Culture

A Real Version Of Parks And Rec’s Cones Of Dunshire Is Now Funding On Kickstarter

It comes with a bonus ledgerman hat!

by Meg Watson  17 January 2015

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Wizards, mavericks, arbiters, corporals, warriors, dragons, alchemists, provosts, deniers, shamans, abbotts, brinksmen, farmers, duchesses, mountebanks, minstrels, tradesmen and ledgermen REJOICE! The Architect is finally releasing his vision unto the people; a real-life Cones of Dunshire is currently in the works.

Now funding on Kickstarter, the legendary game from Parks and Recreation has been picked up by Mayfair Games — the same company that produce your game night guilty pleasure and virtual chastity belt, Settlers of Catan. And, perhaps because of this surprisingly legit connection, the project already has pledges totalling $20,878 of their $300,000 goal and there are still 57 days left to contribute.

It’s also been getting pretty big shout-outs from Adam Scott.

And mixed reactions from Amy Poehler.

The proposed game is slightly different from its on-screen counterpart in the way that it will be a much-larger scale and able to be played by fewer people. Where the original could fit on a table and accommodate 8-12 players, the new version will be more than 10 square feet in size with multiple levels and playable for 2-12 people. Each of the 17 characters has their own sheet with a large variety of powers and players get three of each sheets for optimum POWER COMBOS. You also have hero and civilisation tokens, coins, different coloured gems, road blocks, four dice to determine how many dice you throw (these include both six and eight-sided versions which come in two different colours), special veto powers for the corporal and challenge plays that send the game in reverse.

But let’s not get caught in technicalities, as always there’s only one point to the game.

Surprisingly enough, Mayfair Games have already made a test edition that debuted at last year’s Gen Con in Minneapolis. It even came with a special endorsement from The Architect.

Now, in order to manufacture the game for reals they’re asking for a butt tonne of money. While smaller pledges between $5-300 will get you various amounts of CoD paraphernalia — yeah whatever, I’m making it a thing — you’ll have to shell out a cool $500 to get your hands on the actual game. This fact, along with the general craziness of the entire project, has led many to question the legitimacy of the whole thing. And when asked if the campaign is a joke organisers have confusingly replied, “Yes and no, but mostly no”.

“This is designed for a select group of people that want the large-scale souvenir of the show and the game, and is not aimed at casual game fans,” they said. “This is going to be a very small, one-time run of a giant prestige edition of the game, with disparate pieces, from a licensed property, for a niche audience.”

Let’s be honest. That sounds like at least a few of you. Throw your money over here.