Kickstarter: Dwarven Forge's Game Tiles

Veterans of the hobby would definitely recognize the name Dwarven Forge. They create and sell a breathtaking line of dungeon tiles and indoor terrain for use with roleplaying games. Now they have realized that with the cost of materials, their product is becoming more and more out of reach to players, so this venture into kickstarter is to help solve that.

This is starting a new line of tiles which are all plastic injection molded (as opposed to hand-casted like the rest of their line) and in a PVC material, instead of an expensive resin.

Just like the big BONES kickstarter, this is following a very similar, and very smart, pattern. As stretch goals are reached, additional pieces are added to one of the key backing levels and above. Again as we saw with BONES, this is a great way to get momentum going. And it has. The project just hit $400,000 as can be seen here. And they can come unpainted to keep the costs low (but you can also spend extra to get them professionally painted).

So let me bust out some numbers here: First off, the key backing level is $120. Any level below that, and they don't get additional pieces added from the stretch goals. According to the site, shipping for this is included, but is worth about $23. So the tiles are going to be about $97. At this level you get 2 basic sets, plus whatever stretch pieces are added. As of right now, the above pic shows what you are getting. 106 pieces total. That amounts to $0.92 per tile. A much better deal than their old sets. But again, as the funding rises, more pieces are added, making each tile cost less and less.

This all being said, it is still expensive. I could drop $120 into this, but not sure how much I want these tiles. On top of that, he is using an expensive shipping service, US Postal. To ship international (including Candada) you must add a whopping $70 to your backing. I wish I were kidding.

This is one of those projects that I want to see succeed really well. Because I feel it is a step in the right direction for our hobby, but I'm not sold enough on it. I do really like their scifi tiles or cave tiles they currently sell in the old format, and would rather see them instead of boring dungeon tiles. So I PM'd the creator of the campaign and asked him if he is planning on doing other campaigns in the future for his other set themes. I got the following response:

Thanks, Jared. Yes, our intent is to build this new line into different themes. It's too early right now, however, to know how many or how fast that will happen.
All the best,
Jeff

This is good news for me. At least if I decide to pass on this kickstarter now, I won't be kicking myself for the rest of my life. There will be more in the future, and I hope he continues the same format for backing.

What do you think?

Examples of their Caverns and Sci-fi tiles.