Cape Breton-born game producer Randall Thompson is taking to Kickstarter to get Vertium, his fifth board game, out into the universe.
Thompson, who now resides in Victoria, B.C., says an eye injury led him toward board games. He was looking at a photo-reader when a bright light hit his eyes. Ever since, he’s been very sensitive to light, which meant no television or computers.
“I lost my job over it. I wear sunglasses all the time outside. For a couple of years I had to wear the big giant ones, or two pairs,” said Thompson.
It was a major setback but Thompson, 57, says it meant more quality time with his family, which led him to an idea.
“We started to read more books, listen to the radio and play Monopoly. One night, while listening to a basketball game on the radio, the idea of a basketball board game popped into my head. I ended up drawing the idea out on paper,” he said.
With the help of his three children, who helped with the design, the idea eventually became CrunchTime, his first board game, released in 2005 through his company Caper Games.
Now Thompson is looking to the stars with Vertium, an intergalactic colonization game he’s hoping to raise $6,000 for through a Kickstarter campaign. So far, Thompson has raised about $4,500 on his campaign.
The 1-4-player game sees players cast out of our own solar system and into the Copernicus system, where a radioactive element called Vertium is discovered. From there, players must colonize planets, inhabit moons, and use strategy and luck to gather as much of the element as they can. The game ends with a threeturn skirmish that adds points to the final score.
Thompson says limiting the final battle to only three turns was actually requested by game testers, to appeal to a more European audience. Originally, the game was to end with a final battle that left only one player standing as winner of the whole game.
Part of the inspiration for the game goes back to Thompson’s time in the Canadian Armed Forces, where he spent 1980-84 in West Germany. As a corporal, he spent a lot of time playing Risk with his fellow soldiers.
Thompson worked with planes but didn’t fly them himself.
“When we first went over we were warned to watch out for cars with Russian licence plates, but for the Canadians it was pretty relaxed over there,” he said.
A $45 level of support for the Kickstarter campaign was introduced specifically for supporters from Nova Scotia, offering a copy of the game and all expansion packs, with free shipping.
