Hi everyone!

Thanks for your patience over the past couple of weeks while I waited for funds to arrive. 

Because this is such a simple campaign with so few rewards, there's very little need for complex surveys. To that end, today I've sent out download keys for Blood In The Margins to you all via itch.io. You should find an email in your inbox containing that link. (If you can't see it, check your spam folder!) If you also picked up The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches you'll find a download link to that game, too.

I'll be sending the print files off tomorrow after some final checks. I anticipate printing taking two weeks, but I'll let you know for sure once the order is in. Once I have the physical copies in hand I'll be able to weigh them and figure out how much postage is going to cost, and then I'll send out links to the pledge manager so you can finalise your orders. At that time you'll also have the opportunity to say "hey, I actually use a different email for itch, can you re-send that digital code to me?"

Thanks again for your support. I hope you enjoy the game!

-Chris

After a couple of weeks of planning and doing my taxes, I have decided to slow down and not rush into things. 

I hate rushing into things. I've spent a lot of my life planning for the right time to do things-- Just for some force out of my control screw with it. However, after thinking about it, I think it would be more of a mistake to have a game completely manufactured, and then have to pay rent for storage overseas if things got worse. 

That said, I'm in a pretty ok position at the moment, I haven't given any money or images to Longpack yet, so I can hold off on doing the manufacturing for now. Instead, I'm going to focus on what I can do right now, which are:

- Paying my Illustrator
- Sending out surveys
- Purchasing Packing Materials
- Finishing up the TTS and PnP versions of the game.

Which isn't much, but it's what I can do at the moment. On the bright side, the game's been "Done" for quite a while now, so there's no need to wait for things to get tweaked, so when (Knock on wood) it is time to print, I'll be ready. Whenever that is. I appreciate your understanding at this time.

-- Oliver

Pond is fully funded, so what's next?

First, I think its important to address the elephant in the room: The Gaslighter-in-Chief's new insane tariffs.

There is a LOT to say about these tariffs, but people much smarter than I am have already written about them, so I'll link to some of the best articles so far on the matter:

For now, I, Brother Ming Games, is taking a wait and see approach. I currently have a small project mid manufacturing that will be ready to leave China in 2 months. If the Tariffs are still in effect by then, I'll just have to eat those costs.

I am hoping POND will be ready to leave China between 8 to 12 months from now.
However if 54% Tariffs are still in effect by then, then I will be doing the following:

First, thank you so much to everyone who participated in the first playtesting program! We got a LOT of valuable feedback and playtesting data from it.

I will be added 3 and 4 player modes to Tabletop Simulator and Screentop by the end of the month and opening up a second round of the playtesting program for people who still want to earn a free shirt to participate!

The pledge manager for POND will also be opened by the end of the month. This will let you confirm your cart items, pick your designs and sizes for t shirts, or adjust your pledge levels. Shipping and taxes will be not included however. When the project is closer to fulfillment (Sometime between 8 and 12 months from now), the pledge manager will be sent out again to everyone to re-confirm their shipping address and shipping fees and taxes will be added then.

Finally, the artist of POND is currently under the weather, and therefore we weren't able to get the enamel pin designed for ya'll mid campaign. That said, she is releasing two new friends to her collection of plushies TODAY so if you want to cheer her up, go adopt her adorable new friends!!! 

Currently we still have some assets that needs to be finished before POND can go into production, plus I want to do a lot more playtesting, so here is our road map for the next 2 months:

If everything proceeds smoothly, I am hoping to have polished prototypes ready to show off at Gen Con (I do not have a booth, I'll just be doing ticketed event demos).

I'll be posting monthly updates around the 5th of each month to keep you all up to date~

Thank you all so much for your support. POND received alot more support than I had originally estimated, having even more backers than my first game Re;ACT, despite a HUGE pivot in theme, though for people who have played both, I think you'll still feel my design philosophies of high player interaction with asymmetric gameplay across both games.

Hey everyone! Nora Here!!

Now that cards have cleared, we're able to share with you the first version of the Prototype PDF!! You can download it now by going to the "Backer Exclusive Content" section under this update - if you're seeing this over email, then you'll need to click through to see that backer exclusive content.

We believe in getting our backers something that we know is interesting before doing the crowdfunding campaign. To ensure that, we make sure our projects are content complete and playable before planning funding. Here's a breakdown of how complete everything in the book is:

Currently, the PDF is 102 pages (including the cover), but based on our current estimates, you should expect the final version to be between 134 and 152 pages depending on how much space rules resources take up. 

We're currently planning to release an update to the prototype PDF every two weeks - give or take a couple days depending on the local situation and amount of work we've been able to do. This next update will be distributed through the Pledge Manager, and that means you'll need to complete your pledge manager to access the next update. 

As for what you can expect to be included in the next update:

Brilliant! We're a small team and it's impossible for us to catch everything. Your feedback, whether it's about a gameplay issue, unclarified detail, or typo - is something we value deeply. If you want to give feedback, the best place to do so is through our Discord server. We'll be opening a "Feedback and Errors" channel in the coming days where you can submit issues so we can resolve them between updates.

As many of you are very aware, the US Government has recently instituted some very heavy tarrifs on shipments from out of the country. Compared to other companies in the field, we're in a rather lucky situation since we have plenty of time to adapt and plan to these changes. We're doing our best to find ways we can avoid the impact of these costs. However, this is a continually updating situation and it's difficult to know exactly what the future will look like. We'll keep in touch with you all and update you so we can figure out what's best. It may mean some additional shipping costs or delays on production depending on what we can sort out, but we want to make that as minimal as possible.

--
Thank you for your time and I hope you have a fantastic time playing Despair Dilemma!!
Nora Jean Haynes

🐸✨🍀 Click here to back Underleaf! 🐸✨🍀

Hello everyone!! It's been a week or two and suddenly we're in the home stretch!! The campaign ends this Thursday, April 3rd!

Why pledge now?

 
Thank you all again so much for your support so far, now on to a juicy update!!

1. NEW Community Goal: 500 backers!
As of the time of writing, Underleaf is at 443 backers, we're so CLOSE to 500!! :0 If we make it I want to include a free premium 4x6 print of the box artwork with every game pledge to celebrate! Share the project link or any of my instagram posts to help spread the word!!

2. NEW XL Playmat Add-On
I spent a lot of time thinking about game upgrade orientated add-ons for Underleaf and settled on committing to making an awesome playmat/desk mat with the custom leaf shape! Underleaf already has upgraded card stock, spot UV detailing on the upgraded cardboard box, premium tokens and card sleeve sets so focusing on this one big upgrade felt like the right plan.

After reviewing the poll and some very good comments concerned about the playability of the oak leaf shape, I spent a lot of time tweaking the design this weekend to keep it recognizable as a leaf while leaving plenty of space for the player collections. The play-mat will be 32"x18"!

The artwork is still not 100% final but I'm going to make sure there's lots of lovely texture just like the card sleeves and card backs in Underleaf. I am still quoting with manufacturers and will be getting samples so stay tuned for photos of that! The playmat is available in the add-on page for $50 CAD and will retail for $65 CAD after the campaign.

3. NEW Sticker Set Add-On
For the frog art fans I wanted to add a little 3" matte vinyl sticker set featuring the card art for the three frog cards! This sticker set is available in the add-on page for $10 CAD and will retail for $15 CAD/$5 ea. after the campaign.

4. NEW Clear Cards Included with Card Sleeves Free Upgrade
If you've read through the rules for Underleaf (no worries if not lol) you'll know that when you purchase a frog card, it gets assigned to a category - mushrooms, beetles or berries. During play, you have to keep these frogs in their respective piles to remember. To take out the remembering part, I'll be adding some clear assignment cards to the card sleeves! So now when you buy a frog with a mushroom you just slide the clear card over top to mark it as a mushroom! Since you need the sleeves for this to work, I'll just be including them with the card sleeves.

Thank you again and again for all the love, support, shares and comments! Lets get to 500 backers!! 
Laura

We’re entering the final 3 days of the campaign for Hercules and the 12 Labors, and there’s so much to celebrate!

Many of you have asked for this, and while we hoped to share a finished rulebook before the campaign ended, we’re not quite there yet. So, in the meantime, we’ve uploaded the original designer’s rulebook to the campaign page!  You can click the Rulebook banner on the campaign page to check it out! Keep in mind, this is not the final version, as we're making updates to terminology, icons, and text. However, it gives you a great overview of the game!

We’ve also shared the first 4 pages of the new rulebook, so you can get a sneak peek at what’s to come! We appreciate your patience, it’s taking a little longer than expected, but we’re working hard to get it finished soon.

At the time of writing, we’ve hit 126 fans on our Backerkit page, which means we’ve unlocked our first achievement, everyone will receive a FREE sticker with their order! 🎉 And you know what, I just decided that if we get to 225 fans, I'll add another FREE sticker to everyone's order! With over 1000 backers supporting this game we should be able to crush that goal! Click here to become a fan today!

Thanks to all of your support we’ve unlocked another stretch goal! Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote, based on the votes, we will be upgrading to thicker card stock! But lets not stop there! We just added 2 new stretch goals to the campaign page! If we hit $40K in funding we’ll add a linen finish to the cards, and if we reach $50K, we’ll include a custom dice bag in every copy of the game!!!

If you’ve been waiting to back the campaign, now is the time! Every pledge and social media share helps us unlock these awesome upgrades.

We’re all Greek mythology fans here, I'd love to know, who is your favorite Greek god? Please share in the comments!! I look forward to reading everyone's answers!

 Mathue Ryann
 Envy Born Games

Folks, with this update I believe we've accomplished EVERYTHING we discussed over the past 4 weeks! The one last aspect we hadn't fully figured out was a packaging solution for the neoprene mats that would ALSO hold the base game box. In our last update we unlocked the bag for the neoprene mats, which nicely solves for the packaging side of things, but we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get the main game box in there too.

Well...  after further discussion with our manufacturer and some creative thinking, we have now solved for a way to hold the base game box as well!:

Please keep in mind the image above is just a mockup and not to scale...  but suffice to say, we will have a special pocket in the front of the bag that will hold the game box! And the bag will still be printed with the game logo for easy visibility wherever you decide to store it. We'll make sure the pocket is large enough so that the game box will fit snug, but not too tight, and of course the bag itself will be perfectly sized to hold all 5 neoprene mats.

I'm simply THRILLED we were able to come up with this, and at no extra cost to you!

With that, this is likely to be the last project update until the campaign closes. I'll actually be traveling for work just as the campaign ends, so I'll catch you all on the flipside when I return...

A very heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who helped get us here, and I can't wait to get this awesome little game to you later this year. THREE CHEERS!!!

Hey folks, you might've just gotten an email, but if you missed out on the campaign, there's still a few early bird copies up for grabs if you're still interested! Apologies if the shop looks kinda meh at the moment, I'll spruce it up over time.

Time for some logistical/manufacturing updates!

- I've set up the preorder store, and have begun working on creating Print and Play and Tabletop Simulator versions of SaD.

- I emailed Longpack yesterday to get a new manufacturing quote and to discuss next steps. While the future is uncertain, the only thing I can really do right now is push through it all and think the logistics of possibly keeping copies of my game in long term storage later.

- My plan is to have the game at least manufactured, because I'd rather have the game printed and stuck overseas then wait any longer.

- Weighed one of my prototypes to make shipping weight estimates.

- REDACTED

- Man, for once I would like my career to not get more complicated because of unprecedented historical events.

-- Oliver

Lots of exciting stuff to cover today, so let's get to it!

First and foremost, we're THRILLED to announce that we've unlocked two awesome upgrades, based on some of our earlier discussion and polling. Let's show you...

Bay cards: We previously discussed making bay cards available, both as a downloadable/printable image file and also as a $5 add-on. Well...  how about FREE instead - does that work for you?! Yes! We will include 15 (enough for 3 per player) bay cards in the base game, and they will fit right inside the box for easy portability. The bay cards also provide the same convenient scoring areas that the neoprene mats offer, so you will now have the full experience inside a super tiny box!

The draft rulebook has already been updated to reflect this change, which you can find here:

Bag for mats: For those who love that super-deluxe neoprene mat experience, but also longed for a good way to store them, we've got great news for you too! We previously discussed possibilities of various forms of custom boxes that could hold both the mats and the original game box/components, but the logistics and costs there proved too much for this campaign. Instead, we're happy to include a printed draw-string bag that will fit all 5 neoprene mats, at no additional cost!

We are still working through the exact dimensions for the bag, and we're not ruling out the possibility that it would be able to fit both the mats and the game box (either inside the bag or via an added pouch), but I'm not sure yet if that's definitely going to be viable...  so no promises, but that would be really cool if we can make it work!

Our robot renaming effort was super fun and engaging, and we're stoked with the final results! Here's an image that demonstrates all the names that you all suggested and/or voted on, each different from the set of names we started the campaign with:

I think "meteor" is my favorite of the bunch, but I seriously love all these... what's your favorite?! Comment below...

Here's the full table of all the final names:

Thank you all for your participation - we hope you will love seeing your naming ideas and preferences included in the final product!

We're now heading into the final days of the campaign. If all goes well, we'll see an influx of new backers at the 48 hour mark (when all the people watching the campaign get their final notice).

NOW IS THE TIME to share the campaign page out to your social channels! Let your friends know why you're backing the project...  let them know what aspect you're most excited about...  let them know how cheap the game is here (just $15 on BackerKit only!)!! Board game groups on Facebook are especially helpful to post in!

Thanks so much for taking this journey with us, and we can't wait to show you the final production as soon as it's available. Cheers!!