Fort Circle follows widespread Votes for Women acclaim with latest Kickstarter success

Fort Circle Games has followed up its critically acclaimed card-driven wargame Votes for Women by passing the funding goal for its latest offering on Kickstarter – The Halls of Montezuma.

Votes for Women, designed by Tory Brown and published by Kevin Bertam at Fort Circle – has catapulted the publisher into the board gaming limelight over the past few weeks, picking up widespread praise from reviewers including Polygon’s Charlie Hall, who named it one of the year’s best board games.

Fort Circle’s follow-up game, co-created by Bertram and debut designer Gilberto Lopez, is a similarly card-driven wargame, this time recreating the 1846-48 Mexican-American war.

The game pits one player controlling the US Polk administration against an opponent who oversees the Mexican government and Mexican army, the US Whig Party, the nascent American anti-war movement, Apache and Comanche warriors, as well as bad weather and disease.

The Halls of Montezuma has picked up close to $17,500 from 275 backers so far, beating its $15,000 goal with 22 days of the campaign remaining.

Bertram, who founded Fort Circle in 2017, published his well-regarded debut design The Shores of Tripoli in 2020.

The company’s other upcoming games include US Supreme Court-themed First Monday in October – a Talia Rosen design for which Twilight Struggle co-designer Jason Matthews was lead developer.

Next year the company plans to release Night Witches, a two-player co-operative game about women Soviet pilots in the second world war designed by fêted Undaunted co-creator David Thompson and debut designer Liz Davidson.