Wrapping up with just under US$13 million in funds from its Kickstarter campaign, an ambitious board game called Frosthaven broke through the overwhelming cultural and financial doom-and-gloom to show that, even in the worst of times, some people are still willing to drop US$100 on a crazy tabletop game. That total is the third highest in Kickstarter history and the top mark for a board game ever.
Designer Isaac Childres and his company Cephalofair Games announced the the campaign for Frosthaven, a sequel to his hit game Gloomhaven, last fall. No one could have predicted the current pandemic conditions that would coincide with the launch, which make the staggering total raised all the more remarkable.
Frosthaven’s Kickstarter campaign was delayed by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, but only by a week. It launched March 31 instead of March 24. Childres announced in a blog post that he wanted to launch the game anyway because he thought “people will need something positive in these times.” He planned to make the campaign “one giant, month-long party.”
“It just felt wrong to deny people this celebration they’ve been waiting so long for just because of the possibility it would be mildly inconvenient or slightly less lucrative,” said Childres in the blog post. He wanted to be accommodating with a low US$1 cost to buy into the pledge manager — meaning you’d reserve the right to buy the game at its Kickstarter cost.
As it turns out, people were ready for the party Childres was throwing.
