Image Source: Panic Roll
Townsfolk Tussle is a new campaign on Kickstarter that’s reminding a lot of fans of the 2017 video game Cuphead. Both games use art styles that call back to the 1920s era of “rubber hose” animation, which fell out of style after the 1930s.
Nostalgia doesn’t seem like quite the right word for an art style whose heyday ended before most of us were born, but the animation nevertheless seems popular with modern audiences. Cuphead was lauded for this hand-drawn art style, the Stephen Universe Movie featured a central character who was drawn in rubber hose style, and comments thus far on Townsfolk Tussle’s art have been overwhelmingly positive.
Fast Facts about Townsfolk Tussle
- Players accomodated: 1-5
- “Real” player count: 3-5
- Stated play time: 40 min/player
- Lower age limit: 14
- Kickstarter pledge: $85 + $20 shipping (if in contiguous U.S.)
Townsfolk Tussle is the first game designed by Panic Roll, a Brooklyn-based group of three local designers: Tony Mayer, Stephen Louis, and Rachel Rusk. Their design and art style has already attracted significant attention on Kickstarter, where 4,022 people had backed the game at time of publishing. (For reference, the Kickstarter campaign for the Jagged Earth expansion to the highly popular game Spirit Island ultimately attracted 8,080 backers.)
The premise of Townsfolk Tussle is pretty straightforward: The Sheriff of Eureka Springs has been murdered (Oh no!), and so the townsfolk (that’s you!) must step up and defend your small town from random rampaging ruffians.
The gameplay of Townsfolk Tussle, meanwhile, takes inspiration from the behemoth Kingdom Death: Monster, which sees a team of survivors fighting terrifying boss monsters to gain resources. Townsfolk Tussle’s “ruffians,” aren’t nearly as monstrous, but the essential flow of gameplay is similar: Players prepare in town, then cooperatively fight the boss to gain more resources, then use those resources in the next town phase in order to prepare for the next boss.
However, Townsfolk Tussle is designed to be more accessible than Kingdom Death, in several ways:
It’s a one-shot, not a legacy or campaign game
Each game of Townsfolk Tussle sees the players fighting four bosses, which is estimated to take around 40 minutes per player. That means each game should take 3-5 hours, which can be completed in one session, although players may be inclined to pause and “save” after two bosses.
A full campaign of Kingdom Death can potentially have over 25 sessions, taking up to 60 hours in total.
It’s more family friendly
Although there is plenty of cartoon violence depicted in the game, it is certainly approachable by a larger audience than the infamously R-rated Kingdom Death.
Townsfolk Tussle has a recommended age of 14 or higher. Having been through all the cards in the demo available on Tabletop Simulator, the most graphic thing I could find (in my opinion) was a “sword” called the Milk-Soaked Limb, which you presumably rip off the Pepin Milkfrog ruffian after killing him.
Kingdom Death, meanwhile, features player characters suffering intestinal prolapses and a monster sexually assaulting several women—and probably is not appropriate for any age group.
It’s cheaper/available
The lowest pledge on Townsfolk Tussle’s Kickstarter page is $85. That’s no chump change, but Kingdom Death’s base game is $400 when available from the designer. Currently he is out of stock, so you can only buy the game second-hand, where prices fluctuate.
Townsfolk Tussle is a Kickstarter-exclusive, as the designers currently have no plans to bring it to retail. If this game interests you, its Kickstarter campaign ends on November 19, 2020.