Parks and Recreation board game comes to Kickstarter
By Settlers of Catan company Mayfair Games.
Parks and Recreation fans will no doubt remember Ben Wyatt's ludicrously impractical board game The Cones of Dunshire. Now, board game company Mayfair Games, of Settlers of Catan fame, is developing the ridiculous parody game for real on Kickstarter.
The catch is it will cost $500 (about £330). This is not a joke. Well, actually, the whole campaign is a joke, but it's a real joke. Mayfair is actually producing The Cones of Dunshire and the few outrageous enough to bid that much on it will have a slice of both gaming and television history on their mantle.
For the most part, the Kickstarter is aimed towards producing a version of the game for the Gen Con 2015 charity event. Mayfair Games previously created a smaller version of The Cones of Dunshire for Gen Con 2014, but this Kickstarter is for an expanded Deluxe Edition.
This version of the game will be colossal in scale with a multi-level board that's over 10 square feet with "more cards than you can shake a handcrafted artisan stick at."
Nobody actually knows how The Cones of Dunshire is played - as its cartoonish unwieldiness is part of its charm - but it contains 17 roles: Wizard, Maverick, Arbiter, Corporal, Warriors, Dragon, Alchemist, Provost, Denier, Shaman, Abbott, Brinksman, Farmer, Duchess, Mountebank, Minstrel, and Tradesman.
And what of the cones themselves? "Wrap your head around 48 Cones of Dunshire cones in four different colours, Red, Green, Yellow, AND Blue," the Kickstarter boasted. "And who can forget the Start Player Cone? Is it the most important cone in the game? You have to play to find out. Then there is the big one, The Cone of Decision, AKA The Dark Cone. This one is a monster. I mean this thing is a gigantic piece of wood. Please do not use it as a weapon. This giant cone can only be controlled by the Cone Sheath, which slides on snugly."
While The Cones of Dunshire's Deluxe Edition will cost $500, Mayfair is offering much more affordable rewards in the form of various memorabilia. At $10 you can get a poster, at $20 a pin, at $50 a T-shirt. You get the idea.
Ultimately, Mayfair will need to acquire $300K to make this ridiculous version of The Cones of Dunshire a reality. So far it's only acquired $10,177, but the campaign just launched and it has until 15th March to meet its goal.