For the final spurt, the Kickstarter social deduction board game “Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party. The project by the Japanese publisher Gotta2 has long been financed, and all stretch goals have also been activated. Now it's just a matter of convincing as many fans as possible of the game idea, which can definitely be described as "special".
The sober presentation of the Kickstarter campaign should not hide the fact that behind “Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party” is full of attention to detail. Not as far as the gameplay is concerned, and certainly not as far as the German instructions are concerned - the material is so refreshing, however, that you can have this social deduction board game on the shelf without actually wanting to play it.
At the last SPIEL'2019 in Essen, the creators presented their idea, which was extremely successful: the crazy tea party was completely sold out. Now there is the chance to get to the game via Kickstarter.
Alice on the way to doubling
Behind “Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party" initially has a simple but well-intentioned idea: The board game is based on social deduction, but without the often typical kick-out moments in which individual players are excluded from playing and are condemned to watch . Three pages of rules - half a page of pictures and a full page of game flow overview - that's all you need to know to get started.
Playfully, “Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party” shallowly. It's about guessing which characters belong to each player. Tea party participants can choose from three options per turn: place one of the characters on a chair; Place dishes or send a secret letter. When all characters (the number depends on the number of players) are sitting at the table, a round ends and the points are awarded. A total of three or four rounds are played.
Of course, the deduction game cannot do without small but important tricks. The set up porcelain scores points, which are then awarded to the player whose place the table setting is. With the secret letter system you can also steal points from opponents. Also important: In the event of a tie, there is no tie-breaker, but simply no points for both players. In this way, opponents can be played off against each other. Because you don't want to reveal which of the characters you embody, you have to use tricks: You can put any character you want at the table, and not just your own, the dishes can also be set up anywhere, but you get points at your own place.
You can hardly refuse this invitation to the tea party. Photo: André Volkmann
"Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party" contains clever elements and is fun, but primarily impresses with its looks. You have to know that Gotta2 is a Japanese publisher: The focus on small parts, material and topic is therefore no coincidence, it almost borders on obsession. Even the inlay in which the "porcelain" is stored is flocked and velvety soft.
Gotta8.200 had around 2 euros as a financing goal for the Kickstarter campaign of “Where am I? Alice in a Mad Tea Party” – the amount has already been exceeded by far. Over 250 fans have already supported the crowdfunding project and pumped over 14.000 euros into the board game. Alice is on the way to doubling. the Campaign is still running until July 13th. The social deduction game is to be sent out later this year, probably in December.
