First of all, Malhya is a narrative adventure game, which is the type of board game I like the most. So there is both a story with choose your own adventure style choices, and there are board game elements like tactical combat and resource management. In this case there are both overworld exploration adventures and dungeon crawling, perfect! This is exactly the sort of game I tend to back on Kickstarter, because to get all those elements into a game, you need quite a lot of components, and that has its price. In this case €140, which given that the game has miniatures is actually still quite reasonable. Yeah, I would have liked a €100 version with standees, but unfortunately that was not an option. At least the game isn't going overboard with giant sized "miniatures" that only drive the price up and aren't actually all that useful for playing.

The reason I trust the Malhya project is that I know a bit of its history. The game has been in development since 2019. I was able to have a look at the game went I went to the Spiel in Essen in 2021. And at the time the game already looked very well polished. This isn't "let's get funded first and develop the game later" sort of project. It is fully developing the game first, and then using crowdfunding for the production cost. This is a company that has already delivered several other Kickstarter projects, so it is a relatively solid bet. And because this isn't their first rodeo, they already took care of some important details of shipping, so that there aren't any nasty surprises like VAT or other sales taxes being added later. Luckily for me the company is situated in nearby France, so shipping is just around €20 for me. Shipping cost are listed in a very transparent manner. And yeah, it sucks if you want to have a board game shipped to Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, or Guadeloupe, but at least you have been warned, and this isn't exactly the game developers fault.

Because the game is already well developed, you can find videos on YouTube with board game channels having been sent a prototype review copy. Seeing the game played or shown is probably a better way to decide whether this is something you'd want to back. However, I don't think this is the greatest Kickstarter deal ever. You will probably be able to buy the game at retail for €150 or €165 (I've seen two different estimates of MSRP). But the print run is probably going to be small (the Kickstarter has 2,000 backers up to now), and I wouldn't bet on retail availability world wide for a niche game like this. So I am happy to give them my money early, in support of the developers, and have peace of mind.