Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) is producing a new Crusades-era empire-building game called Crusaders:  Thy Will Be Done, scheduled to release in June 2018.

Created by Seth Jaffee (Eminent Domain, Terra Prime), Crusaders:  Thy Will Be Done combines mechanics from the traditional abstract game Mancala with rondel-based action selection. 

The players are the leaders of various Crusader orders in the Middle Ages, tasked with protecting pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land.  During the game, they amass wealth and power by expanding their holdings across Europe, confronting the enemies of Christendom, and constructing buildings.  The Mancala aspect of the game is played out on each player’s individual “action wheel” using action markers.  The strength of an action is determined by the pool of markers on a space, but after the action is taken the markers are redistributed to other actions, forcing the player to build up their tokens again before repeating the same action.

Crusaders:  They Will Be Done will include a double-sided game board, 4 player boards, 129 wooden tokens, 86 tiles, and 93 cardboard tokens.  The game is intended for 2 to 4 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about an hour and a half to play.  MSRP is $59.99.

TMG is funding production of Crusaders through a Kickstarter campaign that has attracted $209,327 in pledged support from 2,671 backers as of this writing (an average of $78.37 per backer).  The campaign features a limited edition “deluxified” version of the game with upgraded components including metal tokens and sculpted plastic miniatures.  Retailers can order the $100.00 MSRP “deluxified” version by backing the campaign through a retailer-only pledge package. TMG has had much success with its Kickstarter-only “deluxified” editions of games such as Yokohama and Orleans.

Next spring, TMG will release Jesse Li’s The Flow of History (see “Cultivate New Civilizations in ‘The Flow of History’”).  Earlier this year, the company raised more than $165,000 by selling stock through the crowdfunding portal First Democracy VC (see “Tasty Minstrel’s Successful Raise”).