Sometimes a daft idea is exactly what game night ordered. Battlesticks, a chaotic party card game from London-based Zilly Games, has turned "collect ridiculous sticks and sabotage your friends" into one of the runaway crowdfunding hits of the season.
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See how it worksThe pitch is gloriously silly. Players collect sticks, wind each other up, and battle to be crowned Stick Champion across fast, loud rounds built on bluffing, hand management, set collection, and a generous helping of take-that. It is the sort of game that lives or dies on table chatter, and plenty of backers clearly fancied the racket.
The numbers tell the story. Battlesticks asked for £7,250 and has rocketed past £82,000, around 1,135 per cent of its goal, drawn from more than 1,600 backers, according to crowdfunding tracker Tabletop Analytics. For an indie party game with no big licence attached, that is a serious show of confidence from the Kickstarter crowd.
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Start organising for freeThe campaign launched on 4 May and has only days left before it closes in early June 2026, so if a stick-swinging free-for-all sounds like your group's kind of nonsense, the clock is ticking. Party games like this are the easiest possible sell for a casual session, no rules essay required. Round up the usual suspects, find a game night near you, and let the squabbling begin.
Sources: Kickstarter | Tabletop Analytics | BoardGameGeek
