Most deck-builders have a dead patch where you sit and watch everyone else shuffle through their turns. Button Kingdoms, live on Kickstarter now from Around the Stump Games, tries to fix that, and it does it with an army of plush toys. It is a family-weight deck-building game for 2 to 4 players where children armed with cuddly recruits and beastly pets scrap for control of a make-believe playground realm.
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Find events near youThe clever bit is the market. Rather than taking turns to buy cards one at a time, everyone shops from a shared board at once, placing hidden bids of buttons (the game's currency) and revealing them together. Turns happen simultaneously, so you are always doing something rather than waiting your turn, and combat is quick. There is no player elimination either. If a rival seizes your throne you stay in the game, and you might even find winning easier without a kingdom to defend. Expect around an hour once everyone knows the rules.
Around the Stump is the studio behind Outrun the Bear, which won Best Family Game in the UK Games Expo's 2023 People's Choice awards, so it has form with a crowd-pleaser. Button Kingdoms leans into a nostalgic childhood-fantasy theme, all blanket forts and imagined battles, and the art is worth a mention: the game is fully hand-illustrated by Ilya Salnikov with no AI art, which is increasingly a selling point for hobby backers.
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See how it worksPledges start at around $55 (roughly £41) for the base game, and the campaign has already sailed past its funding goal. It looks like a genuinely welcoming gateway game, the kind you can put in front of family who would run a mile from a heavier war game. It is live on Kickstarter now, so it is worth a look while the window is open.
Sources: Button Kingdoms on Kickstarter | Button Kingdoms | Outrun the Bear
