We’re breaking our usual 30 day update cycle because… this one’s just too epic not to share!
🎥 Paul from The Dicey Review just posted a how to play video for Hercules and the 12 Labors. If you’ve been craving a deeper dive into the gameplay, mechanics, and why this solo adventure is epic, this is the video to watch. 👉 HOW TO PLAY VIDEO Backer Survey are 90% complete! You all are absolutely crushing it.
If you haven’t completed your pledge yet, or if you backed at the $1 level to keep an eye on things, this is your sign to jump in! The game is getting a ton of love, and we’d hate for you to miss out on the Exclusive Promo card. 👉 https://hat12l.backerkit.com/
Thank you all for the continued support! If you’ll be at Origins next week, swing by booth 1130 to check out a live demo of Hercules and the 12 Labors, we’d love to show you the game in action!
Thank you all for participating in the voting, and I'm looking forward to getting these cards out to you! My current plan is to kick off artists once I get back from Origins Game Fair and send out surveys in July so I can get final counts for ordering.
There's more details here in today's Dev Log update:
We’re excited to announce that the Pledge Manager for Age of Automaton is now officially open! 🎉 You can now log in to confirm your shipping address and finalize your order.
🗓️ The Pledge Manager will remain open from today until August 1st.
📦 We expect to begin shipping your rewards within August.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16Mmb2DWXM/
💥 And we have even more exciting news to share — on May 18th, Age of Automaton was awarded First Prize at the Thailand Board Game Awards 2025, held at centralwOrld, Bangkok!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16Mmb2DWXM/
This recognition was beyond our expectations, and we are truly honored.
We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who believed in the potential of this game. We hope that when you receive and play Age of Automaton, you’ll love it as much as we’ve loved creating it.
If you have any questions or need help during the Pledge Manager process, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Thank you again for being part of this journey!
Warm regards, White Elephants & Four Comma Game Co., Ltd.
We are on track in making A Land Once Magic a reality! We have just locked the manuscript after Ru's edits which means the next step is layout! I can't wait to see how Luna brings this book to life and will share some preview spreads in our next update.
More Art!
With our stretch goal unlocked, we were able to get more incredible art from John Gagne to use in the book. Here's a preview of some of the additional pieces you'll see in the final product.
All Illustrations by John Gagne
Viditya and I have been in love with John's art from the beginning of working together on this project and we can't wait to fill these pages with more of his unique imaginative style.
Timeline/Fulfillment
We are on track for Fall fulfillment! We should be heading to production by July which means books in hand hopefully in September/October. I know there has been a lot of uncertainty when it comes to tariffs but as far as we have been advised so far, this project should be exempt from the elevated tariffs. If anything changes on that front, we will let you know immediately and transparently.
That's all for now! Hope to have some more exciting peaks into the book to share in our next update. We will also be getting surveys out between now and then. If you or a friend missed out on the campaign, we are currently accepting preorders.
More soon!
-Elliot & Viditya
p.s. Check out these awesome crowdfunding projects happening right now!
We’re back with a full update on Magic Socks, the Theme Packs, and XYZ. There’s been a lot happening behind the scenes, and we’re here to share the latest on production, timelines, and what’s next.
Magic Socks & Theme Packs Are in Assembly!
We’re thrilled to share that the Magic Socks and the Theme Packs (including all deluxe components) are now printing and moving into assembly. It’s been a long road, but we’re almost there!
Right now, we’re expecting the games to be “goods ready” by the end of June, which means they’ll be packed up and ready to ship out from the manufacturer in China shortly after. We’ll update you again as we get closer to that key milestone.
Mini-Expansions: Rivals & Awards Season
We’re still committed to delivering Rivals & Awards Season, but production planning for these titles has proven more complex than expected. Right now, we’re actively exploring our options to mitigate tariff & import costs, which have become a significant challenge across the board.
We don’t yet have a firm timeline for their release, but we’re aiming for later this year. And yes — free shipping for those who pre-ordered them is still part of the plan. We’ll share more once we have clearer production options in place.
Titania Ascending
After evaluating the costs & risks, we’ve decided to place Titania Ascending on temporary hold while we rework our production approach. Unfortunately, the current 30% U.S. import tariff would significantly impact production costs — particularly for a small, non-retail print run like this one.
That said, since we’re already rethinking production pathways for the mini-expansions, there’s a real chance we’ll find a solution that benefits both projects. More to come once we’ve locked in our revised plans.
Rolling in Wonderland
We’ve officially stepped away from our involvement with Rolling in Wonderland. While we loved the creative direction of the project and appreciated our collaboration with Borogove Games, we’ve made the difficult decision to prioritize our current projects and commitments. We wish Borogove the best as they continue development on the game.
Shipping & Tariffs – The Elephant in the Room
At this time, we’re still finalizing shipping rates, but the current U.S. import tariff sits at 30%, which adds an estimated $5–$10 to the cost per order. Those estimated tariff charges will be added to the shipping charge. Once we know more about the final numbers, we will share them.
We truly wish we could absorb these costs or offer an alternative, but as a small indie team, that’s not feasible, especially in today’s freight and import climate. We’ll give you plenty of advance notice before any charges are processed.
We also want to acknowledge the reality: this project is very late, and we know that’s been frustrating. Your patience and support have meant everything. Like many small studios, we’re doing everything we can to survive in a tough environment, and delivering & selling Magic Socks is the critical path to keeping XYZ Game Labs going. We see you. We appreciate you. And we’re so close to the finish line.
Thanks again for your continued support — we’ll be back with another update in June as production wraps!
Alright folks, we've come to the end of this crowdfunding campaign and it brings me so much joy to say that Molly House is finally out! If you want to pick up the metal pawns or gift a copy, I'm happy to say that Molly House is now available on our website.
Out Now!!
While fulfillment has taken a couple of months to complete, I can now share that every pledge has now been shipped and it's officially time to start the party. But if for any reason you have not received your pledge, please reach out over email to [email protected] and we'll be happy to look into it.
Before we get all bleary-eyed and talk about making this project, I should mention some incredible videos and resources for our Molly House players. Let's get into this fun stuff.
Learn How to Play Molly House
We partnered with Good Time Society to help make this wonderful How-to-play video! I hope this video can be a useful resource for folks learning the game the first time or just curious to see how it works. Good Time Society will also have a full play-though of Molly House coming soon too, so go subscribe to their channel to get notified when that goes live! Regardless you should check out the incredible staging they did for the shoot!
Jo on Homo Ludens
If you are also craving more Molly House and wanted a more conversational and rolling teach through the mechanics with some hilarious banter, check out this stream of Molly House on Fred Serval's channel Homo Ludens. Jo's teach is great here and it's great to see how the game plays with these players.
Print and Play Files
If you wanted to make an online implementation, make your own copy for a friend, or just play around with the files, here is a link to a Print-and-Play version of Molly House. We are proud to continue offering all of the game assets to anyone interested in our projects for free and glad to be supporting works in the creative commons.
Upcoming Conventions
If you are dying to see and play more Molly House in the UK, you are in luck! We are going to bring Molly House to UKGE alongside Arcs at the All About Games booth. Cole, Jo, Rachel, Ricky, and I will all be in attendance for the weekend and there will be demos abound. If you'll be joining, catch us at the booth a little meet and greet with the full team Saturday at noon. I cannot wait to see everything in action and we'll certainly be sharing photos on our Blusky.
We will also be at Origins for our US release! We have some very fun things in the works for that show but we'll be posting lots more about that on our socials. It will be a great show to pick up some merch and celebrate MH with us too.
What's Next
This will be the 2nd to last update for this campaign because the actual final update will be all about our next project. Given the highly volatile state of the world regarding tariffs and other changes the tabletop industry, we don't know exactly when we will launching our next campaign. We are delaying Hell Raisers until we know more about how that project will be structured and manufactured, but we are taking our time to continue to work on the development and concept art on the project.
Thank you for your continued support now more than ever. We are so grateful to bring a project like this to life. It is your direct support that will allow us to continue working on projects like these, so again and forever, thank you!
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.
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:
Shipping costs for US customers will be increasing a bit from $12 -> $18.
A new sticker pack will be available as an add on for anyone who wants to contribute some additional support.
How Tariffs and AI art trends has me feeling (screencap from Totoro)
Ok depressing news out of the way, what's next for POND?
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!!!
Road to Production for POND
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:
Create custom icons for dice and resources (they're all royalty free icons right now)
Add custom art for the long fwooog cards for each faction
Create the art for the card shop playmat
Create a blind test ready rulebook and physical prototype
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.
