"I may not be good at it but think Slash by Games by Play Date is my new favorite game." — John Shaver, man who does awesome Hellboy cosplay
"Yeah, I think @gamesbyplaydate has a hit on its hands." - Justin McElroy, Editor, Polygon.com - Gentleman of good taste & humor
"Your ultimate card game has arrived." - Aja Romano, The Daily Dot
"We had a lovely night. Thanks Glenn and Games by Play Date!" — Jenn and Trin (in the Morning), Cards Against Humanity
"FUND THIS FANFIC CARD GAME. Because I love it." - Flourish Klink, professional transmedia storyteller and smart lady
"I really like this idea" - Kirk Hamilton, Kotaku.com
"I love LOVE this game and I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it and play it with all of my friends, then make new friends to make THEM play it. That's how excited I am." - Filamena Young, Gaming as Women
"Quite possibly the geekiest party game ever conceived... a wicked blend of story-telling, arguing and making dirty jokes. If you play Slash and don't get into at least one screaming match or laughing fit, you need new friends." - David M. Ewalt, author Of Dice and Men
slash: romance without boundaries is a card & storytelling party game of relationships across all canons of pop culture, history and literature. Players compete to create the One True Pairing between characters in their hand and the character the matchmaker has played. If the matchmaker selects your card you get to keep both cards played and add them to your score pile. But, if another player is jealous of your victory she may challenge the matchmaker and narrate the story of the TRUE OTP (as she sees it).If the rest of the players side with your logic, your passion or the sheer entertainment value of your tale, you score the OTP.
slash is a game that invites you to create your fan fiction on the fly. slash attempts to coax a few sentences of make-believe from you to justify who your favorite wizard, space pirate or superhero REALLY belongs with.
"Fan fiction" is a term that loosely refers to stories or works of fiction that are created by the audience of a particular canon rather than the original author. These works are non-canonical tales spun out of the minds of fans in homage to the original material. It is mostly awesome and earnest, sometimes unsettling and cringe-worthy but always entertaining.
Because slash just sounds cooler ok!?! Legitimately, though, we named it slash to communicate the breadth and variety of relationships possible with the game and an open mind.
• The rules
• 335 high-quality slash playing cards. + 5 blank slash character cards so you can add any of your favorite characters to customize your set. Play with them or use the power of make-believe to become famed actor-magician Ricky Jay and fling them as weapons in accordance with his legendary book Cards as Weapons. These cards are 2" x 3.5" and are professionally printed and cut for superior use as a game or as a set of wildly impractical self defense weapons.
• One box: Think of the possibilities! Put things into the box. Take things out of the box. Use the box as a terrain feature in an expensive miniatures game. Make a mark on the side of the box for each of your romantic conquests. Make a mark on the side of the box for every WWII airplane you shoot down. LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD!
• One collectible "GPDmon" business card. Challenge your friends (who have, of course, also backed slash) to lethal networking event shenanigans like a screaming Saturday morning card-playing anime child would.
Prototype copies of slash have been created by using friendly local printers in the dead of night, but the dream of getting slash to a wider audience is not practical through those means. To mass produce and distribute slash requires an investment in materials and shipping that we cannot cover out of pocket. While we offer the entire game free for download as a print-and-play .pdf, to make a sizable print run and to get them into the hands of hundreds of geeks is a monumental task.
Combining our personal financial contributions with that of Kickstarter backers will allow GPD to get high-quality versions of slash into the hands of geeks, nerds and pop-culture fans across the country.
Need a moment to consider backing the project? I get it. S'cool. In the meantime, print that PnP out and have a go at slash.
Glenn Given first conceived of slash as a means to justify his annoying habit of shouting impromptu fan fiction narratives in the middle of the workday. Fellow Games by Play Date founders Dan Brian and Meg McGinley-Crowe decided to put a bit of structure around Glenn's predilection, shoved it at their friends and strangers at PAX East 2013 and discovered that it was undeniably enjoyable!
Since that event Games by Play Date has solidified into a nascent design and publishing house. GPD is deeply committed to business transparency, which is why every design document, meeting and decision that we make is available via our website (gamesbyplaydate.com) and on streaming media. Furthermore, as a tip of the hat to the remix culture we grew up in, all of our games are released under a Creative Commons license.
At our minimum funding goal we will be creating and shipping slash locally, which should reduce shipping delays. Our goal is to have all the games in backer hands before Valentine's Day, so you can ruin a perfectly sexy night by arguing. If we meet some of our loftier stretch goals we will be printing outside the U.S. via AdMagic and having fulfillment handled by Amazon Fulfillment. They are pros so the odds of delay should be minimal and, according to their estimates, the game should still be in backer hands by Valentine's Day.
Risks and challenges
What could possibly go wrong! (a not entirely comprehensive list)
Fulfillment delays: Since GPD is located in the great frozen hellscape of New Hampshire it is entirely possible that weather-based delays may occur. For instance around the estimated delivery date a few years back GPD founders lost power for almost 2 weeks due to ice storms.
Material Integrity. Both Glenn Given and Dan Brian have extensive print and press experience, and at our minimum funding goal we will be producing these locally, so we will be able to oversee every step of the production process to ensure the highest possible quality. If we do hit our $25k stretch goal then Dan and Glenn's expertise will be bent toward proofing the samples and ferreting out any printer errors that might occur.
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Funding period
- (30 days)