The strategic card game Gone Bunkers is currently running as a crowdfunding project Kickstarter. After a solid start, funding stagnated. It can't be the idea alone, after all it's about soldiers, zombies, aliens and robots. Fans can watch and support Gone Bunker until September 30th. We asked author Austin Burke what was behind the crazy idea.
Gone Bunkers is war with cards, but not in the classic sense. Instead of simply colliding armies of earthly inhabitants, author Austin Burke has considered that a war game gains added value if you also embed aliens and zombies in the concept. This works wonderfully with B-Movies, so why not also in a parlor game?
Gone Bunkers: War on two levels
You may dismiss the setting as silly, but the idea behind the card game Gone Bunkers isn't bad at all. The war takes place on two levels: players fight each other and try to attack each other with the cards they have collected in order to minimize their hand cards. In addition, however, there are "War Cards" in which players must defeat powerful bosses - if they fail, they are kicked out of the game. So the ultimate goal is: Survive!
Gone Bunkers is aimed at two to six players, ages ten and up. The individual games have a playing time of around 20 minutes; the card game is therefore also suitable for casual gamers or as a game for in between.
Why did it have to be soldiers and mega robots and zombies and aliens? The idea came to author Austin Burke overnight when he couldn't sleep. Originally, a more classic concept was envisaged, the basis of which was the fight against the boss maps - which always consisted of robots and aliens. "I wanted to make it more strategic," says Burke, adding zombies as "weapons" to the game, alongside mines, spies and atomic bombs. Competing against other players isn't absolutely necessary, but it makes it easier for you to survive as the sole troop commander - and ultimately win.
With Gone Bunkers, Austin Burke is primarily targeting players who want to experience something new. Burke himself enjoys strategic war games, including the classics Stratego and Risk. So for Gone Bunkers it had to be a similar basic theme for him, just spiced up a bit. "The best part about Gone Bunkers is the nukes," says the author. "It's exciting to know that you can blast half of your opponent's hand."
For Austin Burke, Gone Bunkers is his second game, but also the first to do solidly on Kickstarter. With a pure drinking game, Burke failed because of the financing. You can't draw a comparison between the two titles anyway. The new creation Gone Bunkers promises a significantly higher entertainment factor and playfully gives more than the previous "Tipsy Toes". According to his own statements, Burke has always been an entrepreneur, he likes to express himself creatively - that works with board games: "There are an infinite number of games that you can think up and realize," says Austin Burke ambitiously. He's hoping that the Gone Bunkers Kickstarter campaign will end well and that the game will ultimately make it through the funding phase. He doesn't want to disappoint his supporters and fellow campaigners: "They helped me in many ways to coordinate the gameplay," says Burke.
What if Gone Bunkers isn't successful? "I won't give up if we don't manage the financing!" Instead, Austin Burke wants to focus on optimizing his marketing strategy and create "hype" for the game, but also continue to work on the gameplay. In an extreme emergency, the author would finance his project himself, but then to a much smaller extent, i.e. with a drastic reduction in the number of copies. Burke's greatest achievement? If the game makes it to retail."
The Crowdfunding campaign for Gone Bunkers runs until September 30th. The financing target is the equivalent of around 3.000 euros, almost half of the amount has been achieved. The standard pledge is $ 20, more expensive editions are also available, then with some additional content. The card game is to be delivered as early as February 2021 after successful swarm financing.
