Re;MATCH, an indie puzzle fighter board game that has been seven years in the making, wraps up its Kickstarter campaign today with nearly $250,000 raised from over 1,250 backers. For a one-person studio, that is a serious result.
The game is a 1v1 tabletop fighting game inspired by arcade puzzle fighters like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Players pick a character, then pull connected matching marbles from a shared board to input attack commands. More marbles in a chain means a bigger attack, but only the middle lane is shared between players, which creates a constant push-and-pull over resources. It played well enough at PAX East this past weekend to earn a spot in Cannibal Halfling's tabletop roundup of the show.
Designer Brother Ming (the studio's sole creator) has built Re;MATCH around player mastery rather than randomness. In a Board Game Wire interview, he explained his focus on rewarding skill over the "dopamine hit of discovery" that many modern games rely on. The game also comes with a free Tabletop Simulator version so you can try before you back.
Re;MATCH has a complicated backstory. It originally existed as Sento Fighter, a prototype that Brother Ming licensed to another publisher in 2018. After that deal fell through and a separate designer released a game with strikingly similar mechanics, Ming reacquired the rights and rebranded it. He has also publicly committed to never using AI art in any of his games.
With previous campaigns (Re;ACT at 1,730 backers and POND at 1,900), Ming is tracking consistent growth. If Re;MATCH crosses 2,200 backers by the end of today, it will be his biggest launch yet.
Sources: Kickstarter | Board Game Wire | Cannibal Halfling Gaming