by W. Eric Martin

Let’s peek at a handful of titles looking for crowds to fund them in what is historically the slowest crowdfunding time of the year:

▪️ Queen of Spies is one of two titles coming from Liz Davidson of Beyond Solitaire and David Thompson, with Salt & Pepper Games crowdfunding this solo game for release in Q3 2026. (Gamefound) Here’s an overview:

Queen of Spies is a solitaire story-driven board game of espionage and daring missions set in occupied Belgium during the First World War.

You play as Alice — a former journalist turned spymaster — who runs a secret network from the quiet town of Saint-François de Sales. From the shadows, you’ll recruit courageous operatives, train them in specialized skills, and deploy them across enemy lines to gather intelligence, disrupt plans, and complete critical missions before time runs out.

The game is told through several independent stories, each divided into three tense chapters. Each chapter takes around 20 minutes to play, and completing a full story provides a thrilling, hour-long narrative experience — perfect for solo players who want cinematic tension in a flexible format.

Prototype components (Image: Ilya Ushakov)

Your decisions shape how each story unfolds: who you recruit, where you strike, and how you adapt when things go wrong. Every mission carries risk, every operative is valuable, and the fate of your entire network may depend on a single move. Will you stay hidden long enough to turn the tide of war — or will the enemy close in before your mission is complete?

In this BGG thread, Davidson reveals the game’s origin in the designers’ mutual interest “in La Dame Blanche and other spy networks that operated in Belgium during WW1”, with a special focus on Louise de Bettignies, who operated under the pseudonym Alice Dubois. Writes Davidson, “While we ultimately chose to create a game that was heavily inspired by real history, rather than one that tries to adhere to a specific person or people, Alice Dubois stuck with us throughout the design process, and that is why the leader of the spy network in our game bears her name.”

▪️ Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Game, a 3-8 player game by Dan Stong, who works for publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment, aims to give you the feel of being in a movie theater making wise-ass comments at the screen. (Kickstarter)

Gameplay follows the Apples to Apples model, with one player being the Mads each round and presenting others with a “movie moment” card. Those other players secretly submit a “Riff” card in addition to placing one of their betting tokens (1, 3, 5) face down in front of them. Mads chooses one of the Riffs, earning the submitter the points on their token, with Mads picking up 1-2 points as well if the person submitted their 3 or 5.

The game includes dry-erase boards should you care to create your own Riffs, and instead of using the included “movie moment” cards, you could stream Manos: The Hands of Fate in your living room and create your own MST3K episode by stopping whenever you feel a gag coming on.

▪️ Speaking of old movies, while tales of Robin Hood go back hundreds of years in texts, I mostly associate Robin Hood with films — specifically the 1973 animated Disney version since I’m of a certain age. I suppose we’ll all have our own image of Robin Hood, and game designers Mateusz Dąsal and Łukasz Sasuła are eager to proffer a version of their own in HOOD: Troubles in Sherwood, which PHALANX is crowdfunding for release in 2027. (Gamefound)

Here’s an overview of the base game, which is for 2-4 players:

The HOOD GF campaign features the usual range of goodies and add-ons, including four (yet to be fully revealed) expansions, with The Pirates Expansion including a fifth faction of…pirates.

▪️ Another crowdfunding project from a Polish creative team is The Witcher: Legacy from Łukasz Woźniak, Go On Board, and CD Projekt RED. (Gamefound)

The BGG description of this 1-4 player game is fairly generic —

— and features a pricey US$200 all-in level, yet this 2027 project has attracted more than US$4 million in support. Apparently fans have not been sated by all of the video games, comics, TV series, etc. that have accompanied Andrzej Sapkowski’s original writings.

▪️ Following an early 2025 campaign to reprint five titles from the long-lived Fighting Fantasy solo gamebook series, Steve Jackson Games has announced titles #6-10 in this series, all of which are due out in Q3 2026. (Kickstarter) These titles are:

• Island of the Lizard King, by Ian Livingstone

• Scorpion Swamp, by Steve Jackson (US)

• Caverns of the Snow Witch, by Ian Livingstone

• House of Hell, by Steve Jackson (UK)

• Creature of Havoc, by Steve Jackson (UK)