Kickstarter Spotlight - ‘Emerald Distract Reworked’
As Miniatures of the Multiverse is in full swing, I wanted to showcase all aspects of the miniature game hobby. This includes awesome Kickstarters that, while they won’t necessarily be available right now, they can start giving gamers and hobbyists ideas for the future.
I recently stumbled across a fantastic looking Kickstarter recently called Modular Emerald District Buildings Reworked from Cyber District.
Emerald District Reworked is a cyberpunk-infused project that brings stackable, modular sci-fi terrain to your tabletop with the push of a button on a 3D printer.
The line of buildings have been designed with the likes of Infinity and Warhammer 40,000 in mind, being available for any miniature game in the 28-32mm scale range. The models have been deliberately constructed in such a way that no supports are needed when printed on a FDM printer (the models in the images on Kickstarter were printed with the Ender 3). Furthermore, the range is scalable to fit a gaming table’s particular needs. All of the terrain, from buildings to the signs that hang from them, are customizable thanks to the use of the OpenLock System that allows for true modulation.
Currently there are two primary pledge levels with gamer’s in mind - Streetkid and Fixer. The Streetkid pledge brings backers over a hundred printable assets plus all unlocked stretch goals for a mere $33. The Fixer pledge ups the model count by including all of the models from Cyber Districts three previous campaigns (over 260 total files) for $76. If you have a print farm and like to make money on the side of your hobby, each tier has an addition tier that includes a merchant license.
At the time of this writing, the campaign has 11 days left to go and has already been funded. They’ve been knocking out stretch goal after stretch goal, adding new signs, scatter terrain, and walk-ways/bridges. Looking at the teaser images of the stretch coals that are currently locked, it looks like that there are possibly bullet trains in the works?
Enough with the “sales pitch”. Why am I bringing this to your attention?
First of all, I want to stress something - this is not a sponsored post. I legitimately stumbled across the project was fumbling around Reddit. I emailed the creator of the project as a formality to see if they would mind me discussing this project and using photos from the Kickstarter’s page. That’s how much I loved the aesthetics of this!
Next, as I’ve discussed multiple times in my reviews of various miniature games (especially skirmish level/low model count games) is how important terrain can be such a double-bladed sword. On the one side, you need terrain (a lot in some cases) to do the game’s mechanics justice. On the other hand, it can be a pain in the butt to store if you are collecting for multiple games. Rarely do you come across terrain that looks and feels like each piece could be a part of multiple game systems. Even rarer than that is the ability to be modular so you aren’t constantly looking at the same game boards.
Beyond the aforementioned Infinity (both N4 and Code One) and the various game variants of Warhammer 40,000 (like Kill Team and Necromunda), there are a slew of other games that could use this terrain. The first, most obvious one, is Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone by Monster Fight Club. Instead of fighting against your opponents in an open battlefield, you could bring the battle to a more intimate setting of back alleyways and sprawling lanes of shops full of neon light. Then you have next month’s surefire hit in Atomic Mass Games’ Star Wars: Shatterpoint. The pieces might need to be scaled a bit to accommodate Shatterpoint’s larger model size (40mm), but how cool would be to have a lightsaber duel in the neon lights of the neglected city beneath Coruscant? And lets not forget the various tabletop RPG scenarios this could bring to the table, from Shadowrun to Starfinder.
Finally, the terrain offers people more into the hobby side of miniature gaming to have an infinite amount of pieces to work with in their next project. Rather its adding some scatter pieces to a model from the fabulous Neko Galaxy or just building a sweet diorama for a competition, these pieces offer some great range to stretch your artistic chops.
Ultimately, I just wanted to share this project with everyone because it is a great example of why we are doing Miniatures of the Multiverse here at The Late Night Players. Such fun and unique games and projects (like this one) slip under the radar in favor of the next big preorder box from the other guy’s that sell out five minutes before the preorder goes live. It doesn’t hurt that the set looks phenomenal and it is so customizable that you would theoretically never play on the same board twice for the longest time.
If you get a minute, swing by the Kickstarter page and give it a look. At the very least, perhaps it’ll inspire your next project.