Well, it's been a whirlwind month for me: I took my kids to Taiwan for most of August, got back in time to celebrate my anniversary and then took off again for PAX Prime. (Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any typos and formatting errors that occurred during August.) I've got a lot of stories to tell you about board gaming in Taiwan, an awesome overnight stay at the aquarium, and some more Taiwan travel tips ... but first I've got a Kickstarter round-up, because you know how I love Kickstarter.

I missed Gen Con, sadly, but I did get to find out about a few new projects while at PAX, and also saw the results of a few successful Kickstarter projects. There was a room called "Kickstarter Arcade" in the Grand Hyatt where you could see some projects in various stages — from "still seeking funding" to "funded and in development" to "completed and for sale."

One of the projects I was most excited to see was Story Realms, the kid-friendly role-playing board game that Erik Wecks and I saw during GameStorm this year. This time their prototypes had closer-to-complete artwork, and it's absolutely gorgeous.

Erik already mentioned that their Kickstarter campaign launched on Friday morning, and they raised half of their goal by the next morning. We're all rooting for the Story Realms team. If you haven't backed it yet, check out Erik's interview with Angela Hickman Newnham for more about the game.

Back in June, I wrote about a game called Disaster Looms!, a game of corporate greed and impending disaster. Well, the folks from Break From Reality Games are back with another space-themed game of disaster, but the gameplay is quite different. In Damage Report, you're all stranded on a spaceship which has lost its hyperdrive. In the meantime, the ship is taking fire from aliens (or getting hit by solar flares from the nearby star), and your shields are depleting. Your goal is to move around the ship, picking up tools and resources to repair things, before the shields are wiped out and everyone dies.

The coolest thing, though, is the real-time aspect. You've got sand timers which limit your actions, and one main timer which indicates how often the ship takes damage. The scenario we played at PAX was fairly simple, just 10 minutes long at most, but there are a number of other scenarios which will be included.

And one more thing about BFR Games: You see that picture to the right? That's Wombat holding a finished copy of Disaster Looms! Because the game was mostly manufactured in the US, BFR Games was able to start fulfilling pledges in 77 days. It's not often that a Kickstarter board game has such a quick turnaround. So I'm confident that they'll be able to meet their planned release of early 2013.

So far you probably know Gary Games just from their deck-building game Ascension, which has had a few expansions and has done pretty well as an iPad app. Gary Games teamed up with Richard Garfield, inventor of Magic: The Gathering (and the entire trading card game category) to create a new digital card game called SolForge. Matt Forbeck visited with Justin Gary at Gen Con and shared a little more about the game then, and I spoke with him at PAX as well. Although I'm not really a TCG player, I really liked the "level up" feature of the game, which would be pretty hard to implement in a physical game and really takes advantage of the possibilities of digital card games. Also, I appreciated that you could play to earn cards and unlock them through regular play or purchase them as booster packs — you're not locked into one or the other.

SolForge has less than a week to go in its Kickstarter campaign and they haven't met their goal yet, so if you're a fan of Ascension or Magic you should check it out. As an added bonus, they've got a few deals going until midnight tonight: pledge at least $25 and you'll get an extra starter deck, or pledge at least $100 to get 10 extra booster packs as well.

At PAX I ran into Lee Moyer, one of the folks behind The Doom That Came to Atlantic City. He was there promoting another project, 13th Age, a fantasy adventure game with role-playing elements and a focus on story: it reminded me a little of Story Realms, though it's not for young kids and looks more complex — something for the serious RPG fan, perhaps. While 13th Age itself is not a Kickstarter project (you can preorder it from Pelgrane Press), the 13 True Ways expansion book is currently seeking funding. If you're a fan of RPGs and the phrases "gridless, free-flowing combat" and "escalation die" sound intriguing, go check it out now.

Finally, two other projects that I heard about but didn't have a lot of time to check out: Guts of Glory, which I saw in the Kickstarter Arcade room, is a post-apocalyptic eating contest board game with some crazy artwork. You can actually download a print-and-play version for free if you want to see how it works and give it a try, or pledge for a copy of the game at $25 and up. Consequential by Chris Cieslik of Asmadi Games is currently canceled but has a planned relaunch in October — it's an ambitious cooperative game with individual episodes, free downloadable content, and instructions on which components to use when you set up the game to tell a larger story. Think of the changing nature of a game like Risk: Legacy, but used in a cooperative game with a 16-week "season." While you can't back the project now, you can check out the canceled Kickstarter page for a little bit more information, and wait for the relaunch.

And now, for some of the Kickstarter-funded projects that are in development:

I caught up with Burton and Becca Posey of Addo Games and got to try out a demo build of Robots Love Ice Cream. It's looking good but isn't complete yet, so they've been collecting feedback on the control scheme, appearance, and so on. One of the things I really liked was the way that the lighting can change gradually from daytime to nighttime: windows in the background buildings light up and you can see silhouettes of people and furniture.

Speaking of projects still in development, I walked past the Double Fine booth and happened to see Tim Shafer, but he was being interviewed at the time and it didn't seem like a great time to stop and chat. But if you were one of the 87,142 people who helped ridiculously overfund the Double Fine Adventure project, then you've been getting the updates and you'll probably hear more about it soon.

I hadn't heard of Octodad before stumbling across them at the Kickstarter Arcade, but apparently it's a computer game about an octopus masquerading as a human dad. You control Octodad by dragging his tentacles around, making everyday tasks extremely difficult. The sequel, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, successfully funded last year and is due for release sometime in 2013. For more about the site (or to download the original Octodad game), visit OctodadGame.com.

Finally, there were several games and projects that are now available. Here are just a few:

I met up with Ray Wehrs of Calliope Games and got to see how Tsuro of the Seas turned out. It is as lovely as expected, and I got to check out how the promotional tiles work as well: the whirlpool moves around the board, devouring everything in its path. The tsunami is a tidal wave that gets stronger and stronger, and affects an entire row of the board — if this hits the board, then you want to head toward it to get through the other side before it gets too strong. There are cannon tiles which can be used to kill off the daikaiju if you run into them, and a mystic portal which teleports you to a safe spot ... you hope. The finished game should be shipping near the end of September, so I'm excited about getting my copy!

Another GeekDad favorite made an appearance in a big way: Skallops. Ken Denmead wrote about them in January — Skallops are small laser-cut wooden half-circles that let you build things with heavy paper (like cards).

They had a small meeting room to themselves where you could go play with Skallops and build stuff, and PAX-goers took them up on it, as you can see in the photo above. They had Skallops sets for sale, and we even gave away a few sets at our GeekDad/GeekMom panel across the hall. You can purchase Skallops at the E&M Labs website.

I first heard about Sentinels of the Multiverse at PAX last year. It officially launched at Gen Con in 2011, and made a huge splash — it's a cooperative comic-book game essentially created by three guys. Since then they've run two successful Kickstarter campaigns, the first for their Rook City expansion and the second for the Infernal Relics expansion which also included the "Enhanced Edition" of the game (featuring better card stock, a better box, counters, and more balanced villains). I've backed both projects and just got my latest rewards after Gen Con, so I'm looking forward to playing it. I know, I promised you a review after PAX last year, but then Kickstarter happened. I'll make time to get it on the table soon!

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the old computer game Oregon Trail (you have died of dysentery), and we were delighted to discover the zombie-themed Organ Trail on Kickstarter earlier this year. The campaign was to take the flash-based version and turn it into a game for iPhone, iPad, Android, PCs, and Macs. At the Kickstarter Arcade, I met software engineer Michael Block, who said that the game is now available, and they're working on getting it onto Steam through Greenlight. For more info visit The Men Who Wear Many Hats website.

Here's another one in the "ridiculously overfunded" category: Zombicide, a zombie-themed board game from Cool Mini or Not, the company that also brought you Super Dungeon Explore. The game comes with a pile of miniatures and a modular board and looks like it's a lot of fun. I didn't happen to back this one myself — after Super Dungeon Explore I needed a break from assembling more miniatures — but it's one I might check out down the road now that it's out. Then again, I also saw that Cool Mini or Not had an expansion for Super Dungeon Explore out, plus another upcoming expansion ...

I'll round out this write-up with two more that I failed to get photos of: Borogove is a card game with a Wonderland theme, created by artist Kory Bing. I missed out on the Kickstarter myself, but managed to pick up a deck at Stumptown Comics Fest this year. The deck of cards has 13 suits of four numbers each, all based on creatures from Wonderland, and the artwork is a lot of fun. Bing has a new non-game Kickstarter project online now, for a printed collection of her Skin Deep webcomic.

Finally, one last project which had a huge presence at PAX this year: Cards Against Humanity. It was a fairly modest Kickstarter campaign for a game that was basically an R-rated version of Apples to Apples, but after its release it became the top-selling game on Amazon. Rather than adjectives and nouns, CAH used questions or fill-in-the-blank phrases with off-color answers, and it has been a pretty big hit. There are no graphics to speak of — they're just black or white cards with text — but nearly everyone I've ever spoken to who has played has called it the funniest thing ever. Needless to say, this is probably not the sort of game you should play with your kids, or your parents. For PAX, CAH gave away thousands of T-shirts, black ones with the questions and white ones with answers. Throughout the weekend I saw a lot of people walking around wearing T-shirts, and if you check out the Twitter hashtag #cahshirt you'll see a lot of pairings. (Warning: "55-gallon drum of lube" seems to be one of the more popular T-shirts.) For more about this "free party game for horrible people," visit the website.

Well, that wraps up the Kickstarter projects I saw at PAX this year, though I'm sure there were plenty of others that I missed. Later this week: more about the rest of the experience, including the time we got trapped on the 16th floor of the Westin.