Super excited to see us unlock the 40k stretch goal increasing the quality of cards just a bit more! Thank you everyone who has supported, you're all making this a truly epic journey!
I woke up this morning, took a shower, got dressed and went out for coffee down the street. I complimented a stranger's looks across the street while he looked at his own reflection in a window. I'm not sure if he understood me, but I do hope he got the message.
I am drinking a cold brew coffee because the barista heard "Black" as "Ice" and I didn't have the heart to correct him. I have yet to touch the ginger lemon scone that I bought for breakfast.
My feelings right now are somewhat mixed. Obviously, I'm happy, even if I'm not great at showing it. I'm trying to ride the momentum of success but it's hard to keep your head up with everything going on.
I go through my emails, reading the news about men who will never truly feel consequences of their actions dictate the fate of whole livelihoods with arbitrary numbers; watching semi-fictional lines plummet and starve non-fictional families; reading somber messages from boardgame industry giants bracing themselves for an indeterminately long winter to come.
But fuck it, we're here, and we're doing this. We're bringing something, even if it's just a little something, new into this world.
So, as the Earth continues to burn around us, thank you for supporting my journey everyone. I would've never been able to get this far without you.
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?
Get early bird pricing on the game and add-ons!
Get access to exclusive freebies and add-ons that won't be available after the campaign!
Support an independent game designer and artist! 🐸💚
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.
Clear card set will be included in the All-In Pledges.
Clear card set will be included with the Card Sleeves and Game Upgrade Bundle add-ons.
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!
Rulebook Update
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.
Achievement Unlocked! Can we get to 225 Fans?!?
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!
New Stretch Goals!
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.
Whos your favorite Greek God??
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!
Dare I say... Phase Shift has knocked it out of the park!
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.
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!
What's next?
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!!
