The next release from JELLY JELLY GAMES is coming to Kickstarter soon!
こちらの記事は、海外の方を対象としています。このゲームは日本国内では日本語版として発売される予定です。
Minecart Town is due for release in Japan later this year. As we strive to expand our efforts worldwide, we’re proud to offer a JELLY JELLY GAMES game internationally for the first time. We’ll be using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter for our international release. Throughout this news post, you will learn more about the game, and our Kickstarting process.
About Minecart Town
Minecart Town is another collaboration between JELLY JELLY GAMES and Studio GG. We approached Shun & AYA with a request to streamline and brush up their 2023 release; ‘My Trolley Town’. After months of working together on this remake, we are proud of how the game evolved, while maintaining its excellent, original core.
A little bit about My Trolley Town
My Trolley Town was self-published by Studio GG for the Spring 2023 Tokyo Games Market. The game was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Game Design’ category in the 2023 Golden Box Board Game Awards.
In this tile placing game, 1 to 4 players compete to achieve the highest score within 4 short rounds.
All players begin the game with two starting tiles, producing wood and stone resources respectively. They must utilize these resources to expand their town by purchasing buildings or constructing railways. Buildings can either:
- produce resources (wood, stone, wheat, coal, sheep)
- process resources into other resources
- process resources into victory points
- provide end-of-game scoring bonuses
The trick? All resources are represented by physical cubes, and must be transported via railroad to their destination building! No railway connection = no way to transport resources. It’s up to each player to balance their building acquisition vs their railroad network expansion.
With most of the actions occurring simultaneously, the game trucks along at a smooth and steady pace with little downtime.
You can read Shun’s design diaries for My Trolley Town on BoardGameGeek, which we have been translating in the run-up to Minecart Town’s Kickstarter launch.
Onto Minecart Town!
Minecart Town retains the fantastic game design core that earned the original game its reception, whilst polishing all elements down to a mirror sheen. The following elements have been adjusted for ease of play:
- Reduced setup and teardown time
Instead of stacking a variety of tiles on the central board, players now draw tiles from drawstring bags. Railroad tiles are stored in a dedicated container, which doubles as a box insert. The number of different tile types was reduced to cut down on tile management which takes time away from the game itself.
- All new artwork
The wonderful art by Sai Beppu allows the game to pop visually, whilst simultaneously feeling cozy and homely. Players are eased into the game environment, and any stress of decision-making is reduced thanks to the vibes provided by the aesthetics. Additionally, all components are both in English and Japanese!
- Game re-balancing
My Trolley Town went through a wide range of gameplay adjustments to ensure a positive play experience. Building effects were updated, certain tiles were duplicated to appear multiple times, players are now able to transport resources earlier in the game to help them plan out future turns, etc. All these changes will be described in the final design diary, which will be published around the time of the Kickstarter launch.
- New solo mode features
For all the solo players out there, Minecart Town comes with multiple solo setup variants and a dedicated score-tracking chart in the rulebook. Track your progress as you aim to obtain the highest score with each variable set up!
- New expert rules
Feel like you’ve mastered Minecart Town? These rules are perfect for you! Limiting your resource transportation capabilities, this way of play requires deep knowledge of all the tiles and planning several turns ahead. Since these rules can be used per-player rather than per-game, advanced players can compete against newer players and still experience a close-knit race for points.
About Kickstarter
We are using Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform, mainly to assist us with international shipping. With a Kickstarter campaign, we can build awareness of the JELLY JELLY GAMES brand around the world, introduce Minecart Town to a wider range of people, and manage international shipping using a tried & tested framework. Additionally, it allows us more flexibility in the future with other game releases. A Kickstarter campaign is very different from simply selling the game online. As Kickstarter itself will inform its users at every step, “Kickstarter is not a store”. Customers are paying for a product that doesn’t exist yet, so being transparent throughout your campaign is very important. A typical Kickstarter campaign runs from 2 to 4 weeks and gives the creator time to gather support, respond to the community, and answer questions about the product. The Minecart Town campaign is scheduled to run for roughly a month.
The game is currently in preview mode, allowing you to follow the campaign and be notified of when it goes live and any updates it receives.
▼Kickstarter Campaign Page
▼Minecart Town BoardGameGeek Page
About JELLY JELLY GAMES
JELLY JELLY GAMES is operated by Pizzicato Design and is focused on sharing the fun and joy of board games within Japan. With over 14 board game cafes operated and 50 board games published since our start in 2011, we believe it’s time to focus on a new goal; spreading the enjoyment of Japanese games with the rest of the world. We exclusively publish games that we feel confident in recommending to everyone.
About Pizzicato Design
Based on the philosophy of “connecting people via games,” the company operates the board game cafe franchise “JELLY JELLY CAFE”, publishes original games under the brand “JELLY JELLY GAMES,” and sells board games from around the world at its board game specialty store “JELLY JELLY STORE.”
Contact for any inquiries
Pizzicato Design
jacek@pizzdesign.com
