My main concern is based on their first game, Aeon Trespass: Odyssey. During the Kickstarter of that one, the core game pledge cost $129. But if you press the "late pledge" button now, the price for the same core game today is $299, more than twice the original price. Being aware of the current problems of producing board games in China and then shipping them, and the huge price increases of that, I assume that $299 is actually a far more realistic price than $129. But Aeon Trespass: Odyssey still hasn't been delivered to its over 8,000 original backers. And to me it looks as if the original price was miscalculated; maybe understandably so, as they couldn't foresee COVID and the manufacturing / shipping crisis and inflation. Still, I'm guessing that their overall cost is higher than the money they collected from Kickstarter for Aeon Trespass.

In fact, there is no "good" version of interpretation of events here. Either they can deliver the game for $129, in which case the price increase to $299 looks like daylight robbery. Or $299 is a realistic price with a realistic profit margin, in which case the $129 looks woefully inadequate. This isn't a large company that can eat a loss like that without problem. In other words, the money that Kingdoms Forlorn is now bringing in might in part be used to fill the financing gaps of the previous project. It is very hard to get back from a Ponzi scheme financing like that, there is a significant risk that they'll get into even more trouble financing Kingdoms Forlorn to the end. And on Kickstarter, it is the backers who carry most of the risk. When things go south, they might end up having paid a lot of money for a game that never gets delivered. Of course all of this is pure speculation, the finances of small companies on Kickstarter are completely opaque. It is up to the backers to look out for red flags and beware.

My second concern about Kingdoms Forlorn is the state of the prototype they sent out to various YouTubers to play. This is a relatively common practice. And yes, a prototype isn't supposed to be a finished product. However, I have seen many Kickstarter campaigns presenting prototypes of their games, and compared to these other prototypes, the one of Kingdoms Forlorn is comparatively unfinished. One of the YouTubers, who was relatively hyped about the game, admitted that he spent 16 hours trying to understand the rulebook. And the Kingdoms Forlorn Kickstarter page has a section where they are already showing design improvements over the prototype. And somewhere this loops back to my first concern: Wouldn't it have been better if they had waited a few more months for both their first game to deliver, and their prototype to be actually ready to play? It concerns me when obviously the *miniatures* are finished, but gameplay and rulebook are an afterthought.

The core game pledge of Kingdoms Forlorn, including shipping, is €170 ($190). The elite pledge including shipping to Europe is €250 ($280). So the game isn't cheap, and I would be seriously annoyed if the project didn't deliver, or the game turned out to be a dud. On the other hand, in hindsight, the Kickstarter price of the previous game looks like a bargain now. And the Kingdoms Forlorn campaign is one of those campaigns that pile up a lot of stretch goals and daily unlocks, so that by the end of the campaign you are promised a vast amount of stuff. It is designed to trigger your FOMO (fear of missing out), and it is working. So I haven't totally made up my mind yet. There are red flags, but hope springs eternal; this is after all how Kickstarter works. Up to now, all my Kickstarter pledges worked out fine, so should I risk my money on hope? I'm not sure.