Ark Nova 3Dition - Sculpting by 3DLevelup

We are excited to announce that we are sculpting official 3D tiles for Mathias Wigge and working with a leading industry miniature manufacturer to produce one of the most anticipated upgrades: Ark Nova 3Dition by Kekpop Spiele. This upgrade is going to be epic and far improved over our existing tile set, we are ensuring our best sculpts with phenomenal detail across all tiles, and ensuring these tiles enhance gameplay in all aspects and not hinder gameplay. We already know Ark Nova works really well with 3D tiles, and all our customers agree, with many stating they wouldn't play it without them. Just see our independent reviews on our website. Our previous tiles were shipped and play tested by many around the world, some players with over 100 games using them, with all reviews as 5 stars!

Some have said that 3DLevelup's existing tiles sets a high bar to beat for such a campaign. We are promising you we are absolutely smashing it, we hope our passion is evident with the many hours invested into detailed functional 3D Injection molded designs that will far surpass the quality of our existing set but improving on them in all aspects, building upon the experience of many hours played by our customers and ourselves from our existing design. We can't wait to share with you via the campaign the designs we have created!

Whilst we love all types of upgrades including timber and acrylic pieces, and produce some ourselves for certain games, there seems to be some misconceptions over the use of 3D style terrain/miniatures in board games. Some claim 3D terrain/miniatures block game flow, and this is true for some board games, but definitely not all. It really depends on the game and its mechanics in play. For Ark Nova for example we have found that 3D Tiles work so much better than flat tiles, whilst Castles of Burgundy whilst we own the 3D building which look beautiful, we much prefer using the flat acrylic tiles in gameplay as they work so much better for this game for several reasons (bag pooling, multi-use buildings, etc). For Terraforming Mars we again prefer the 3D Tiles as we believe in it brings much more immersion, especially when introducing it to non-gamers.

So with that in mind, here are 12 reasons why we think 3D tiles work so well with Ark Nova (and this includes some of our customer feedback as well):

1) Improved game flow. It is actually easier to find Sponsor tiles. Finding sponsor tiles in the base game can be difficult and time consuming as finding the icon or shape can be buried or time consuming flipping tiles to find the right one or shape. 3D tiles become very obvious and are easily identified in a pile of tiles due to their visual design and uniqueness. An organiser or all the sponsor tiles laid out is necessary to assist with the flat tiles being easier to identify.

2) 3D tiles are easier to handle than flat tiles/cardstock, as they can be easily picked up and placed from the building/scenery that extrude up from the tile. Think of every tile that now has a handle to pickup and place.

3) Fences are easier to place than flipping a tile preventing adjacent tile bumping Fences represent animal occupation are easily placed on a tile rather than trying to flip that flat cardstock. Flipping cardstock causes tiles around to be bumped as you try to get fingers under the tile to pick it up. Fences are picked up or placed over without touching or bumping other tiles as there is no need to grab the edge of the bottom of a tile that is adjacent to another, just pick it up from the observation deck!

4) Enclosures that are not occupied are easily identifiable in two forms, as you have an enclosure without a fence on the board, and you also have a fence as a resource to the side of your board reminding you to occupy it. We have found this to help immensely in play. I sometimes use these fences as memory fidgeting to keep me on track of my strategy, much like I do with x tokens or money.

5) Line of sight is not adversely impacted due to viewing angle and small tiles. Tiles are quite small in Ark Nova, with the player board being an individual player board, your vantage point is almost directly above the board, which means tiles do not significantly impact or block line of sight.

6) Provision for Cubes with guard rails. Cubes can be easily bumped off a flat cardboard tiles, our 3D designs will help to hold those cubes in position, so they can be easily dropped in place and removed. I'm ensuring there are subtle guard rails or indentations in our models so these cubes sit safely in place.

7) You actually feel like building a Zoo, as it is constructed in 3D in front of you. Real Zoo's are 3D they aren't flat tiles :-) Many of our customers report they build zoos with the tiles without playing the game just because you can. Our family is also guilty of this.

8) You might actually see some animals on the board bringing your zoo to life!

9) By incorporating colours, objects and materials we are able to reflect card capabilities and remind you from your zoo map.  The Arcade is intentionally purple to remind you of your ongoing benefit (also purple background on your card for matching iconography). Rocks on tiles... likely to have placement restrictions. Water base tile, check the placement as its likely we have done this intentionally! We've tried to match theme and sculpting to card requirements and benefits - attention to detail is everything! Our 3D tiles will enhance gameplay, remind you and help keep the game flowing smoothly.

10) You'll have immense fun and immersion even if you lose the game. Not only will you feel the accomplishment of filling your zoo with animals as you do in the base game, you'll also observe the beauty of your zoo layout with enclosures, eating areas for your guests, little paths that connect on some of the tiles, and those little unique enclosures that make your zoo extra special, you'll see stoned paths, benches and viewing angles that make you feel like a landscaper/zoo architect. Free an animal to the wild takes on a whole new meaning when you remove that fence, its like opening the bird cage!

11) Want it next level? 3Dition tiles will be paint friendly with lots of details and crevasses, so you can either apply a wash to make the detail pop, or have a look at the Sundrop options or personalise and paint it in and make it the best zoo possible. We can't wait to see what the community of 3Dition will come up with! If you keep an eye at board gaming events you might see some of our prototypes professionally painted, and wow draw drops on what I've seen so far.

12) Friendly to the non-painter - Not into painting? Our aim is to use careful cuts in molds so we can have different colours, translucent material, to bring some base colour to your zoo, and depth so it looks great without paint.

Why wouldn't you want 3D Zoo Tiles?

1) Your kids will steal them and play with them for hours building their own zoo on the table... leaving you with no zoo tiles to play Ark Nova! (this is from experience).

2) 3D Zoo tiles do take a little more space on the table but Mathias has thought about this with a unique box setup so that you can essentially play out of the box, which is largely what we did with our previous zoo upgrade with removable trays which worked very well.

3) 2) Of course if you don't like 3D elements popping up or like the look of acrylic tiles over 3D pieces. We hear you and understand, I have my own personal tastes as well, i.e. I believe Uwe Rosenberg games should be wooden tokens not sure why :-), but understand those that don't. We know there are many different tastes out there in board games, after all it's board game art represented in many different forms.

So we hope this makes it easier for you to make an informed decision if you are sitting on the fence of acrylic tiles vs 3D buildings whilst investing in the Deluxe campaign for Ark Nova 3Dition.

Head over here to pledge now: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/kekpop-spiele/ark-nova#/section/project-story