We're going to need a bigger box...

Stranger Things have happened; Fireball Island comes back to life on Kickstarter

Tabletop •

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say 80’s nostalgia is a hot commodity right now. It can be done the right way (Stranger Things) or the wrong way (Ready Player One), but either way it seems to be a means to print money. Restoration Games is jumping on the bandwagon with their latest blast-from-the-past, Fireball Island. You might remember this one from your childhood or just been unable to avoid the hype on #boardgame Twitter. Either way, it’s gone live on Kickstarter today and it’s a doozy.

Fireball Island was a kids game released back in 1988 that featured roll-and-move mechanisms and the constant threat of pissing off your parents by having marbles go everywhere. You see, at the top of the island marbles begin to randomly traverse the board’s Plinko-like pathways, crushing player pawns along the way. Yes, it was rather silly.

Restoration Games’ version is more of a redesign than a reprint. It still has the marbles and 3D, curvy board, but gone is the roll-and-move method of travel as well as some other changes to bring Fireball Island into the current age of board gaming.

The Kickstarter for Fireball Island went live this morning and they’re already more than 50% toward their $250K goal. I expect them to fully fund before the sun goes down. Why? I’m not sure, but the hype is strong with this one. Who am I to judge after backing Restoration’s updated version of Stop Thief?

The base pledge is $60 and gets you all the stretch goals, but you’ll have to shell out more moolah if you want the full package which includes 2 new expansions including one with a 3D pirate ship and more marbles. You’ll also need to buy the expansions if you want to play with a 5th player, one of the tropes of current gaming that I loathe the most. Yes, my game group usually has 5 players, and I’m tired of having to buy expansions just so we can all play together. /end rant.

To be honest, when I look at the videos and gifs posted on the Kickstarter page, all I can think about are how many of those marbles will end up in the bag of my vacuum cleaner. Yep, I’m old and no fun.

I’ve enjoyed everything Restoration has resurrected, but I have to say Fireball Island is leaving me cold. It looks like a novelty that I’d bring out once or twice, but there’s no way my group would ever play it. Also, with my kids entering their mid-teens, I don’t see the marble-based gameplay tripping their triggers, either. In other words, I probably won’t be backing this one and I’m a little confused at the excitement I’m seeing from the gaming community about it. Now, if Restoration was bringing Dark Tower back to life, I’d understand the excitement, especially if they also brought inebriated Orson Welles back to life to star in their Kickstarter video.

Liked it? Take a second to support Stately Play on Patreon!

Notable Replies

  1. Epic Dark Tower reference! I’m assuming you mean the acclaimed 1981 electronic board game and not the 2017 movie that currently has a 16% Rotten Tomatoes rating? When I was about 6 years old I had a babysitter who brought that game over and I was dazzled by the whole concept of board games with a computerized aspect.

    Turns out someone had an even stronger sense of nostalgia for it, or more moxie-mojo to do something about it, and made an iOS version: https://itunes.apple.com/sr/app/app-for-dark-tower/id806256398

    I tried it out a while back, and while the goodwill of fond childhood memories was strong, and the implementation was decent, I can’t say the actual game mechanics have stood the test of time compared to the options we have available now. But, if you ever played this as a kid, it’s worth a quick play for the trip back in time.

  2. Is that $130 for everything?

  3. Plus shipping. But, yeah, $130 is the base game, 3 expansions, and all stretch goals.

  4. Plus shipping ($15 in the US). Personally, as I have younger kids (8 and 10) who love games with a high toy factor, it’s appealing. I’m probably not going to back it, as I suspect I’ll be able to get it with free shipping on release, but it seems like a great game for learning to accept semi-random setbacks. The goofy premise seems like it’ll make that easier to accept.

  5. must admit i’m a sucker for all kinds of toylike “board” games :rolling_eyes:

    so i’m owning a full functional Dark Tower (yes, bought in 1981).

    and the marble roller Das große Kullern, the egg-roller Chuck-it Chicken!, the inevitable Bugs in the Kitchen, the merry-go-round [Penguin Shuffle] (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16550/penguin-shuffle), more penguins in Penguin Pile-Up, speaking stone in King Arthur and the awesome Galaxis electronic, all from Ravensburger.

    then the living moving Dragon in Dragon Strike from MB, the erupting volcano in Vulkan-Ausbruch from Arxon and of course Loopin’ Louie from MB.

    so i would love to play Fireball Island, no matter how embarrassing that may be :grimacing:

  6. Not embarrassing at all. I just know it would sit on my shelf and not get played, so I can’t justify the $130.

    I would, however, drop double that to get a new version of dark tower.

  7. As a child of the 80s, I am loving all the nostalgia. Never played Fireball Island (back in the day), but I am intrigues in the base set for my kids.

    BTW - Totally disagree about Ready Player One. I loved the print book, the audio book, and the movie. What’s with the hate?

  8. Cline has an awful, leaden prose style that makes everything boring. The book is an account of someone whose life has been overwhelmed completely by nostalgia, and disdains anything modern apart from the technology that allows him to bury his head in the sand (as does, apparently, almost the entire population). He’s a complete nerd god, who has apparently mastered every old game going, which are mistaken for classics through nostalgia.

    As for the film, I’ve not seen it, and almost certainly won’t, but I have no confidence in a heap of retro culture references meant to apply to people who were kids when they happened, coming from a director who was born in 1946. To wit.

    “It’s bad to kill. Guns kill. And you don’t have to be a gun. You are who you choose to be.”

    Imagine the trailer featuring Mr. Rogers just straight fucking people up with a baseball bat. A little wide of the mark.

  9. I thought the book was a fetid dumpster fire that read like high school fan fiction and should have been called “Deus ex Machina: The Novel.”

    I’m always in favor of reading and I’m certainly happy if the book led to some people reading who normally wouldn’t pick up a book, but while the story was an interesting nerdy concept, I wish it had been delivered with some sort of literary competence.

Continue the discussion discourse.statelyplay.com

Participants