Perhaps you remember when — back in 2013 — a game known as Finest Hour (our review) was released, and yet we haven’t heard much from the game’s developers since then. Those who liked Finest Hour’s design should fear not, as Offworld Games is finally back once more with the intent to create yet another mobile port of a tactical board game experience. This time they’ve set their sights upon The Confrontation, a strategic board game — originally by Reiner Knizia — where players command the asymmetric forces of Light and Shadow (meaning that the two sides have unique units with no equivalences).
Where as the Light side needs to sneak the Prince into the Dark Lord’s castle, the Shadow forces are hoping to take out the Prince (or — failing that — simultaneously have three of their forces occupy the Capital of Light). A key element of the game — similar to Stratego — is that people won’t initially know what each of the various forces moving around the board are, and must either deduce their identity through reason or combat. Naturally charging head forward into battle against an unknown foe is itself a great risk, especially since all of the pieces have various special rules attached to them (even if you poke a target with your strongest unit, certain lesser soldiers can one-shot them easily).
However, in order to bring Reiner Knizia’s The Confrontation to mobile devices everywhere — and additionally design, and play-test, 18 all-new characters units — Offworld Games was recently forced to approach Kickstarter with a plea for help. Currently their humble request for $6,000 has nearly been answered in full, with a whopping $5,481 already secured by over a hundred different fans of strategy board games. However — with only seven days remaining — there’s still much work to be done if Offworld Games are to cross their finish line, especially if they hope to knock out some of their feature expanding stretch goals along the way.
Currently a pledge of just $15 is all that’s needed to secure your very own iPad copy of Confrontation (which includes the 18 character expansion pack), as well as become a Beta-Tester, an even be listed within the game’s credits! Although that’s already a lot, those whom pledge further will also receive: additional copies for their friends, get the official backer T-Shirt, and even get the chance to help design one of the new characters. Those interested – however – need to be sure that they’ve chipped in their donations before April 29th rolls around, or else the Shadow Forces will swoop down upon Offworld Games’ Kickstarter (thus forever sealing its fate).