Thunderbirds the board game is a go

“Join International Rescue, avert disasters, and foil the Hood’s evil scheme in THUNDERBIRDS, the new co-op game from Matt Leacock.”

That’s right you heard correctly, the beloved Thunderbirds series is getting its very own Co-operative board game for its 50 year anniversary.

Their kickstarter started earlier this week and has now funded over 5 times their original goal of £20,000. 

From the creator of Pandemic, Matt Leacock, has set his limits high with Thunderbirds. There area a lot of stretch goals and Extended Editions to get hyped about.

The release of their funding is in perfect timing with the release of the teaser trailer for the series reboot.  

The Thunderbirds are making a come back from the 1960s! Play as your favorite characters from the UK series in the game and defeat Mr Doom.

Matt Leacock did a live stream today to talk about the board game. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXeLBhNohg

As mentioned in the interview, Leacock is an American game designer who was asked to take part in creating the board game in Europe. Generally, board games are import German designs which make it big in America. More and more board games are being created globally and shared around the world. It is great to see such a great hobby take off so successfully in different reaches of the globe. 

Producing the game alongside Leacock is Modiphius, a British entertainment publishing company from nerd Chris Birch who created Achtung! Cthulhu RPG in 2013.

“We develop games, novels, merchandising and more. We aim to inspire those who read, play or encounter our work with tales of heroism, adventure and courage,” is the tagline for the company.

The Base Game is pretty easy to understand. Depending the character you play you get special skills and can build up skills as you go along. You can order different expansions and level up models/characters to add to the base game depending on your price range. 

Co-operative board games are becoming more popular in design and play. In the majority of board games you, the player, play against other players to achieve a goal such as most money or destroy others. Co-operative games work were all players are working toward the same goal, in this instance it is to save the planet in the fashion of the Thunderbirds. 

Kickstarter and the Modiphius website has allowed quite a lot of fan engagement and interactivity in the developing process of the game. It is a great opportunity for the game designers to get to know what the fans want/hope for in the game. 

Links: 

http://www.modiphius.com/thunderbirds.html

February 27, 2015