Capstone Games seals first team-up with Japanese publisher, will bring eurogame Falling to Kickstarter in February

Capstone Games, the Ohio board game publisher which made a name for itself bringing complex eurogames to the US from Germany, has inked its first partnership with a Japanese publisher.

Sunny Bird has both imported and published localised Japanese versions of games including Marvel United, QE and a string of Freidemann Friese games since it was launched in 2012.

But the Nagasaki City-based publisher – and board game cafe – is now bringing its own game Falling to Kickstarter in February alongside Capstone, which will publish the English version after being impressed with the design at the Spiel Essen game fair in October.

Capstone project manager and developer Christopher High told BoardGameWire, “[We] checked the game out because it looked liked an interesting game with euro mechanics. After playing the game several times with our team, we expressed interest in collaborating with them on the Kickstarter and publishing in English.

“For now, this is a one-time working partnership with Sunny Bird. We have never partnered this way with a Japanese company before and although Kickstarter isn’t always our preferred way to bring a game to market, Sunny Bird wanted to use this to raise initial capital and interest in the game, so we agreed and will be helping to find English speaking previewers to cover the game.”

Capstone’s strategy since its launch almost a decade ago has involved picking out eurogames to bring to the US market, beginning with Spielworxx-published Arkwright in 2016.

The company quickly expanded into other successful partnerships with publishers including Feuerland, DLP and Abacusspiele, which saw it bring big hitters such as Ark Nova and Gaia Project to the US market.

In recent years the firm has also teamed with Korean publisher Sternenschimmermeer for the localised version of Capstone’s Ryan Courtney design Pipeline, and Korea Board Games for games including Tangram City – a relationship it is continuing in Q1 2025 with the joint release of Butterfly Garden.

High told BoardGameWire that Capstone was hoping to work with more international partners in other countries to bring games to North America, and cited Japan as a country which could provide other new options.

He said, “We believe the Japanese market has a strong and interesting take on board and card games. Many people are familiar with the trick-taking and shedding games that come in a small format, or the games from Saashi & Saashi or Oink which are largely in a small form factor.

“This game, Falling, breaks that expectation in that it is a large, heavy box in comparison. Every culture and market has something unique to contribute to board games, and we are excited we get to bring some of that contribution to our audience.”

Falling is a resource management and engine-building game, which Capstone said builds on traditional euro mechanics while driving players to think about how their pieces will fall off the board and return to their player mats.

The game sees players exploring crumbling towers for valuable relics and other items, with the towers collapsing as the rounds progress.

Falling’s world-building and characters have been created by acclaimed Japanese manga artist Tomohiro Tsugawa, while art for the new game also comes from prolific Japanese board game artist and illustrator Sai Beppu, who worked on 14 published titles last year.

High said that 2024 had been a “phenomenal” year for Capstone, which boosted the size of its team and brought games to market including Uwe Rosenberg’s Black Forest and fellow glassmaking game Stephens to coincide with Spiel Essen.

He added that Capstone’s 2025 plans also included publishing some of its own titles, which he believed would “surprise people” when they are announced.

High said, “Capstone is known for strategy games, and we want to continue to be known for that type of gaming. However, our catalog will rapidly expand in 2025 as we bring even more of what we enjoy to the market.

“You can count on our core titles being a large part of what we do, but you can also count us continuing to innovate.”

The pre-launch campaign page for Falling can be accessed here.