Acheron International asked for €10K to fund Helluva Town, and with a week on the clock, they have more than €100K in pledges.
On offer is a wacky and rules-light that gives me Cuphead-vibes. You can see progress on this Italian and English project on Kickstarter.
The promise is that you can learn to play Helluva Town in five minutes. The rulebook is around 80 pages and decorated as heavily as an art book. There is also an art book illustrated by Shawn Dickinson.
The game uses poker cards and the Helluva System, and the rules come with pre-genned so you can get going quickly. Luckily, you can create your own characters.
To overcome challenges, players pick two cards and their total plus an attribute produces the final value. The four stats are; Touchy, Feely, Handy and Loony.
HELLUVA TOWN is kind of an open world. And it couldn’t be otherwise, since in this small, secret neighborhood squeezed between Little Italy and the Bowery, you can find almost any climate and setting, from the sea to the desert… As in all the best cartoons, geography just depends on your personal point of view. But it is in its metropolitan downtown that you can live the real Helluva Town experience. Feel free to explore the depraved Grin Gardens, the Fanciful Fiasco casino, the megaindustrial Shocktopia, the impossible Science Expo and its carousels, the lovecraftian Jellyfish Junction’s docks and the underwater hood of Eldritch Bottom… Get lost on the roads to nowhere and everywhere.
Backers offering $16 or more are rewarded with digital copies of the core rules and art book.
At $20, backers can get the physical copy of the art book and a PDF instead.
It’s the $31 tier which rewards backers with a physical copy and PDF of the Helluva Town core rule.
Backers who want the physical rules branded poker cards, which feels important to me, plus a GM (the animator) can pledge at $63.
Both physical books, screen, card deck, printed pre-gen sheets, a manila folder and an exclusive sticker set plus a cool t-shirt, is the reward at $105.
Eldritch Bottom is the $319 tier, adding in custom art from Shawn Dickinson.
Acheron International estimate a delivery in April next year and the campaign wraps up on the 16th.
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