Wizama’s SquareOne quickly met the Kickstarter goal of €50,000 and now has nearly €150,000 pledged as it tries to be the device that claims the intersection of tabletop games and consoles.
There are other players in this space, and the potential has attracted the interest of backers like Andreessen Horowitz. We discussed the digital future in Audio EXP: #60. For now, though, you can sit back and watch the SquareOne pitch to see if it convinced you.
How much does it cost? More than a board game but not as much as a next-generation console.
There are limited slots only in this SquareOne Kickstarter, and one costs €499 (about £445) for the standard edition (which comes with 10 games).
At the time of writing, there are a few SquareOne Cthulhu Wars Edition consoles which cost €579 (about £517) and include a dice track, 5 extra games and of course are the Cthulhu Wars edition brand of the device.
The goal of SquareOne is to become a Netflix of games. Once you’ve bought the device and have access to its library, Wizama wants to send you more digital content and keep their servers on.
Some Kickstarters for hardware projects get technical, explaining how they work. SquareOne just shows you what’s possible. Cards (presumably the right cards bought from Wizama) touched on the side of the board triggers actions.
The dice track is optional but desirable, additional hardware that sees what real dice have rolled and incorporate those results into the game.
Wizama are aware that many tabletop gamers will have built up a healthy scepticism for hardware projects and are promising (though I’m not a legal expert) a full refund if they cannot produce the SquareOne.
The expected delivery date for Kickstarter is December 2021 but with the hardware then being available for retail in mid-2022.
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