https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/furioustreegames/widget-ridge
Ian Taylor, the Douglas Adams-esque writer of Spindle, Mt:G judge, original WWG lore/rules/organized play dude, and handsome Australian man, is Kickstarting Widget Ridge until April 27th. It’s already funded, I’ve backed it, and if you’ve found your way here, I think you’ll want to too.
Coal-Powered Battle Corset on Wheels
Widget Ridge is a two-player deck building game where you build completely reasonable and totally non-magical constructs, with Star/Hero Realms inspirations. (It will also support 1 – 4 players.) I have not played it yet myself, but a friend of mine has said it is a great game and he’s the type of person who absolutely wouldn’t if it wasn’t, so it is.
What has me so absolutely, ridiculously hyped though is all of the flavor and lore Ian has built up and presented around the game. He’s building a world I’m impatiently eager to explore, starting with the actual cards. Here’s a few more: Static-Powered, Racing Trebuchet, With a Parachute.
A while ago I was trying to think of the craziest construct I could make with the cards I had seen so far. The idea of a Coal-Powered, Battle Corset, On Wheels…, well, if you listened to the audio at the start of the article, you know how that makes me feel. I look forward to playing the game and creating even crazier constructs. In the mean time though…
ALL OF THE LORE
Widget Ridge is absurdly amazing, and I mean that literally. It is absurd, and it is amazing. We have our overly self-assured Victorian British engineers thrust into a world of magic which they obviously and immediately understand better than the locals. From here, they develop as you might expect, into a multi-engineering-church hierarchically-dominated society with ridiculous, physics-violating inventions, introductory versions of which are provided to children on their 6th birthday.
In this backdrop we are presented with characters such as Maximilian Ward, “the best kind of idiot. The kind that wants to learn,” and his three legs in “The Ghost that Stole Lightning.” As well as his sister, the Lady Luna Ward, in “The Fire in Which We Learn” where she emphatically courts the lover she’s never met, by utilizing her exceptional aim.
To play off of these characters we have: the prodigious engineering survivor Amelia Pettengill with trust in her instincts and her beloved widget Scraps, Knight-Captain Martine Covington-White the City Chief Defender and non-engineering, competitive practicalist, and Alistair Gaines the enthusiastic experimenter with a bravery derived in equal parts from talent, experience, and luck. With all of these elements, not only does Ian make me laugh (repeatedly and continually), but he also manages to tell grounded, honest stories of the diverse human experience. As I’m writing that, I know it sounds pretty cliched and stupid, but read all the way through “The Fire in Which We Learn” and tell me I’m wrong. Regardless, the energy/inspiration it gives me to do my own ridiculous things is real. I love being inspired to do ridiculous things, and…
there’s the story of the Coal-Powered Battle Corset on Wheels that gained sentience after consuming Spark-laced coal. Which then went on to terrorize the denizens of Widget Ridge; bursting into workshops, devouring all of the coal, injuring innocent bystanders while everyone, particularly the injured witnesses, refuse to acknowledge the Battle Corset’s existence because a sentient Coal-Powered Battle Corset on Wheels is impossible. This, of course, leads the sentient Battle Corset into a depression spiral as they agonize over why they were given life and their purpose in it, until they finally open a low-tech ceramics studio (because they have always been intrigued by a broken pottery wheel fraudulently trebucheted in a piano launching contest); where the Battle Corset, now going by BC, has acquired some level of adoration by their pupils, even though the pupils continue to actively refute BC’s existence in The Coal-Powered Battle Corset on Wheels.
Playmat of the Jank
When I originally saw the small version of this on the kickstarter page, I was not particularly impressed (especially when compared to the awesomeness that is the Rampaging Mechanical Bison playmat). However, while impatiently trolling through the Widget Ridge website late at night, looking for more lore to satiate my hype from watching everything on the kickstarter page, I came across the Art of Widget Ridge page from which Ian links to interviews with two of Widget Ridge’s artists. In the one with Matt Burton, he mentioned designing this playmat with the goal of creating two different perspectives of the scene, so the player and their opponent would get something different. Thinking this was neat, I quick copied the image, threw it in paint, and flipped it.
And oh my god yes, absolutely yes, this, perfect, this is me, oh yeah, I need to have this, yes. Yes.
I love how this looks “upside down,” and the implication of it “right side up.” When viewed “upside down” it seems like the quintessential personification of Jank. I’m putting together all of these crazy parts that absolutely should not work together but are, to an extent, all though they might not hold for quite long enough, perfect.
My original thought was that I would just get this and play with it upside down, so I can see this amazing jank view and remind myself of what I’m doing, while presenting to my opponent the “right side up” view that makes it look like I have everything reasonably under control and everything is going reasonably to plan. Then I thought about it and realized, assuming I use this in Epic (which I absolutely will be doing), most of my opponents are at least tangentially aware of me and my jank ways. Therefore, if I played with it “right side up,” they could see the visual reminder of my jankness, and they might give too much respect to my ability to include anything, like a couple of Rampaging Wurms in a demon deck. (I’ve absolutely done that with those being my only 1-cost Wild cards with no way to give them breakthrough. It… worked great.) But then I thought no, I do want them to see the reasonableness, to hide my actual, inevitable jank. Eventually, however, I came to a decision. I’ll just constantly rotate it throughout the match depending on the state of the game and or my mind. Solved.
In other words, if you are a fellow jank player, I’d recommend backing Widget Ridge even if just to at minimum get this perfect playmat as an add-on to the $1 tier.
Conclusion
I am more hyped for Widget Ridge than anything else right now. If you share my enthusiasm and would also like to get in on this now, possibly to get access to the kickstarter exclusives/stretch goals, you can back it until April 27th at www.kickstarter.com/projects/furioustreegames/widget-ridge. There is more information on the gameplay there as well. Ideally (and selfishly), I’d love to unlock a few more stretch goals. (Ian’s mentioned one that isn’t on the site yet that I absolutely want to happen.)
Further, “fraudulently trebucheted” is one of the best phrases I have ever written, so I am seriously considering making shirts. Below is an incredibly rough outline of what I was thinking with public domain art (the trebuchet should have a piano loaded up), a stolen Widget Ridge logo, poor color scheme and underwhelming word art. If I were to move forward with this (and clean it up significantly) are there any equally ridiculous people who might be interested?
Finally, I’ll answer the questions I’m sure you’re all asking.
No: that is not the first time I have recorded myself laughing
Yes: I did record multiple takes for this one, which I have not deleted.
If you have any other questions (unlikely because I’m fairly confident I just answered them all) feel free to ask below.
Until then, back Widget Ridge on Kickstarter.
**Update: Back the new Widget Ridge Kickstarter and expect some more Widget Ridge related content before the campaign ends on Sun, November 22 2020 11:00 PM CST**