Quickdraw: Aliens vs. Marshmallows

Build Your Team. Outsmart Your Rival. Take the Bridge.

Aliens and sentient Marshmallows battle for control of the fleet's energy core in this sticky space battle.

In this fast-paced, 18-card asymmetric dueling game, every showdown is a test of wit, risk, and tactical decision making. With clever team construction and ever-shifting strategies, no two duels play the same.

Discover a fresh card game experience with Quickdraw's double-edged deckbuilding and dueling system. 

Aliens vs. Marshmallows is the second set to utilize Quickdraw's unique system. The same great gameplay continues but now with new teams and abilities.

Each side, the Aleins and the Marshmallows, consist of eight unique units. You select four to take the field as combatants, while the other four will load into your ammo deck to influence accuracy. 

Do you play it safe with a steady hand, or gamble on high-risk, high-reward shots? With tense 10 minute rounds, every match provides a chance to test winning strategies and adapt for the next battle.

The Innovative Quickdraw System

Quickdraw introduces a double-edged deckbuilding mechanism with multi-use cards, where the strength of the units you deploy directly impacts their accuracy.

The game starts with you picking 4 units to deploy, while the other 4 become ammo in your ammo deck.

The tension? Your strongest fighters are also your best ammo and the ammo deck is the probability engine that decides if shots hit.

Deploy your best units to the streets of Silver City and your ammo deck becomes less reliable. But load them as ammo and your front lines get weaker.

You have to find the razor thin balance where your deployed units are strong enough to defeat the enemy, but your ammo deck is powerful enough to support them.

And the strongest competitors will figure out the synergies that allow your build to outperform what the numbers say they should be able to do.

Two asymmetric teams with different abilities face off across Main Street. Their varied playstyle and abilities give the team building and strategic playstyle of a TCG but with just 16 units.

The Aliens, led by Matriarch Prime, are a control and conquest driven race who need the energy core to power their advanced technology. The Aliens' strategies focus on controlling the battle field and making high damage attacks when the time is right.

The Marshmallow, driven by Goop Master, are as dangerous as they are sticky. They glom together for added strength and extra resilience to withstand the Aliens' tactics.

Bring the right crew. Each of the 16 units vary in accuracy and ability when deployed, and in the ability to support when benched. And with the three deployable locations with different abilities - the street, the building, and the roof - many different builds and strategies are available. Half of the battle is anticipating your opponent's decisions and deploying the right team to counter them.

Aim wisely. Shots are traded across Main Street in a tense, fast paced duel. With only one or two hits being enough to take someone out, the four units deployed per team can be wiped out in a blink if you can't collapse you opponent's battle plan before they break yours.  

Beautiful Artwork. Experience the gritty nail biting action of a sci-fi shootout through the powerful lens of Cole Munro-Chitty. 

Pretty simple, Quickdraw consists of 18 cards, a rulebook, and a wallet to hold it all together.

18 Cards

Quickdraw consists of 16 unique full-art unit cards and 2 player reference cards that also serve as location markers. 

The cards are professionally printed on premium 310gsm black core cardstock. Which means when you're looking at the beautiful artwork and feeling the quality, your experience feels more like a high end TCG than it does a small wallet game.

Wallet

The sleek plastic wallet easily holds all 18 cards plus the rulebook, making it easy to transport the game to your local spaceport. The screen printed cover helps it stand out on your shelf.

Build Your Team

Players choose whether to play as the Law or the Bandits, then take the eight unit cards for that team.

Each player selects four units to deploy and sets the remaining four as their ammo deck, shuffling those cards and distributing one facedown to each deployed unit.

Take Your Shot

To start the shootout, activate a unit and reveal its facedown ammo card.
If the ammo value is equal to or higher than the ammo needed for that unit’s attack, the shot hits.

When an attack hits, the target takes damage.
After taking two damage, a unit is defeated and removed from play.

Strong units carry high ammo values, but when those cards are deployed, they leave lower-value ammo in your ammo deck. Deploying all your heavy hitters makes your shots less reliable.
 

Defeat Your Opponent

The teams trade shots back and forth across Main Street until one team is defeated – leaving the other standing proud over Silver City.

Shipping prices are constantly changing and since I want you to pay the bare minimum without mark-ups, shipping will be calculated and collected by Kickstarter's pledge manager after the campaign has ended. The pledge manager will collect sales tax/VAT as well.

For visibility into the final cost, I've put together estimates for shipping ranges based on current rates. These may fluctuate, but since the game, and even the deluxe tier, are rather small, these should be reliable estimates.

Shipping prices, especially internationally, are a bummer. There's not a lot to get around that for the physical game, but I specifically put time into making accessible print-and-play tier so that no mater where in the world you are, you can still enjoy Quickdraw without the shipping cost.

Hi, I'm the one who's been talking to you. 

I've been playing board games for so long that my first word was Kamchatka. I eventually realized I should try making the type of games I want to play, and so I started RAM Games with my inaugural design - Quickdraw: Battle for Silver City.

Through the process of bringing Quickdraw to life I've learned a lot about publishing and am happy to share any insights for people with the same goals. I've written several posts on my blog to try to pass on some of that information, but if you have any specific questions you can reach out at ryan@ramgames.co

Cole Munro-Chitty is an illustrator and graphic designer known for his distinctive style, which often draws inspiration from horror, dark fantasy, and action-adventure genres. He has contributed to numerous board game projects, providing both artwork and design elements. Some of his previous titles include Paranormal, Dice Commandos, Shred of Redemption, Radiance and The Ghosts Betwixt. When he's not drawing pretty pictures he can be found playing games and building stuff in his backyard.

I (Ryan) would also like to that this time to express yet again what an amazing artist Cole is and what a pleasure it was to work with him to breathe life into this game. I can't recommend him enough and please go check out his other work!

Manufacturing by

Whatz Games is an award-winning games manufacturer based in Jiaxing, China. Since their founding in 2011, they’ve helped over 1000 clients deliver well-made products on time and have done so for many of today’s most well-known companies. 

I've enjoyed working with the Whatz Games team. They are incredibly quick to reply, and very helpful walking me through my first large scale print run. They've put a lot of time into making sure the files are correct, sending samples, getting associated tasks completed, and generally making sure everything runs smoothly on the production side.

November 20th - Campaign ends

If we're successful 🤞, then I'll immediately send the files to my manufacturing partner, Whatz Games, to start the print run.

End of January-Early February - Printing finishes

From here it has to get dropped at port, shipped to the US, and then sent to each backer. 

End of May - First backers are playing Quickdraw

I'll be able to communicate more specifically the timing between printing completion, freight, and final US and global fulfillment times when we get closer. But I believe August is a timeframe. I'll make an emphasis to update through any unexpected ro