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.

Hello everyone! I have been VERY busy with the launch of the Re;MATCH Kickstarter campaign, so I apologize for the lack of updates here.

There hasn't been much to share in the last month as we get closer and closer completion with manufacturing, particularly with the 3 week pause during Chinese New Year. But we are VERY close, so close in fact, that I will be locking your orders and collecting shipping fees in order to prepare to properly allocate POND to their respective shipping hubs.

But first, here is some pictures of the box and the box insert samples!

Very happy with how the box insert came out. The color is great, and the embossed logo just makes it feel super premium. Was definitely worth the extra cost imo. This is just a sample though, so the edge of the insert is hand cut. I posted these on instagram a month ago so you might've already seen these if you're following me there~

The mass production of the meeples have also been completed! BUT I am not happy with the green color on the cowboy frogs. It's a bit more yellow / neon feeling compared to the approved samples, so I am having them remade. Because the mass production of the boxes, inserts, and cards are still underway, this should not cause any delays.

The stickers and enamel pins have both finished mass production! The stickers are CLEAR plastic stickers, meaning the parts that are white is completely transparent. These stickers will look really really good on water bottles, laptops, whatever you want!

All of the 3 shirts have finished mass production as well! I already received samples and took pictures of them in a previous update. Very happy with the color and quality of the print. They feel very high quality~

Finally we have the 500 piece puzzle! This was a really fun one to produce because several of my friends have been on a big puzzle binge recently, even going to puzzle competitions! I'm excited to host a little puzzle competition of my own with this puzzle by giving them each a copy to use~

The optional add on socks are being produced. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the price I want with the original supplier, so I am finding my own new supplier and re-did the design a bit to include the hero frogs and a long cowboy frog on the sock! I'll hopefully have samples of it next week, and will share it in the next update.

In the mean time, orders will be locking in 48 hours, so if you need to update your address or want to purchase any additional add-ons, please do so now!

I am very confident everything will be ready to leave the factory sometime next month, although when specifically you can expect to receive your games will largely depend on how long it takes for the games to arrive at your region's shipping hub. I will provide more exact dates once the games are ready to leave the factory.

Lastly, if you have not checked out my newest original board game yet, Re;MATCH is LIVE NOW on Kickstarter!

Re;MATCH is a highly asymmetric 1 vs 1 puzzle fighter game that uses MARBLES. I'm SUPER proud of how fun this game is, and it's entirely available to try on Table Top Simulator now! Check the page for links, tons of real (not sponsored) reviews, and more!

- Ming

Read the rulebook here!

If you find issues in the rulebook, please come to the discord and let me know!
For campaign backers at the Indie Savior tier or above, your name was credited in the back of the rulebook. If yours is missing or you want to change it, please email me about at [email protected]

All of the game's printed components have been proofed and approved. The last thing I am waiting on is now the game box insert as we need to get a sample of that to be made first. 

I am splurging and making the game come with a custom green insert with an embossed logo, which adds a lot of extra cost for the mold and the ordering of custom plastic color mixing (vs just using black or clear plastic)

I've also splurged on the dice, making custom injection molds for the dice instead of using screen printed dice, because I just feel like the indented dice faces make it feel way more premium.

PondHQ just launched an itta bag backerkit campaign. It's CUTE AS HECK.
Please go check it out and give it your support~

I am very excited to say that all production files have been submitted except for the rulebook at this point.

We had already entered both the meeples and the custom dice into production last year because those take the longest to get through but now all of the cards, player boards, game boards, and the game box has been entered into production!

Hopefully this means by next month we will have samples, and by the end of March the games will be ready to leave the factory.

All of the backerkit pledges will ship either directly from China (for those of you who live outside of the US) or first be imported into the US to then be shipped across the states. 

In the mean time, please fill out your pledge manager if you have not yet done so!!! We are missing about 20% of you still!

The samples of the 3 t-shirt designs have also come back and they look ADORABLE. I know the sizing chart has been slightly confusing, but the measurements are essentially standard uni-sex American shirt sizes.

In these pictures, I am wearing a 2XL. I am 5'11" tall and weigh 230 pounds. They are a bit loose on me but are identical to most 2XL shirts I own because I prefer to wear loose fitting shirts.

I'm also wearing pajamas and my face is a mess so I put cat stickers over them for your benefit. These are mirror selfies that have been flipped horizontally.

Hope these photos help you decide which shirt you want! Please fill out the survey soon because I'll be using the current numbers to project how much of each shirt and at what sizes I need to order them at.