens, especially ‘round Midnight Sun. You don’t need to explain.” After a few moments of silence, tapping her hands against the outer door of the car as her arm hung over the window, Casey spoke up. “I, uh… Didn’t expect you to call me, but Kirk vouched for you. Why me, for… Whatever this is?”
Violet had, that morning, asked Casey to aid her in an investigation after she finished up with some shit she had to do on campus, and still now, had said very little about what was going on sans its importance. “I trust you… For the same reason I took over the bifrost server, and the same reason I revealed myself to your team. André had faith in you all to do what was best, and, well, I have no idea what to do but follow his lead and use what power I have to do it. As for you in particular… I want to work with somebody my age, basically. No more than that.”
“If you trust me so much,” Casey said, looking to the river to her left as the pair drove along a road opposite it, admiring how the setting sun reflected upon its rippling waves, “why haven’t you told me what we’re doing, then? You sounded like it was important, so I agreed to hear you out, but you’ve still been cagey.”
“I wanted it to be in person, while we were speeding along,” Violet explained, looking out upon the road still, briefly glancing off in the distance and seeing a manor across the water, braking for a moment and pointing towards it. “See that house by the riverbank there?”
She handed Casey a pair of binoculars, and the latter surmised, “looks like a dump.”
“From the outside, and nobody has owned it for thirty years, yet…” She paused, as if she was about to say a name and reconsidered. “My contact - a high-schooler who comes and goes late at night, you wouldn’t know them, and I’m purposefully leaving them out of this, but I can vouch for their reliability - says that sometimes, late at night, delivery trucks bring perfectly good furniture to the bridge just North of here, and by morning, they seem to have just disappeared into the ground. I dunno if you pay attention to the news, but there’s a ‘Serial Killer’ who operates in this town, and besides that… Sixteen people who disappeared in this area are still missing, and haven’t had their bodies identified. The more research I’ve done lately, I’m completely certain of it. That ‘abandoned residence’ must be the ‘lair’ of this killer! It’s certainly big enough to hold that many people and then some… So I plan to break in.”
“Serial killer..?” Casey’s head tilted slightly, then, suddenly, the words hit her as Violet resumed her drive. “Wait, what? So even if you’re right, you’re just gonna bust down this guy’s door without knowing what he’s capable of? Why this? Why you, and so covert?”
“Because I’ve spent my life sneaking and slipping by to survive, clinging to stronger people. Because I used to roll with the kind of scum who would use Stands to do whatever the hell they wanted like we were better than everyone else. Because the last time I tried to get someone to take care of this killer, all she did was kill an innocent man in front of me! I’m tired of just being an ‘extra,’ moving pieces around and waiting in place, Casey. I’ve said that I just want to survive, but a friend of mine, every day, fights tooth and nail to make this place better. I’m going to be an adult and try, goddammit, and if you don’t want to do the same, I can just drop you off, and-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Casey continued, raising her hand up, and then offering Violet a confident little smile. “When did I say I was going to refuse? Hell, lives are on the line, pedal to the metal! I hear this town has like two cops, and I sure don’t see either of them around!”
“That’s what I like to hear…” Violet’s own lips curled upwards slightly, and she stepped on the gas. “We’re gonna totally tear shit up today.”
They drove along the bridge in silence from there, Casey contemplating things as they sped along, occasionally stealing glances towards the house just what was now South of them. Not long after, though, she began to grow uncomfortable, pulling her shirt’s collar over her nose. “Eugh… What’s that smell now? We pass a dead skunk or something?”
“That’s… I know this smell. That isn’t a skunk.” Violet gave a glance to her rear-view mirror, and her face stiffened. “Casey… Get out of the car, now! Ditch it!”
“What? What is-” Casey stammered, surprised and trying to hurriedly work her seatbelt off as Violet began to jerk the vehicle around, as if intended on steering the thing straight into the river. As she did so, she glanced behind her, and though the rising shape of a figure on the back of the car was hard to make out in the twilit evening, there was certainly a massive, and vaguely humanoid, and there were eyes on her.
There were so many eyes.
Slightly down the Wormwood River…
Ah, the Wormwood River. This massive landmark is a symbol of Los Fortuna in many ways. It came to exist during the city’s foundational years, it runs from the Northernmost mountains into the city itself, and quite symbolically, it splits the affluent Eastern portions of the city, highly regarded centers of culture and quality of life, with the Western, the environmentally unclean, the poorer, the portions of the city in which the greatest safety and stability comes from being within the care of a territorial gang which has earned the ire of countless other districts.
This divide was sharp and clear in the way it split the affluently beloved outer suburbs of the Woods of Aurelio, whose schools, fine homes, esteemed country club, golf course, town hall, and most of the town’s voting centers all sat in the East.
Manta Malaise thought this symbol of all which they sought to destroy a poetic place to take their pollution this evening.
“This Metropolis which is so very very burdensome to me, and this humble hamlet so tantalizingly close to it nearby,” they began aloud, just in the off chance somebody was around to hear it (and if not, rehearsal was always useful), while the diesel-burning gas-guzzling pickup truck they purchased on the resort’s tab began dumping a container’s worth of sand and grit, “I have heard it said that this location in which we are entrapped it on the decline… Yet nay, I say. At least, nary the full picture… This place is but a microcosm of all that surrounds it, a more blatant case of all that is true elsewhere, as well… A fine example for the world, it will make.”
As they spoke, a ripped-away purple car door floated by on the river, distracting them from speaking about how, if they repeat this process for a few weeks (maybe buy a new car every time), they would be able to kill the fish eggs and microorganisms that make up the key bottom of the river life’s food chain, eventually add nitrogen to the mix to toxically increase ugly and deadly algal growth, and aloud, they spoke “curious… That is a recognizable door of a quality automobile… To whom might it belong? Ah, no matter!”
Seconds later, a bloodied figure with several open wounds along its back burst from the water, clinging to dear life to the floating door and beginning to kick in Manta’s direction with surprising strength. He seemed to have tall blond hair, green pants, and a sleeveless shirt, though those all were obviously soaked and stained both with water and blood. As he reached the shore nearby them, within the range of ‘Morgana Courts Danger’, he gasped and turned onto his wounded back.
The young man who floated towards Manta Malaise said nothing, and did not even seem to notice the effects of their proximity as they approached and turned him around to get a look at the other side of the sleeveless shirt-clad figure. The life was fading from the blond man’s eyes, and his lips trembled, a faint grin on them. He did not say a word, but as Manta looked down, they realized that the phrase on the outfit he wore said more about his final feelings, the state of his body, than his voice ever could.

Ouch!

“What… What on this fetid dying earth is going on here?” They weren’t concerned, per se, but curious about the sudden arrival of this man.
He continued not speaking, bringing a trembling hand up and away, pointing softly with a single finger Southwards, slightly - towards a shabby-looking abode.
“Do you… Mean to send me there?”
His strong lips curled into a serene smile, his hand dropped, and his eyes closed.
“Nghh… I had not the time to have his final sounds heard in life a rejection of this quest, perished for naught…” Manta remarked aloud, gritting their teeth. “As if I would simply traipse towards what is not my business… Though, how did he get here through the water? He seemed to appear so suddenly…”
They looked towards their truck. The motor was still running, but it had emptied its load fine. “I am curious,” they remarked, and so, after cranking the heat and AC of the vehicle as high as it could go, they abandoned it, diving into the water to see where this dead lad may have come from.
???
Casey awoke to that same odor again, but less severely so, in an uncomfortable, unsheeted mattress in what appeared to be a bunk room of sorts. As she rose, she had to avoid scraping her arm on a rusty spring, rubbing her eyes all the while.
“Nngh, what’s..?” She looked around, and after glancing past her a few times, saw Violet laying in a similar situation, a bizarre metal collar around her neck poking out behind the scarf, but otherwise looking unharmed. “Violet..! Wake up, Violet!”
“Nnghh… What’s..?” She sat up, feeling around for her beret and putting it on, glancing at Casey. “You’ve got a weird collar on you, Casey…” She felt at her own neck, then. “Oh.”
“Look out for those things,” a casual-sounding, low voice uttered, earning the attention of the pair; a woman with dark, wavy hair and a velvet dress was filing her nails on one of the springs. Nearby her sat a cone-haired, dirty-blond high schooler, built like a football player and a varsity away from dressing like it. “When ‘that person’ brings in a ‘Stand User,’ they get a collar like that… Likes to make up little game rules, and if they break ‘em or leave, uh…” She jerked her thumb towards a far-off wall of the room filled with a few dozen bunks, in which a bloody, smoky outline shaped like a person outstretched was dried against the wall. “Poor bastard didn’t listen because the floor wasn’t literally lava… Hey, don’t jump now, yeah? That’s not the game being played right now.”
“Palmer, you’re scaring the hell out of them, and that really isn’t useful right now… We’re going to get out soon, I’m sure of it,” another young woman’s voice called out, and as the voice seemed familiar, the face confirmed it. Though her long neat hair was short in an uneven cut, the blue blazer’s sleeves were destroyed, and the bowtie was loose, it was absolutely TV personality Jillian Heart.
“Jill..?” Violet asked, tone lightening up immensely.
She took a moment to process that, but then nodded. “Hey, Lange. You and Reed doing alright? And, uh, this a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, hi,” Casey answered, “Casey Williams… College student.”
“She’s cool, yeah,” Violet promised, looking around, “where’s Chad? Not like him to run off…”
“That’s why we’re getting out soon,” Jill answered, happily, “we noticed it when you two were brought in! Broke open this statue in the courtyard and found a waterway that ‘Worm’ - that’s what the killer goes by here - has to have been using to get in and out. They have one of those ‘Stands,’ but we all can see it, so they wear it like a costume and it guards them… But Chad’s the strongest person here, and he’s been our rock through all of this! After Worm left again, he volunteered to go through it and find help, and with him, that means it’s as good as done!”
“I see… So that makes how many people left here, then?” Casey started counting on her fingers.
“Sixteen, minus you two,” Miss Palmer answered, “I’m, uh… Palmer, by the way. Drama teacher at the high school out here. Same story as everyone else here, more or less… Bet the Superintendent’d be happy to hear Elton here and Swift Taylor are still alive, though.”
‘Elton’ said nothing, still, simply sitting there, while Jill took over a bit to talk about the place.
“I think I’m gonna start getting the lay of the land, then…” Casey said, feeling the need to take the initiative. “I’ve still got my Stand with me, thankfully, and if we can’t leave just because help shows up, that means we’re gonna have to fight to get out when this killer shows.”
“Careful,” Jill warned, “there’s traps all over the damn place here… And ‘Worm’ changes them when we’re not looking, just like they change the furniture, or what doors lock how. Makes everyday in this big house hell, and it’s worst of all around the edges. Makes up most of how people die here…”
“I’ll be careful,” Casey said with a nod, stepping out into the halls of the bizarre home.
The underwater corridor Chad had needed to swim through to get out was brutal, and even Manta Malaise had felt tense handling it. Over four meters underwater, less than two meters wide, and the top of the dark, dirty, dank area was lined with rusty nails, blades, and the blood of the man who had attempted it, across a forty-meter stretch of water - slightly shorter than an Olympic swimming pool, but so much more claustrophobic, and with pressure much higher.
They managed it, however, and were they able to speak now, would have commended the amateur cameraman who only swam as a summertime hobby for managing fatally what they were able to get through unscathed carefully. At the end of this gauntlet was a straight shot up, illuminated by moonlight, and so, Manta hurried upwards, taking a breath as they surveyed the area they had come out in.
It was a large fountain on the Eastern end of a long, statue-decorated courtyard full of thorny ground. The crumbled, destroyed remains of such a statue, presumably having once sat atop this passage, was now in pieces, only a pair of outstretched arms on either side of them.
“Look out, you damnable fool! The arms, the arms!!” A theatrical voice called out, and Manta looked its way to see a figure in a top hat, three-piece suit, and black cape with a handlebar moustache and unibrow, and before they could process it, an automated voice emerged from the crumbled head at the fountainside.

Flow 24 Detected

The stone arms seized their neck firmly, and so soon after they had breathed, they could not again. It was no matter for their strong arms to easily smash these damaged ones of stone, however, and soon, they crumbled and descended into the deep. However, Manta felt a new weight around their neck nonetheless; a metal collar.
“So… You are the ‘help’ that damned Kroeger sought? Imposing and impressive-looking for sure, but entrapped like the rest of us now.” The dapper fellow complained.
“Who are you to criticise me, when you yourself are enraptured in this place as well?” Manta asked, spying the man twirling his moustache and moving to do the same with their own facial hairs as if in challenge.
“You dare insult Los Fortuna Parking Lot Magnate Born Bad? I was celebrating turning a GarfieldEATS into one, when I thought I might make my next grand step the transformation of the entire Wormwood River into the world’s largest parking lot as well!” Bad was twirling his moustache hard enough one might have thought it would catch alike. “It would have been a fortune for me, and a record for parking lot-kind!”
“That would destroy the ecosystem of all of Los Fortuna, you know… Ingenious, if more brazen and avant-garde than I might have done,” Manta answered, “tell me now. What have I been caught in?”
Through much villainous posturing, Born Bad explained similar basics of the situation to Manta that Jill had for Casey.
“So my own curiosity has laid me in this ‘Worm’s’ tunnels… Yet, at once, I think it will do to undo this as well. Entrapment here stands in my mission’s way.”
That conversation was cut short by the sound of the Westernmost balcony opening its doors, several meters above them, and a young woman with brown hair, eyes, and skin was looking down at them. She appeared, at once, confused and intimidated by their presence, which was the response Manta generally wanted to evoke.
“Hey, you! Are… Did Chad send you?” Casey asked, clearing her throat. “How is he? Is he alright?”
“If you mean the youth who died luring me here without a word, he is certainly deceased… And has caused for me a definite predicament of a pickle.”
“Wh…” She sounded taken aback. “He’s dead? H-how can you sound so indifferent? That guy risked his life to get help for us, and-”
“And I knew him not, and he got me trapped here. Why should I shed tears for his passing?”
Before this argument could escalate further, a large, pristine-quality monitor which framed the upper Northern wall of the courtyard turned on on its own, and in it, was an image of the entrance foyer of the manor. Slowly, from its floor, that that thing Casey saw before emerged, idly twirling a saber in its hand and lifting it over its head as it leaped several meters into the air.
(Shout-outs to Skelly-tan for this art!)
A voice, both distorted and gargling yet perfectly coherent spoke from its wide maw. “Good evening, everybody, thanks for tuning in! It’s me, you all know me, your hero, the Conqueror Worm! Let’s give it up for our guests tonight… We’ve got a lot going on for our last big ‘game night!’ That’s right, you heard me, last one! Much as doin’ what I have here has been fun, after this, I mean to move onto bigger and better things… But I’ll never forget this place, pinky-promise!”
There was a sort of twisted, uncanny elegance to the way ‘Worm’ paced around, both as if it were limping in agony and gliding effortlessly, the camera focused on it at all times.
“Yep, Aurelio, you heard me right… Conqueror Worm is done bein’ your killer! The lot of you left in here are the end of a generation, and y’all are absolute treats to work with! So, with three Stand Users here, good an’ collared and here to have a time and a half, let’s make this a grand finale for the BOOKS! Stand Users,” it pointed its blade towards a small entranceway behind it, “that door there is locked, but also, in the right circumstance, the one way you’re gettin’ off my property without explodin’ into funny lil’ chunks! See!”
The screen, then, turned into a showing of two maps of the building, with several spaces highlighted. “I just got finished slitherin’ around droppin’ off three ‘chips’ which ya scan against your own specific collars, and then, if you’ve unlocked that mini-foyer behind me, boom! They’re off, and you’re free! I just gotta make sure you die before then, and I can do it with ease! With this body of mine, I can grab anything, put it in there, and pass through any surface I can fit on, see! And to the first person t’get out of it alive? A SPECIAL gift’ll come!”
“Didn’t mention the master key?” Another voice asked.
“Well no I didn’t, but no way they can get that offa-” The camera returned to its view of Worm, though Violet was standing directly behind it, directly waggling a keycard in between her fingers. Not much further back, Jill was covering her mouth with clear amusement. “Wh- Why you!” He swung at her with her blade, and she dodged back, and Worm threw his head back and laughed. “Well, I’ll be… How’d you manage t’pull that off? That’s on MY person, INSIDE here!”
“I started to steal things just for the rush and attention of it when I was seven years old,” Violet said something then, which the audio blurted out and her mouth was off-camera for, but the sound of which shook Worm to his core, his laughing growing slightly incredulous. As she did, she swiped the card over her collar, and it clanked to the ground in pieces. “Yeah, that’s right, I figured out exactly who you are… and now your whole audience knows.”
“I mean sure, think that if y’want!”
“Right… You probably censored it then.” She pouted, then struck a cool and casual pose. “No matter… I’ll just show them your corpse.” A big bushy white hound emerged from Violet’s person, then, ethereal and snarling and beautiful, and she called out, “This is the start of a new me! ‘Forgive and Forget’ is putting you down, Worm!”
As the Stand-dog rushed forward, he chuckled. “Keep runnin’ into white Stand-dogs lately, huh… It’s gonna end for you like it did the last one, too! You shoulda just run!”
F&F leapt into the air, taking aim for the throat underneath Worm’s pungent armor, but he lifted one arm, and as fangs sunk into that, his other swung its blade.
Violet’s face went wide-eyed and pale, and she looked down at herself, clutching her stomach and noticing how red poured out.
“Ooh, did I reach bone there? Tough break…” Worm pulled back the blade, removing it from Forgive and Forget’s midsection as the white dog dropped to the ground before its user, fading away as she fell to her knees. “Aw, y’didn’t realize? This ‘Saber of the Gold Knight’ I perma-borrowed from our local museum ain’t just a conversation-starter… I wouldn’t take it for no good reason at all!”
“Violet..?” Jill asked, stepping back towards another room, too afraid of Worm to rush to her friend’s aid. “What… What even happened? Worm swung at the air, and… And…” Panicking, despite her resolve, Jill ran into the other room, a look of clear terror and guilt on her face.
“…I dunno, blanked out there!” Worm chuckled a bit, shaking off its bitten, uninjured-looking arm and retracting the sword inside its own fetid rolls of rotten off-white flesh. “But whatever happened, that’s ONE down!” He kicked Violet into a corner to the sound of her whimpering and sighed, pacing around a bit as he held up his master keycard and sucked that, too, up in his person. “Won’t cause me much trouble like that, but I know the other two of ya are in my courtyard… Funny startin’ place, since I like to use that place for when a guest wants to just say ‘I give up! End it here!’ Real useful tool for that bit of mercy, y’know? But anyway, the show goes on, and one-on-one is more interesting anyway! First one t’get to the end, I’ll even throw in an EXCLUSIVE interview to make it worth your while! But I’m not gonna keep the viewers at home waitin’ anymore saying more, since this is already goin’ on a little while, and you’re our stars still! So, without further ado…”
“OPEN THE GAME!!! Man is that SATISFYING t’say!”
Location: The estate of the Conqueror Worm, a two-floor building straight out of a Survival Horror. The whole place is hanging with an odd smell, and walls of most of the rooms are dotted with realistic murals of bones and various body parts - given Conqueror Worm’s ability, one must wonder how they were made.
1F MAP, 2F MAP. Due to interests of character limit, the details of each room in the estate can be found here. Most of the rooms are pretty simple, though, so don’t be intimidated by that.
The players are denoted by the circles marked with their character’s initials, with Manta standing in the fountain on the far-East end of the Courtyard of Despair, and Casey standing on the Western second-floor balcony overlooking it. Worm, meanwhile, starts in the first floor’s entrance hall, marked with a question mark. The C marked squares and the M marked squares are the chips that Casey and Manta need respectively, scanning which against their collars will ‘count’ them as read. For what it’s worth, the Violet chips were in the hot tub, freezer, and conservatory, but that is completely irrelevant now.
The circles with numbers in them represent the nonstand-using Survivors present in the area. Exact details on each of them aren’t particularly important, but a list of their names can be found here. The personality blurbs and occupations listed aren’t really relevant for the match’s sake; even the sports stars have been brought to a point where they have the same stats as everyone else.
The X and Y marked rectangles are locked doors and their respective keys are somewhere on the map denoted by the X and Y marked diamonds; these function not unlike car keys; though they can be used to physically lock and unlock the door in person with a turn, it’s much more convenient that one press of the buttons on them can instantly lock and unlock every door on the map marked with the correct letter.
The “F” marked square is the keycard that unlocks the finish line room.
Several of these rooms have traps which Worm knows about, but the players will not be given foreknowledge of all of them. These are already set in stone, however, and it will be up to the attentiveness of the players in following the location descriptions not to fall victim to these; hints are provided, basically, and they’re designed not to be too hard to respond to if you see them coming.
The rooms’ ceilings are generally quite high, three and a half meters above the ground, with about half a meter of space between the ceiling of one and floor above - basically, being a story directly above or below Manta is NOT enough to be within the range of Morgana Courts Danger.
Goal: Casey and Manta, your own survival is priority number one here. Try to get yourself out of this situation alive! In order to do so, you must deactivate your own collar through the insertion of three chips placed around the facility, where labeled on the map. Free yourself and escape alive. That is your priority, and you are under no obligation to help anybody else if you have no desire to. Leaving the map for longer than five seconds without outright moving through the finish space marked on the map will result in the collars detonating, even if all three chips are inserted.
Conqueror Worm, kill Casey and Manta by any means necessary.
A player character will win if their score surpasses that of the Conqueror Worm’s, while receiving less will result in elimination. A tie will be regarded as normal.
This match, thus, has special voting rules. Basically, there are four valid voting options in this: ‘Casey and Manta,’ ‘Manta and Worm,’ ‘Casey and Worm,’ and ‘Conqueror Worm,’ depending on if a voter believes that both players manage to escape, one of them is stopped by the killer, or both of them are.
NPC Information:
‘Conqueror Worm’ Sheet
(Plain Text Version)
Additional Information:
Unless noted otherwise, all doors are wooden.
While there are several unique NPCs throughout the estate, functionally, all of them can generally be expected to act in the same way: they have 222 stats with irrelevant special skills, and generally speaking, do not want to die, and will act in accordance with things they believe to follow that end, though they are not particularly skilled in identifying traps on their own. Manta Malaise frightens them, however, so they may find they require a little more effort to convince people to follow them around than Casey would be able to. Born Bad (“1” on the map), a fellow Dastardly-looking villainous caricature and thus kindred spirit of theirs, is the sole initial exception.
Violet Lange is bleeding and unconscious, and will in no capacity be able to assist, but still alive and should remain so as long as her particular injuries are not aggravated and the game does not take too agonizingly long. The killer has already forgotten about her.
Through review of previous materials, the players do have sufficient information to correctly identify the user of Conqueror Worm, who is, in fact, a character who appeared in the previous Suburb match. They will be allotted one guess, accusation bolded, in the text of the strategy, to name the person. There is no penalty for an incorrect guess, but a correct guess will see ten bonus points awarded; to one side if only they guess it, while both receive five if both do. One hint: they were present at Match 8’s baseball game.
The chips are extremely durable, but if they are rendered inaccessible or removed from the premises, a safety switch will force them to be treated as if they were simply activated and used; Worm isn’t interested in a game where victory or loss is impossible.
The traps themselves will be revealed throughout the first segment of the killer’s strategy, and take up characters in as much, but the existence of these are an indisputable fact which the players must be wise to either avoid or work around.
Though his durability and endurance are exceptional to the point where a fight would be immensely difficult, the killer also possesses a ‘master key’ which, if utilized, can be scanned against the collars to unlock them, unlock the front gate, and unlock any of the electronically-locked doors in the facility.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Masters of Funky Action	Casey Williams	“No escape, huh? I didn’t want one anyway. That was never part of the plan.” You came here for a reason, even if you’re still trying to define what, exactly, that reason is to you. Whatever you think being a hero might mean in this situation, live up to the standard you define for yourself!
Judecca Highrollers	Manta Malaise	“The greatest threat to the peace of my heart isn’t Jotaro! It’s him! Josuke Higashikata!” This is an indubitably vexing situation into which you have been brought. While you abscond from this, make certain that you find clever ways to get back at that bastard who has entrapped you here!
????	“Worm”	“‘Misconceptions’ are the most terrifying things in the world… And the consequences are even worse if you’re overly confident that your abilities and talents are superior.” You’ve made an absolute deathtrap of your estate here, and it would be a damn shame for any of that to go to waste. The more of your traps successfully go off and seriously hurt someone, the higher your JoJolity rating will go!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

Kickstarter Roundup: Mar 8, 2020 | 25+ Ending Soon (including: Batman: The Animated Series Adventures) & 40+ New This Week (including: Chronicles of Crime - The Millennium Series)

What this is:

This is a weekly, curated listing of Kickstarter board game projects that are either:

newly posted in the past 7 days, or
ending in the next 7 days (starting Mar 09) and have at least a fighting chance of being funded.

All board game projects meeting those criteria will automatically be included, no need to ask. (The occasional non-board game project may also sneak in!)
Expect new lists each Sunday sometime between midnight and noon PST.

Ending Soon

Project Info	Players	Backers	Min / Avg Pledge	Ends	Comments
Reach & Okazaki Two extremely unique 18 card micro-games, packaged into limited edition custom designed & hand-crafted button-string envelopes. // Has raised ¥352,209 of ¥300,000 so far. (~117%) ☑	2 - 2	108	$14 / ¥3261	Mar 10	kicktraq bgg
The Red Dragon Inn: Allies - Evil Pooky Pooky's evil doppelganger invades the tavern! // Has raised $111,395 of $10,000 so far. (~1113%) ☑	2 - 4	2011	$25 / $55	Mar 10	kicktraq bgg #expansion
Heroes of Tenefyr: The Second Curse Cooperative, push your luck Deck-building for 1-4 players // Has raised €26,200 of €4,500 so far. (~582%) ☑	1 - 4	1070	$18 / €24	Mar 11	kicktraq bgg #expansion #reprint
Saucy Grannies Play as a Granny and cook delicious sauces in this cheeky card game for 2-6 players! // Has raised $13,065 of $12,500 so far. (~104%) ☑	2 - 6	144	$33 / $91	Mar 11	kicktraq bgg
Slip Strike Two agents battle each other in another dimension while utilizing teleportation and time-traveling to survive. // Has raised $12,834 of $6,000 so far. (~213%) ☑	2 - 2	506	$16 / $25	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
Of Knights and Ninjas Gem-thirsty dragons, traitorous knights, revolting peasants... Embark on an adventure full of strategy, interaction, and BIG moments! // Has raised $10,793 of $3,400 so far. (~317%) ☑	2 - 6	361	$19 / $30	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
DOOM ON YOU card game A friendly game of strategy, bribery, and destruction. // Has raised $22,690 of $5,000 so far. (~453%) ☑	3 - 6	669	$15 / $34	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
FACING OFF The Super Social, Time-Pressured, SKETCH-THEMED PARTY GAME! Where you DESCRIBE, SKETCH and BET your way to Victory! // Has raised $10,124 of $7,500 so far. (~134%) ☑	3 - 9	113	$35 / $90	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
CardWeaver CardWeaver is a one-versus-all deckbuilding card game based on the world of The Shared Dream. // Has raised $16,146 of $10,000 so far. (~161%) ☑	1 - 4	179	$55 / $90	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
A.S.S. Alien Strategy Simulator (Card Game) ABDUCT, PROBE, and HARVEST farm animals, and humans to complete your objectives! ~Card game for Aliens~ // Has raised $1,275 CAD of $666 CAD so far. (~191%) ☑	2 - 4	16	$16 / $80 CAD	Mar 12	kicktraq
Zombie Pile-Up The fastest player wins, go head to head against your friends in a frantic race to get the most zombie kills and get the highest score. // Has raised £2,569 of £500 so far. (~513%) ☑	2 - 2	147	$14 / £17	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg #take2
Batman: The Animated Series Adventures Return to the animated streets of Gotham City as Batman in the next entry in the Adventures Universal Game System. // Has raised $1,193,901 of $225,000 so far. (~530%) ☑	1 - 5	6438	$125 / $185	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
DRAGOON: The Might and Magma Expansion In this modular expansion for 2-6 players, destruction has befallen the island as new powers emerge in all those who seek golden glory! // Has raised $121,087 of $10,000 so far. (~1210%) ☑	2 - 6	1655	$20 / $73	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg #expansion #reprint
Lost Ship: A Survival Game A tabletop space opera about 40,000 colonists waging interstellar war in search of a new home. // Has raised $4,706 of $500 so far. (~941%) ☑	1 - 2	501	$10 / $9	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg
Merlin Deluxe Big Box New Big Box with upgraded components and new expansion! // Has raised €128,904 of €10,000 so far. (~1289%) ☑	2 - 4	1337	$34 / €96	Mar 12	kicktraq bgg #newedition #expansion
Empire of the Stars Empire of the Stars is a fast 4X board game of clever strategy and epic combat. // Has raised $23,100 of $35,000 so far. (~66%)	2 - 4	301	$49 / $77	Mar 13	kicktraq bgg
Trust Me, I'm a Doctor Card Game Become a doctor in the 1800's, drunk as hell and curing plague and blood ghosts with cocaine and amputations! // Has raised $40,364 AUD of $4,400 AUD so far. (~917%) ☑	3 - 12	567	$34 / $71 AUD	Mar 13	kicktraq bgg
Dragon Dice - Amazons (reprint) Chariots rumble across the plains of Esfah! It is time for the Amazons to return to the mighty world of Dragon Dice! // Has raised $24,424 of $8,000 so far. (~305%) ☑	2 - ?	256	$26 / $95	Mar 13	kicktraq #reprint
Spaces. A creative trivia game with multiple correct answers. Can you fill in 9 Spaces? // Has raised £889 of £500 so far. (~177%) ☑	2 - 48	32	$27 / £28	Mar 13	kicktraq
The Matchbox Collection Five portable euro-styled games that can be played solo or with others in 20 minutes. // Has raised €172,690 of €30,000 so far. (~575%) ☑	1 - ?	3680	$40 / €47	Mar 13	kicktraq bgg #dicetowerpick
Steamwatchers Guide your Clan to the Steam columns, survive the Bane and overcome the other clans in this 2-5 player « Frost Apo » board game. // Has raised $166,951 of $80,000 so far. (~208%) ☑	2 - 5	1581	$89 / $106	Mar 13	kicktraq bgg #dicetowerpick
Realm Lords - For castle and country! The board game where you build your army and battle against the other Lords to spread your domain! // Has raised $1,409 of $350 so far. (~402%) ☑	1 - 4	23	$55 / $61	Mar 14	kicktraq bgg
1-48TACTIC: Cards Only Want to play on a larger scale, have more variety or even create historically correct squads? Help shape the future of the game! // Has raised €5,207 of €950 so far. (~548%) ☑	2 - 4	57	$11 / €91	Mar 14	kicktraq bgg #newedition
Elemental Spark A Magical Fantasy Battle Royale Board Game // Has raised $7,199 of $8,000 so far. (~89%)	2 - 4	97	$35 / $74	Mar 15	kicktraq bgg
Square Meal A quick card game where players race to complete delicious patterns. // Has raised $6,392 of $7,000 so far. (~91%)	1 - 8	361	$18 / $18	Mar 15	kicktraq bgg #take2

New This Week

Project Info	Players	Backers	Min / Avg Pledge	Ends	Comments
1-48TACTIC: Cards Only Want to play on a larger scale, have more variety or even create historically correct squads? Help shape the future of the game! // Has raised €5,207 of €950 so far. (~548%) ☑	2 - 4	57	$11 / €91	Mar 14	bgg #newedition
18 Holes - Strategy Board Game Hit off-course on purpose in this golf-themed board game for 1 to 4 players // Has raised $11,485 AUD of $12,500 AUD so far. (~91%)	1 - 4	152	$50 / $76 AUD	Apr 08	bgg
BloodTies: Hekate's gate Board/card adventure game w/possible added features. // Has raised $5 of $50,000 so far. (~0%)	? - ?	4	$50 / $1	Mar 20	#hmm
Bold Made Bold Made is a modern version of the classic card game Old Maid…featuring bold women throughout history. // Has raised $35,466 of $1,000 so far. (~3546%) ☑	2 - 6	851	$20 / $42	Apr 03	bgg
Broken - the card game Broken is a card game about Kickstarter failure for 2-5 players and delivering some really good excuses // Has raised €487 of €560 so far. (~86%)	2 - 5	19	$29 / €26	Apr 07	#take2
Captain's Gambit: Kings of Infinite Space An asymmetric social deception game. Play as one of 12 unique Shakespeare-inspired space captains! // Has raised $9,820 CAD of $15,000 CAD so far. (~65%)	4 - 8	130	$22 / $76 CAD	Apr 02	bgg
CATEGORICKELL Relaunching the ELL deck. High-energy, grafitti-inspired lettering. Focused on a fast, furious, team-based, trivia tug-of-war game. // Has raised £1,542 of £2,000 so far. (~77%)	2 - 6	95	$19 / £16	Mar 26
CatSanity: The Card Game Finally, a purrrfect game for cat lovers! CatSanity is a cute & zany family game about adopting furry feline friends. // Has raised $1,171 CAD of $3,000 CAD so far. (~39%)	? - ?	25	$15 / $47 CAD	Apr 03
Chronicles of Crime - The Millennium Series Three unique games. Three different settings. One enduring family. // Has raised $506,873 of $20,000 so far. (~2534%) ☑	1 - 4	7055	$30 / $72	Mar 26	bgg
Cowboys II - Cowboys and Indians Edition A NEW game based on the Worthington classic "Cowboys". New scenarios, cowboy characters, Indians and gameplay. Playable by 1 to 10. // Has raised $16,237 of $5,000 so far. (~324%) ☑	1 - 10	197	$69 / $82	Mar 23	bgg
Devil's Chess In Devil’s Chess you can send the enemy Queen home, resurrect a fallen Knight, or just plain Cheat! If you have the right card that is // Has raised $3,819 of $10,000 so far. (~38%)	2 - 2	66	$30 / $58	Apr 04
Dino Hatchers A new age is dawning... // Has raised £1,590 of £28,937 so far. (~5%)	2 - 4	24	$46 / £66	Apr 04	bgg
Drinks and Daggers: Allies We are making three new characters and one new boss to enhance Drinks and Daggers, the co-op party game with optional drinking rules! // Has raised $14,868 of $25,000 so far. (~59%)	2 - 4	319	$20 / $47	Apr 02	bgg #expansion #reprint
Ethernia the Expandable Card Game Ethernia is a Physical, Expandable Card Battle game inspired by MOBA games designed around being ANTI pay to win. // Has raised $3,245 of $35,000 so far. (~9%)	2 - 2	34	$30 / $95	Mar 31
Fray Fray is a small card game that takes just minutes to learn and play. It emphasizes zone control. // Has raised $1,314 of $500 so far. (~262%) ☑	2 - 2	72	$13 / $18	Apr 01	bgg
Head for Glory A fast-paced arena fighting game. Expand your Tableau and build your dice-pool. Draft your abilities and decapitate your opponents. // Has raised €5,743 of €28,000 so far. (~20%)	3 - 4	64	$63 / €90	Apr 02	bgg
Heroes & Treasure: Arena A one-on-one combat card game playable by kids as young as six, but still fun for adults. // Has raised $1,551 of $9,000 so far. (~17%)	2 - 2	38	$19 / $41	Apr 02	bgg
I MUSTACHE U Meet playful people. Make memorable moments. Connect with your community. // Has raised $2,265 of $8,888 so far. (~25%)	2 - 12	55	$25 / $41	Apr 02
LVL³ A fun, groundbreaking game, LVL³ forces you to think outside the box and devise a strategy to conquer your opponents. // Has raised €3,664 of €6,700 so far. (~54%)	2 - 4	93	$37 / €39	Mar 25
Meeple Circus Giant Run Away to the Circus! Assemble your acrobats, circus animals and guest stars into a show-stopping performance. // Has raised $67,559 of $16,000 so far. (~422%) ☑	2 - 5	492	$99 / $137	Mar 17	bgg
MIND MGMT: The Psychic Espionage "Game" A 2-5 player, hidden movement game of clever deduction and teamwork. This game also introduces the new SHIFT System. // Has raised $77,704 CAD of $45,000 CAD so far. (~172%) ☑	2 - 5	932	$48 / $83 CAD	Apr 03	bgg
Mint Control Mint Control - The Minty Fresh Area Control Game // Has raised $54,023 of $10,000 so far. (~540%) ☑	2 - 4	3428	$10 / $16	Mar 27	bgg
Museum : Pictura Curate fabulous collections of art from throughout history in the lastest instalment of the Museum range: Pictura! // Has raised €36,375 of €35,000 so far. (~103%) ☑	2 - 4	611	$56 / €60	Mar 24	bgg
Pirate's Mark Sail the high seas. Stake your claim. Don't get marked. A thrilling party game for 3 to 10 players. // Has raised $10,423 of $10,000 so far. (~104%) ☑	3 - 10	208	$20 / $50	Apr 03	bgg
Revelations: Skirmish Revelations: Skirmish is a brand new, fast-paced, high-action miniatures game for two players, set in the Revelations Universe. // Has raised $5,442 of $10,000 so far. (~54%)	2 - 2	42	$45 / $130	Mar 31
Revenge of the Dodos An expansion of vengeful coopetition for the Beasts: Edge of Extinction tabletop game. // Has raised $475 of $200 so far. (~237%) ☑	3 - 6	33	$9 / $14	Mar 22	bgg #expansion #reprint
SPL Battlegrounds: Legends Edition The World's first (and only) Car Audio Card game! dBDon's SPL Battlegrounds: Legends Edition // Has raised $136 CAD of $14,900 CAD so far. (~0%)	2 - 6	6	$21 / $23 CAD	May 01	bgg
Steamwatchers Guide your Clan to the Steam columns, survive the Bane and overcome the other clans in this 2-5 player « Frost Apo » board game. // Has raised $166,951 of $80,000 so far. (~208%) ☑	2 - 5	1581	$89 / $106	Mar 13	bgg #dicetowerpick
The Abstract Trio Three uniquely fun abstract games by three Japanese indie designers! // Has raised $3,388 of $5,000 so far. (~67%)	2 - 4	42	$25 / $81	Apr 01	bgg #take2
The Black Brick: Kickstarter Deluxe Edition A card-based tabletop dungeon crawler for 1-12 players, with gorgeous art direction and old school difficulty. // Has raised $2,356 of $3,500 so far. (~67%)	1 - 12	37	$70 / $64	Apr 03
The Gorgon's Loch Help us bring this quick-to-start, easy-to-play, hard-to-master board game for all ages to the world! // Has raised £4,202 of £34,700 so far. (~12%)	1 - 5	129	$36 / £33	Mar 31	bgg
The Many Adventures of Patty & Fritz: A Party Game A party game where your share rumours of a half-eaten burger and a plate of fries... who fight crime. // Has raised $329 of $2,500 so far. (~13%)	? - ?	24	$10 / $14	Mar 24
The Matchbox Collection Five portable euro-styled games that can be played solo or with others in 20 minutes. // Has raised €172,690 of €30,000 so far. (~575%) ☑	1 - ?	3680	$40 / €47	Mar 13	bgg #dicetowerpick
This Quar's War - Second Edition! The second edition of This Quar's War, redone completely from the ground up! Plus Quar in 15mm are completely resculpted too! // Has raised $11,524 of $99 so far. (~11640%) ☑	2 - ?	78	$76 / $148	Mar 23	#newedition
Trivia Obscura Trivia Obscura™ is the board game that allows you to bask in the glory of your dark existence and… rub your poser friend’s noses in it! // Has raised $3,316 of $16,500 so far. (~20%)	2 - 6	79	$45 / $42	Mar 27	bgg
Viscounts of the West Kingdom + Tomesaga Increase your influence across the kingdom in this unique deckbuilding-powered rondel strategy game for 1-4 players. // Has raised $850,295 NZD of $23,000 NZD so far. (~3696%) ☑	1 - 4	5690	$53 / $149 NZD	Mar 19	bgg #dicetowerpick
WARCASTER: Neo-Mechanika The Supercharged Miniatures Wargame // Has raised $292,192 of $100,000 so far. (~292%) ☑	2 - 2	1531	$70 / $191	Mar 21	bgg
WHO GOES THERE? 2nd Edition Updated mechanics = even better gameplay. Additional expansion characters = even more paranoia. Here's the Thing: kill it or become it. // Has raised $196,717 of $34,097 so far. (~576%) ☑	3 - 6	3096	$20 / $64	Apr 01	bgg #newedition
World of Dungeons A 2-5 player card game which simulates the psychological horrors of running a guild. Recruit gamers, raid dungeons, and collect loot. // Has raised $3,589 of $500 so far. (~717%) ☑	2 - 5	193	$15 / $19	Apr 04

Need moar Kickstarter goodness?

Check out...

My Calendar of Announced Kickstarters (Also available in iCal flavor)
My interactive AirTable view of all active board game kickstarter campaigns.
BoardGameGeek's variety of Kickstarter-oriented Geeklists
Kicktraq's data-driven views

Footnotes

#hmm means that something about the project seems a little off. Buyer beware kinda thing.
#lolwut is reserved for projects that seem like copycat games or campaigns put together with little thought. Check 'em out for amusement.
#take tags are for projects that have been restarted for some reason, with the number indicating what iteration we're currently on.
Did I miss something? Particularly something new in the last 7 days or ending in the next 7 days? Let me know in the comments and I'll add it in.

Tip Jar

If you enjoy these lists, maybe toss me a buck now and then. Signing up for a free AirTable account via my referral link can help, too. Plus, it's swell!

Round robins of 2 vs 3. The 3 guys play as 3 groups of 2. The 2-man team has 3 matches, each player on the 3-man side has two matches. So players 1-5, 1/2 are the 2-man team: 1/2 vs 3/4. 1/2 vs 3/5. 1/2 vs 4/5. Throw up balls every 3 or 6 holes to re-pair. Wolf is one of the classic golf betting games for groups of four, but it gets a little complicated. Players rotate as the "Wolf." On each hole, the player designated as the Wolf has to choose whether to play one against three, or 2-vs.-2. If the Wolf chooses 2-vs.2, he gets to choose his partner. RULES: Instead of one 18-hole match, you play six consecutive three-hole matches. You can set each match at a specific amount or increase the amount for each match as the round progresses. The largest list of golf side games. All kind of games: single and team. For 1, 2, 3 or 4 players. Foursomes, greensomes, match play, Nassau, and many more Admittedly, this is one of my favorite games to play on the course. It keeps things interesting. You might get slaughtered for six holes, but then you have 12 holes to make that all up.

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