Let's start this message with an update on production: I've received both sorts of stickers (the A5 sheets and the exclusive ones) and they both look great! I can't wait to see where you plaster them :) Production on the books is still ongoing, but I'm told delivery should be in the first week of October. Expect pictures when it does!
I've decided to open up late pledges and surveys in the meantime, and they will stay open until shipping starts. I will not charge your credit cards until then, which leaves plenty of time to catch and correct mistakes! Make sure to double-check that anything you order is still there, that no extra copy of anything slipped by, and that everything is in the correct language. Drop me a line if it isn't.
I've also opened up a preorder store, so if you know anyone who's sad they missed out on the campaign, now you know where to send them ;)
Finally for this update, I've got another project incoming, and this time it's not a TTRPG! I'll start collecting funds in late October for FINDERS KEEPERS #1, the first issue of a print zine which features some of my collection of found photos, postcards, letters and the like along the years. You can read more about it here.
That's it for today! Expect a new update in October, and in the meantime, do write me if there's any problem with your survey or anything else!
Best, Côme
*
Bonjour tout le monde,
Commençons avec quelques nouvelles de la production : j'ai reçu les deux sortes de stickers du jeu (les planches en format A5 et les stickers exclusifs) et ils sont très beaux ! J'ai hâte de les voir collés partout :) La production du livre est toujours en cours, mais j'ai cru comprendre que la livraison aura lieu début octobre. Je vous enverrai des photos à ce moment-là !
En attendant, j'ai décidé d'ouvrir les formulaires et late pledgespour le jeu, et ils resteront ouverts jusqu'au début des envois. Je n'encaisserai aucun montant avant cela, ce qui laisse pas mal de temps pour corriger toute erreur potentielle ! Assurez-vous que tout ce que vous aviez commandé est bien là, que rien de plus n'a été ajouté par erreur, et que tout est dans la bonne langue. Écrivez-moi si ce n'est pas le cas.
J'ai aussi ouvert les précommandes pour le jeu : si vous connaissez quelqu'un qui est triste d'avoir manqué la campagne de financement, maintenant vous savez où l'envoyer :)
Enfin, je voulais vous parler d'un autre projet pour finir, et cette fois ce n'est pas du JdR ! Je commencerai à vous demander des sous fin octobre pour FINDERS KEEPERS #1, le premier numéro d'un zine imprimé qui présente une partie de ma collection de photos, cartes postales, lettres et autres trouvailles de trottoir. Vous pouvez en lire plus à ce sujet par ici.
C'est tout pour aujourd'hui ! Attendez-vous à un nouveau billet en octobre, et en attendant, n'hésitez pas à m'écrire s'il y a un souci avec votre commande ou tout autre chose !
You will need to be logged in to your Backerkit account to access the PNP file. Or, you will be prompted to enter the email associated with your pledge, which will then send a direct link your way.
You should also shortly receive an email with a direct download link.
If you still haven't filled out your survey, you will need to do so before you can download the PNP. But once you do, you'll have instant access to this reward!
We hope everyone celebrating had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah, and that those observing will have a meaningful Yom Kippur with an easy fast!
Generally, we hope September is treating you all well!
The games have shipped from the manufacturer! I have a tracking number and everything, which says they should be in my hands by Monday. As I already have all the wallets and stickers, that means that I'll be able to begin assembly and then start mailing them out by the end of the month.
So what's this mean for you? It's time to lock the orders and charge for shipping. IMPORTANT: As part of entering the final shipping rates (which have only increased by a dollar on average due to all the oil price shenanigans) I added a LOCAL PICKUP option. My understanding is that you should be able to access it by choosing it in the "country" drop down of your delivery address. If you have trouble finding it just let me know and I'll get Backerkit's Customer Support to help us out.
That means you've got one more week to add anything to your order, check that your address is correct, and that your payment method is up to date. I'll lock orders and start running cards on September 20th, and then orders will start to go out shortly after that.
Together with Natasja (from Portent fame and blissfully also our graphic designer) we have been hard at work finalizing the layout of the cards, and today we want to walk you through a bunch of the changes we have made to make all information on the cards as easy to understand as possible, so lets dive in.
Old vs New
Lets start off with comparing the design of the cards that were in the Backerkit campaign and showcase how that same card looks now. We will be using Sonja as a Twilight card features all the changes we have made: That is a lot of little changes that overall make a ton of difference! Lets walk through these changes one-by-one and see why we have made them.
Power Icon
This change is rather straightforward. While we loved the design on the banner for each card type, we ultimately wanted a clearer way to indicate what the value in the banner was referring to, which is of course the card's Power. We went through a few iterations trying to preserve the original icons but ultimately had to cut them for clarity. The design of the fist-icon emphasizes that while the animals attack each other, these are non-lethal attacks and no one dies. Having an Icon that represents the game mechanic of Power also allows us to use that icon throughout the manual to make it extra clear what we mean.
Order & Ambush
For similar reasons as with the Power, we always wanted to have icons for the Order and Ambush effects on our cards: They make explaining them easier, help differentiate the effects better, and make referencing them in the rules clearer. While the old icons we had kinda worked, we really wanted a new design that was a better embodiment of their usage. We settled on the design of an open eye for Orders and a closed eye for Ambushes.
Firstly, this design strongly conveys how the effects are played: Orders are played openly and have an immediate effect, while Ambushes are placed closed and need to be activated in later turns. Secondly, during playtests we noticed that sometimes players struggled with this difference and thus chose to help reinforce this concept by having the icons act as little reminders.
With this change we also decided to outline the text to the left, rather than the center, and have the effect be the start of the sentence, rather than displayed as a title. This links the effect name and the effect text closer together and creates a more cohesive textbox.
Set Icon
Last but not least, we are introducing set icons in the bottom right of the page! Because both decks in Hare to the Throne are almost identical, we really wanted to have a way for the players to easily identify which card belongs to which deck, with this neat little icon as a result. The number within the icon still represents the amount of times a card is featured in the deck.
The inspiration of the icons came from two plants that in the Netherlands can only be found in the Biesbosch; the Kingcup and the Club-rush. While it's a small detail that maybe not many people will notice, we really loved how this came together and helps to differentiate the two sets. And who knows, maybe we will see these icons show up in some other places? ;)
We hoped you enjoyed getting a glimpse in the behind-the-scenes of the development of the cards. We are super happy with the progress we are making and as always will keep you posted.
The upshot: As of now, we are still on track to fulfill in November!
For more details, read on:
There was a slight manufacturing delay, but after last year, we had already worked in a bit of a buffer to account for that in our anticipated delivery timeline. And then this morning we were informed of another delay.
Now we're cutting it a bit closer, but nevertheless based on current information, we should still be able to fulfill rewards in November, meaning before Hanukkah!
Aside from the games themselves:
The cards are all printed ✅
The stickers are all printed ✅
The enamel pins are ready to go ✅
The upgraded 3D gold menorah turn trackers are printed, assembled, and packaged ✅
We are doing what we can to ensure everything else goes smoothly with the games, but unfortunately, quite a lot is out of our hands. Both the delays mentioned above have to do with the manufacturer, not anything on our end. We're disappointed, but we're reworking plans to ensure everything is set on our end when the games are ready.
Print & Play:
This part is in our hands, and we're happy to share it is almost ready to go! We are testing how the file prints, but it should be ready to send out next month.
PNP files will go out through the Backerkit pledge manager, which is a step we still need to figure out but have seen work many times, so hopefully it will be straightforward for all of us.
On that note: if you haven't completed your survey, you may not receive the PNP!
Surveys need to be complete in order for your rewards to be fulfilled, and to our understanding, that includes digital downloads. So please, please make sure to go fill out your survey if you haven't yet!
BackerKit has been reminding me for 2 months that y'all were due another update, but I had nothing much to show and so didn't want to just send three lines to say I was waiting for things to move on...
Well, now they have moved on, big time! First, I have received a bunch of new illustrations by François, including this gorgeous map which will open the book:
A map of Poppy Valley for you to fill in! Where do you see Frog and Rabbit living?
That's but one of the new illustrations you'll find in the book, which is now looking more beautiful than ever!
Secondly, thanks to François's delivery, I've been able to start prepping the print files for both the book and the stickers. Barring any last minute catastrophes (they do sometimes happen) I'm now expecting to receive everything in the first weeks of October. I know it's later than I had indicated in my previous update and I'm sorry for that; I hope you'll bear with me 'till then.
I'm neck deep in Affinity files right now, but once I'm done (in a week or two) I'll launch the surveys which will allow you to pay your shipping fees and add anything you want to add to your order.
Thank you for your infinite patience! I'm sure you're as excited as I am to see what the finished product looks like, but I assure you I'm a thousand times more nervous ;)
I'll write to you again when I launch the surveys!
Best, Côme
*
Bonjour tout le monde !
Ça fait 2 mois que BackerKit me rappelle qu'il faut que je vous écrive des nouvelles, mais je n'avais pas grand chose à vous montrer et ne voulais donc pas juste envoyer 3 lignes pour dire que j'attendais que les choses avancent...
Eh bien ça y est, elles ont bien avancé !
Tout d'abord, j'ai reçu un paquet de nouvelles illustrations de François, qui incluent cet aperçu de Grenouille et Lapin à la pêche :
Quand je les vois comme ça j'ai envie d'en faire des peluches, mais restons raisonnables
Ce n'est que l'une des nombreuses nouvelles illustrations qui seront présentes dans le livre, qui est à présent plus beau que jamais !
D'autre part, grâce à la livraison de François, j'ai pu commencer à préparer les fichiers d'impression pour le livre et les stickers. À moins d'une catastrophe de dernière minute (elles surviennent parfois) je m'attends à présent à tout recevoir dans les premières semaines d'octobre. Je sais que c'est plus tard que ce que j'avais indiqué dans mon billet précédent et je m'en excuse ; j'espère que vous saurez patienter jusque là.
Je nage pour le moment dans les fichiers Affinity mais dès que j'en suis sorti (d'ici une ou deux semaines) je lancerai les formulaires qui vous permettront de payer vos frais de port et d'ajouter tout ce que vous souhaitez à votre commande.
Merci pour votre patience infinie ! Je suis sûr que vous êtes aussi impatient⋅es que moi de voir à quoi ressemble le résultat final, mais je peux vous assurer que je suis mille fois plus nerveux que vous ;)
Je vous écrirai à nouveau quand je lancerai les formulaires !
We just got back from Gencon and Comicon and after 2 super fulfilling but grueling weeks we are excited to tell people about a few of the major updates. We put up a pole to get feedback from fans throughout both of the cons and there was a clear winner for the updated card back.
Life Proof Stool Pigon Back
We made this new back decision for one major reason. Becuase this is going to be your go to backpack deck, we want to protect it from all that life can throw at it so with our chosen white core we thought it best to add a variable pattern in white. With that said, we still wanted to keep symmetry whil mainiting the identity of the game.
Whats next?
At Gencon we spoke to a couple different manufactures to determine the best available plastic clamshell to make sure you can safely take these cards everywhere you go. We should be able to finalize that decision soon.
Check back soon and we will update you when the cards go into manufacturing!
We have some exciting news to share with you all about a rules update that we are working on. While Hare to the Throne is meant to be played with the two pre-made decks, we also wanted to see if we could give some deckbuilding options for players to try as they get more experienced, and with that we landed on our Constructed ruleset!
In Constructed play, rather than using the standard pre-built deck, you get to build your own! Construct a deck in your own time, then face-off with someone who has done the same. Constructed is a good mode for anyone looking for a classic trading card game experience and an excellent mode to explore if both you and a friend have their own copy of Hare to the Throne!
Deck Building Rules
When building your deck, you have to follow these rules:
Your deck must contain between 20 and 30 cards. No more, no less.
The power value of all the cards in your deck added up may not exceed 110 (which is the same power level as the base deck has).
Your deck may contain a maximum of four copies of any card. Cards count as “the same” if they have the same title. For instance, Hazelinde, Heir and Rambert, Heir count as the same card since they are both an Heir.
Game Rules
The rules of play are otherwise the same as usual. When playing constructed, it is recommended to play best-of-three, or best-of-five sets rather than single games. This way, both players will get the opportunity to win information on the contents of their opponent’s decks, so you can effectively try to counter their plays in the later games.
Example constructed deck Above is an example deck that we made, where we added an additional Heir and two additional Theodore's for a lot of additional bursting power, at the sacrifice of the Monk, Trapper, Alchemist, and Jester. This leads to a more focused list, but also missed out on a lot of additional powerful cards.
If you wish to tinker with your own decks, we have created a deck builder for Table Top Simulator that you can use to start crafting decks and face-off against your friends!
Closing We are super happy that we can offer different ways of playing the game to allow everyone get as much value out of Hare to the Throne as possible and play how they like. We are having a blast fleshing out the game more and more and cannot wait to share more in the near future.
It's been a busy summer over here but I wanted to give everyone a quick update.
Design and testing continues over here! Got a little behind schedule but there should be no problem in getting these games to everyone by November, which was the promised date. Been doing a lot of tinkering over here not only with Beetle Battle but with a bunch of other little designs. A few of them family friendly little games for my son.
You can check them out on my itch page. They're all free to download and play.
Anyway, I'll have more updates at the end of the month!
Hope everyone's having a great summer and I'll update everyone soon.
Hello! I'm flying to America tomorrow for Gen Con! We'll be at booth 2844 with very limited copies of each of our games and plushies! Like dozens to a couple hundred of each. Come by fast if you want something!
We've shipped out 96% of Red Panda Surprise and Use Up All Your Sick Days. We'll finish the last few orders after Gen Con. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to message me (it's fastest via https://charming.games or on instagram or discord. Leaving a comment here doesn't alert me for a day or two).
Cheers, dylan Charming Games
P.S. We also got our Spiel Essen booth number: 4E415. See you soon!
