Yesterday, Steamforged Games launched a Kickstarter campaign for its board game adaptation of the popular Dark Souls game franchise, and in less than a day, the campaign has already blown past all its original stretch goals, reaching over $1 million in funding so far.

The campaign met its initial funding goal in just three minutes, and the money is continuing to roll in with 26 days remaining in the campaign. Steamforged has hastily added several more stretch goals, but it seems that they have all been smashed as well.

The campaign page describes the game itself as “a strategically challenging, deeply immersive combat exploration game for 1-4 players set in the Dark Souls universe.” The game makes use of intricately designed miniatures, colorful board maps, and a number of other components that include dice, cards, and more.

Steamforged has taken an interesting approach to its crowdfunding campaign, as there are only two pledge levels available, one for gamers and one for retail stores. These pledge options are a bit higher than the minimum level for most crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, but at over $1 million in funding and climbing, the tactic seems to have paid off for the company.

Board Games: the real winners in crowdfunding

The success of the Dark Souls board game Kickstarter is hardly a fluke. In fact, tabletop games raised roughly twice as much funding on Kickstarter as video game campaigns, with over $88 million raised altogether.

There are a number of factors that have a role in the success of board games on Kickstarter. For example, the development and production process behind tabletop games is relatively quick compared to video games, meaning that backers will have less of a wait on their hands when they support a board game campaign.

There is also a much smaller difference between the initial concept of the game and its final version, so there is less risk that the end product will be missing features that were promised early on, unlike many video game Kickstarter projects.

Image courtesy of Steamforged Games Ltd