Get Off My Land: New To Kickstarter

This week’s New to Kickstarter feature game is Get Off My Land! by First Fish Games. It’s the first project they have put on Kickstarter and has already reached it's target of $28,800, with $33,727 raised by 516 backers. 

Story behind the project

First Fish Games consists of a group of friends who want to design great board games and bring them to the gaming community through Kickstarter. They are located in Canada and are excited for the rising popularity of board games and hope this helps bring their ideas to life.

When I asked Stephanie where they got the idea from for this game the story really showed me that at the heart of this company is a group of gamers trying to make their dreams come true.

She said: "Gordon and Liam have been friends since high school. They've been dabbling in game design for years now but finally took the leap and went forward with Get Off My Land! Gordon and myself started dating four years ago and our love for board games just exploded in to a passion to also design board games. We have worked hard for the last two years, starting from a simple thought and growing it rapidly to what we have today.

"It all started out with Liam mentioning he would like to see a game using the mechanic from Catan, where you fight for longest road, and use that as a territory grabber - which is how our fencing mechanism kind of works. After playing Caverna Gordon said that he liked the double-sided tiles but there was no actual flipping mechanism so that is how our tile and card flipping came about."

Get of my Land! is advertised as a game of close-quarter farming where you compete for limited space and resources. The game is played over a year and during that time you'll see your farm grow from a small one, to one that has everything a good farm should.

Get off my Land - The Set-up

At the start of the game each player should begin with:

• One action reference card
• One Farmhouse Tile
• 15 Fence Pieces of their chosen colour
• One Farmer of their chosen colour
• $8 worth of money
• Two Fence Cards

Turn order sequence

Here's a brief run-down of the turn phases in Get off my Land! The first is the Income Phase. At the start of each month players get money from the mature crops and livestock they control. Then we have the Player Phase - Starting with player one, they can take up to two actions from the following list:

• Logging - Flip a forest tile and draw two fence cards
• Play a fence card - Play an action on the card or discard a card to place fences
• Go to market - Buy one card from the market
• Harvest - Harvest crops or livestock for money

Once all players have had a turn, you need to move the month marker to the next month and put in to play any special events indicated. Once you reach April the game ends and everyone adds up per the cards and tiles they have and the person with the most money is the winner.

This is a limited rundown of the rules and turn order so I suggest you look at the Kickstarter page to get a better understanding as the page does an excellent job of explaining.

Thoughts on the game

When I first noticed this game on KS I was interested and surprised with the art style as it's very comical, colourful and really matches the theme which looks very fun and like a game that would be enjoyed at home or my game group equally.

The choice of playing friendly or aggressively is a good one as it allows you to tailor your style of play to suit who you are playing against (when I play with my kids by playing nice I would allow them to enjoy and understand it more).

I think this game would have been funded already if it wasn’t launched around the same time as Rising Sun, and the fact that the cost of the game has been lowered shows the designers really do want to make a success of this.

As Stephanie explained: "We probably aren't doing as well as we thought we would be because we launched at a time when there are so many big hitter games also on Kickstarter at the same time but we didn't feel like we should give up and push our ideal launched date. We're still pushing forward and hope people will see how fun and unique our game is and check us out".

I urge you all to go check this game out and help First fish make a success of this campaign but whatever happens I am sure we will see First Fish Games on KS again.

Stephanie confirmed: "Get Off My Land! is our first game to arrive on Kickstarter but definitely not the last!"

Editor's Note - Get off my land's original Kickstarter campaign was ended early and went live for a second time on April 10.