Will Tabletop Towns Kickstarter proove to be a box of delights?

Tabletop Towns. by Julian G Hicks — Kickstarter.

So, yet another kickstarter, this time with table top terrain designed to fold flat for easy storage and transport, these 28mm buildings are what seems to be constructed in box style and taken down in much the same way you would a cardboard packet, and I assume that how they’re manufactured in the same manner.

Don’t get me wrong, I love terrain, and I love card models, but looking at the price on the KS for a set, I could make many free models on the net for the same price. The thing about card terrain is how quickly and cheaply you can build up your battlefield, and as long as you have enough printable card and ink in your printer, you can keep replacing them and adding to what you have. I like the generic look to them, but fear they are a little too generic, and slightly plain. I can’t see too many gamers shelling out for £20 to get a full set of 6, they need to be a little bit more special than they are to warrant that. (Edit: It’s been pointed out that the price is and has always been £10, and not £20 as I had mentioned in the article, so my apologies to Julian about that!!

Yes, I do realise that the KS has costs, printing, art, etc, but lets get real, I could probably get this job done for a quarter of the costs they want to raise. Admittedly I could probably do fine doing the art/texturing, but they are just boxes that fold up and fold down, there’s nothing revolutionary about the design. Plus the stuff they’re made from is just card, I have had stuff printed before and know that for a few hundred, you could have thousands of these made. (Edit: of which I must add now, that the £10 mark is much more reasonable!)

However, if they were at a good price or marketed a little better, they do have some applications.

First, they might be bundled in greater numbers (say 25-30) boxed up and presented like, “A town in a box” or such, they could be a better product, it’s something that could be taken and played anywhere, and there would be enough terrain to justify it being a town in the first place.

Second, this might lend itself to the buildings being game components within a boxed game (complete with miniatures, and the game etc) Maybe they could licence the concept to other fledgling KS start ups or even bigger compainies.

The box shape would lend more to modern or scifi themes, I think they may get more takers for that than the style they’ve gone for.

Saying all that, I may have come across like a negative, but don’t listen to me blagging on and on, go fund them and get them if you like them! they are perfect for a lazy gamer!!

TTFN

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