Includes a Brief on the heist, a pre-made Plan, an Object Card, a Museum Brochure and the Cash needed to finance your heist. The pre-made Plan allows you to go straight to the Action Phase for a quick-play option if you're short on time!
Goal: $29,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
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 and foremost, please accept our sincerest apologies for the lack of updates over the past few weeks. We truly appreciate your patience and continued support.
As some of you may already know, the ongoing trade situation between the USA and China has significantly impacted our plans. Due to the recently announced 245% tariff on goods imported from China, it has become impossible to ship the game to the U.S. without drastically increasing the price — something we are firmly against.
Therefore, we have decided to delay the opening of the pledge manager. We want to ensure that we can offer the best possible deal to our backers without unexpected extra costs. Rest assured, no one will be charged at this stage, and we will continue to closely monitor the situation before taking further steps. We promise to keep you updated as soon as we have more clarity.
As for production progress:
✅ The base game of Age of Automaton is fully produced. We have also launched local sales in parallel, which allowed us to produce copies upfront.
📦 We can guarantee that every backer will receive a copy, regardless of the situation.
🃏 The promo cards are in the final sample-checking stage. The factory sent us a video clip of the samples last week, and we are currently reviewing them to ensure they meet our standards. Once approved, mass production of the promo cards will begin immediately.
We sincerely hope for your understanding regarding the pledge manager delay. We know this might be frustrating, and we are truly sorry for the inconvenience caused. Let's all hope for a swift resolution to the current situation.
If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment, reach out to us on Facebook/Instagram, or email us directly.
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.
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!
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!
