By Paco Garcia Jaen
I like Modiphius. Since ever. I have bought as many of their products as I could, I have backed some of their Kickstarters when I had money, had them in podcasts, recorded an episode of Dice & Slice and had it edited really fast just to show their Thunderbirds game before the Kickstarter and even bought their whole range of Cthulhu miniatures even though, truth be told, I have little interest in miniatures that don’t come with a board game.
Because I like them.
And tonight, as well as announcing some amazing stuff to do with the Mutant Chronicles franchise, they unveiled that they’ve got the Kung-Fu Panda license to do a board game.
That is amazing. At many levels.
Firstly the game will feature a real-time dice-throwing mechanic. Thank goodness, there will also be a way to stop the play at some point so people can gather their thoughts. And it’ll be cooperative. Although I don’t like real time dice throwing games, this pause element does make me feel a lot better.
When I offered to record another episode of Dice & Slice to show the game, I was told it will have to be when they have the components well made, as Dreamworks would only want to show the best possible quality.
Now that tells me that this game, whatever it contains, will have to be *really* huge quality. That makes it more exciting.
Also this is a very big break for the company. Although Thunderbirds no doubt was a tremendous step up, Kung-Fu Panda is a much more modern and bigger license and the pressure to deliver something insanely amazing is on. Basically, Modiphius can’t afford to create something mediocre.
And they won’t. They haven’t created anything remotely mediocre yet and thus I have no reason to even consider them starting now. Quite the opposite.
And throughout this, Chris and his team have remained humble about it all. Approachable as ever and just as good fun to be around as always.
I truly can’t express how excited I am about this game and about the company. A small company that, through great work and effort has managed to hit it very, very big and get a chance to show the world that big franchises can have great board games too.
For the record, I have no ties with Modiphius. I can say this because I want to and not because I owe them anything. I have never got a review game from them, they have never paid me for advertising or for publishing anything and there is no commercial interest between Modiphius and myself.
I am saying these things because I want to. And because they deserve the praise.