The crowdfunding scene has become a busy place in board gaming over the past few years. It has become tricky to see which games might be wins and which might be thrown onto your shelf of shame.
To help, we here at BigBossBattle have looked at the games that are crowdfunding during this month (May 2026) and created this list to show you the ones that we think are worth your time.
Hitman: The Board Game
Welcome Agent 47, your mission, with up to three other players, is to travel the world and compete to eliminate your target before the other players.
The project can be found on Gamefound and has already reached its target. The game has been developed by MOOD Publishing who gave us Deep Rock Galactic — which we loved when we reviewed it,
Hitman: The Board Game is a great premise for a board game. I like to think of it as Cluedo, only you are not racing to find the killer, you are racing to BE the killer. The boards look stunning and recreate the plans of different locations from The World of Assassination, such as Paris, Sapienza, Hokkaido and Haven Island. There are more available with different tiers of the project such as Berlin as well.
With your player board, you will collect items and move around the map, trying to avoid guards and getting into place to eliminate your target.
Stealth in board games can often be tricky so how this will work will be interesting to see. I can envisage that the game might play a bit like Burgle Bros, but with more character driven abilities based on the items you can pick up.
The different tiers offer a great deal of options for backers. From upgraded standees to resin figures. Playmats instead of boards and upgraded tokens. Backing the project now will give you a Giftbox that will have unique cards and other stretch goals added as the project continues.
Head over to the Hitman Gamefound page to check it out.
The Big Squeeze
By Wiggles 3D who gave us One-Hit Heroes and 5-Minute Dungeon, we are now being brought The Big Squeeze on Backerkit.
The Big Squeeze is advertising itself as a future gateway game, which is always a high bar to set itself.
At 1-4 players, this game sells itself as being very easy to setup and start, and then ramping up the complexity. You start by choosing your character and you have to gather ingredients, make lemonade, which is how you learn new abilities, then you sell and gain some cash to buy some upgrades for your stand. Simple enough.
This is where the game takes a twist. The world starts to end and your only hope after the apocalypse is to use the lemonade and abilities you gained in earlier rounds to fight off the hordes of the apocalypse.
The components and artwork look bright and crisp as one should expect from a lemonade stand.
I think this might be one to back and it will stand up with your favourite games. I do think they could be onto something with this being a great gateway game.
Back it over on Backerkit.
Legacy of Mars
I am a huge fan of Terraforming Mars by Stronghold Games, and it’s been a favourite amongst many of us in the hobby for a long time (check out our review of it). Now, in the middle of May we will see the launch of Legacy of Mars.
At the time of writing, the campaign has yet to start. So I can only hunt down what I can and guess at what we will see.
As the name suggests this is going to be a legacy game. I am normally a big fan of these, as it gives me and my better half the chance to play a game every few days and work through a story, like we did with Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West and Pandemic Legacy.
Whilst details are few and far between, I expect this game to not be cheap and to justify that expense, the Legacy of Mars will not involve stickers or ripping up of cards like my previous legacy examples both use, but we will be able to reset the game and start again.
You will visit not just Mars, but each of the seven games will take place on a different planet throughout our solar system. How will your corporation evolve over those?
Now, there are some downsides to this project that I can see at the moment. One of the things I have seen spoken about is that the game will be in two parts, so you have to buy another game to make this a full experience. Without knowing the amount of content or the prices, I cannot give an opinion about this too much. On the surface it isn’t a great look though.
The other controversy is the company’s use of AI imagery. I don’t want to weigh in on this debate. To me, the use of AI art has always seemed bad due to the reasoning that it’s theft of the original artist’s work. But I don’t pretend to be an expert on this topic, so I only know the surface arguments.
If you want to check out the campaign and decide on whether this is one small step for mankind, or if it’s a step too far, you can check out the campaign on Gamefound.
Beast Ashfall
Comes to us from Studio Midhall who gave us the original base game.
If you are familiar with Beast, it is a one vs many game, which in my home is known as a game of “Where’s John?”. Jaws and Sniper Elite: The Board Game are in this genre and are always amazing to play.
This new, and final expansion to Beast gives players 3 new beasts, 3 new hunters and boats! I expect Beast Ashfall to feature new map features thanks to the addition of boats.
Previously, in Beast you play as a not-the-end-of-our-existence level beast, with the aim to pick off some farmers and some nobles throughout the land. Now, Beast Ashfall comes with a huge dragon called Rhagner, and if you back this project, it looks like you get a giant miniature to use in the game. It really does sound like for fans of Beast, this is a project to check out.
You can do just that on Gamefound
Jason and the Argonauts
Coming to us from Envy Born Games and available on Backerkit, this small sized solo game is stomping right out of mythology to your table.
This is a dice placement game and it looks to be about the size of a VHS (not showing my age there AT ALL). With the current run in delightful antiquity-focused pop culture with the likes of Hades, God of War (even if he has moved out of antiquity) and the coming of the Odyssey film this year, I think this might be a perfect time for this game.
From the look of the campaign, you draw a destination challenge card, which comes with some welcome lore. You then draw some Argonauts to help you. Then you roll to try and defeat the destination and move further along your adventure. If you fail in your dice spending, then the game attacks back.
I think this is a good one to have as a small game. I personally often play one player games such as Final Girl, and Captains Chair with my partner and we discuss the turns and take turns with dice rolls. But should you also just want to play this solo, then I think the amount of game you get for the price of backing this is very good.
Back the campaign over on Backerkit.
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Hello Crawlers! Leaping from the pages of the amazing Dungeon Crawler Carl books by Matt Dinniman, you can now create your own version of the Princess Posse with the Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG. You can also back the Dungeon Crawler Carl version of Unstoppable.
If you are after the RPG, you can get everything you need to pretend to be the AI, and unleash your friends in a dungeon of your creation. The different tiers have everything, from rule sets, dice, and dice bags (including a bag that looks like Carl’s shorts). There are also miniatures if you want to play as your favourite crawlers. The digital mockups look brilliant, and I am rather enamoured with the idea of having my very own Pony figure, or perhaps a Floor 8 Mordecai (yes, the cyclops one).
You don’t need to just have the physical content, but you can just go for digital books. Or you can get a copy of Unstoppable but a Dungeon Crawler Carl version.
Unstoppable is an amazing deck builder, so a version that is Dungeon Crawler Carl floats my boat. You can play solo or two-player cooperatively. You can tackle a single floor or you can try campaign mode and progress from floor to floor over the first three floors of the dungeon, which I really like the sound of.
Don’t let Mongo be appalled and get out there and Back! Back! Back!
