Some of you may be familiar with a recent Kickstarter gone bad - The Doom That Came to Antlantic City. I was a backer of the project, to the tune of $500. If you'd like all the gory details (at least those that are to be had), you can surf over to the page and read the updates and comments. In short, however, the project leader slowly stopped providing useful updates, and after a year, suddenly posted an update stating that the project was cancelled for lack of funds. This project was overfunded by a factor of nearly 4, so the backers are all left wondering where the money went and why absolutely nothing was produced.
Some backers, including myself, wondered how the game's creators (Keith Baker and Lee Moyer) could have allowed this to happen. Keith published a long explanation on his blog, explaining that the project leader Erik Chevalier licensed the game from them. Because of the nature of Kickstarter, they didn't have the relationship that would have existed with a more traditional publisher. At this point then, we are all left waiting for Erik to make clear how the project failed. Essentially, the backers were pretty sure that their money was gone, and that nothing would ever be produced. Ah, but the story doesn't end there....
Keith and Lee, with the rights back in their hands, produced a print and play version of the game. Within a week, they had provided it to the backers for download, What's more, they allowed the backers to give the game away in print and play form. In another surprise development, Cryptozoic Entertainment purchased the rights to the game, and announced that they would be publishing it. They also announced that all the backers would receive copies of the commercial game upon publication at no charge.
Once the print and play was available, I grabbed it and started printing it out. Even in this rudimentary form, the game is really beautiful. As I printed the board and cards, I realized that an essential component was still missing - the plastic playing pieces!
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| The Doom That Came to Atlantic City (from the PnP Rule Book) |
Houses and Resorts I could get by stealing similar pieces from my Monopoly game, but what could I use for the tentacles and cultists? 3D printing to the rescue!
I studied the rule book, and re-created the pieces in Autodesk's 123D Design. A quick export to .STL format, and some test printing to verify size and appearance. Voila! handmade game pieces!
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| 3D models of the cultist and tentacle pieces |
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| ...and their printed counterparts! |
As a gesture of gratitude for the work put into salvaging something from all of the carnage that was this particular Kickstarter, I sent the first printed set of pieces to the game's designer Keith Baker. Keith, you can put down the zombie clowns now...
The files are publicly available at:
Thanks again to Keith and Lee for making the extra effort to support the folks who backed the game. Thanks also to Cryptozoic Entertainment, for making sure this amazing work will actually see the light of day in commercial form. Thanks also all of you for allowing me to contribute in a small way to making this experience a little less unpleasant!
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