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]
Production Print Proofs have been approved!!!
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.
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.
Sorry for the silence in the last few months. It's been a whirlwind for me in the last few months. After GenCon, POND went on a bit of a break. The artist, PondHQ, has been busy working on her own kickstarter of adorable backpacks, while I (Ming, designer & publisher), revisited my hometown in China for the first time in 9 years for a whole month.
While I was in China, I also got to visit several manufacturing companies as well met up with my business partner in China after working with her for over 6 years! I learned a TON about how all of the components for games are actually created, and really gained a new appreciation for just how much knowledge and experience the factories and it's workers need to make high quality games.
Right after I returned, I had to prepare for my favorite board game convention of the year: Pax Unplugged! My next board game campaign, Re;MATCH, will be launching on March 3rd next year (hopefully, this is right around when POND will start shipping) so I have been pouring alot of energy into marketing this game.
Re;MATCH is a 1 vs 1 asymmetric PUZZLE fighting board game
But now I'm back from Pax Unplugged, and I've been focusing my energy on POND again. Thankfully, I had anticipated this schedule, so the original estimated timeline of shipping by March 30th is not too far off.
In terms of manufacturing, I am beginning with the 2 items that take the longest to produce: the Dice and the Meeples. Thankfully, both of these things are language independent, as I am also working with 2 localizers to get a Chinese and Russian version of the game made. I tried reaching out to German and French localizers, but in the end was not able to find anyone interested in POND, but I am just not very well connected, so maybe when POND comes back for a sequel, I can get those to happen.
Additionally, after talking with my manufacturer, there is SO LITTLE interest in a version of POND without the meeples (Less than 1% of backers are for the non-meeple version) it would actually be way more expensive to produce the small handful of copies without the meeples (different box art, different assembly set up, plus punch boards...).
Because of this, I've decided to just go ahead to upgrade the ~30 ish who pledged for a non-meeple version of POND to a Deluxe edition of POND for free. (Saving you 15$). You will still not be receiving the art friends expansion though.
Speaking of the Art Friends expansion, I've added some more friends to the mix! The Art Friends expansion now features FIFTY unique cards! With a mix of hero frogs and regular frogs, the pack will feature over 75 cards. It's really a very hefty expansion that will add a lot of variety to your games~
With all of these details finally decided upon, the pledge manager is NOW OPEN and has been emailed out to all backers~!
If you have questions about your pledge manager, please do not hesitate to reach out through Backerkit support.
Ugly bare skeleton layout of the rulebook (this is not final!!!)
So, what is the current timeline of events?
Manufacturing for components without language has begun (meeples and dice specifically)
The game map quad fold board and custom insert will begin manufacturing next. The gameboard will have UV masking, and the custom insert will be created using a custom light blue plastic to look extra aesthetic.
Everything else will begin manufacturing by early January.
Assembly should begin in early March and be ready to leave the factory by mid March.
All customers outside of the USA will have their games shipped directly from China, which should start by early April (basically nearly meeting the original expected ship date of March 30th)
The rest of the games for USA customers will be loaded into a shipping container to be freighted to my warehouse in Atlanta GA. It should take around 30 to 45 days to import these games, so then shipping for USA customers should begin by end of May.
I will be air shipping a few boxes of POND to me in order to sell at Pax EAST. If you attend that convention, come say hi! I have the Ming Dynasty promo card that I'll be signing and giving out to backers & convention customers.
Thank you for everyone's patience, and I hope you all have a great holiday season as we head into the end of the year!
PondHQ, the illustrator of the POND board game, is launching her own kickstarter for a collection of adroable ocean backpacks! They're all waterproof, well cushioned, and super spacious!
Not to mention they have TAILS???
Please help her make these bags into a reality~ Follow the Kickstarter page so you don't miss the early bird discounts!
POND continued progress
Gameweaver is continuing to help with playtesting and we are now trying to do some blind playtest sessions using our draft rulebook. If you read rulebooks to learn how to play board games, consider giving the rulebook draft a read and leave some comments where you have questions!
We've also made a slight change to the template for starting cards by removing the cost from cards that start in every player's decks. What do you think? The cards feel a little empty without the cost in the top right corner, but, these cards aren't purchased and always say 0 berries, so the cost corner felt rather redundant. This also frees up the design space for me to make some 0 cost promo cards, although I'm not sure if I'll actually do that.
Anyways updates are light this month as I am focusing on playtesting. I think the game is very close to finalized, so if there's no more changes needed, I'll be working on the designs of the art friends expansion cards next.
I am currently pretty hopeful that everything will go to print by the end of the year, which should result in fulfillment happening by March or April of next year, as it usually takes 3 months for production and 1 to 2 months for the games to travel from China to the USA.
We showed over 150 people how to play POND this weekend and received SOOO much positive feedback, it honestly blows me away at how well this game is resonating with you all! (Plus lots of demos given for my upcoming marble puzzle fighting game, Re;MATCH!)
After taking all of this playtest data home, we've done a TON more development and internal playtesting and I am VERY excited to announce our final round of open beta testing for POND on Tabletop Simulator!
Come in to my discord to share your feedback about the game after playing or to find others to play the game with~
Pre-Orders for POND is also now available so if are just following along, you definitely don't want to miss out on the Backerkit edition to get over 50 different guest artist cards!
Banana Frogs are NOT food
First, we've created some custom player boards for each player to hold their meeples and tells you what your unique faction ability is~
Additionally, there have been a few high level changes for the game to make it easier to learn and play, removing some of the most confusing parts of the game.
Namely, the Long Fwooog cards. There are no longer any variables and exponents involved for the Long Fwooog. Additionally, their effect has been streamlined to simply be 1 unique ability for the faction's long fwoog, then a choice between either creating a new long fwooog meeple or gaining 2 berries.
New Long Fwooog cards for each faction!
Previously, the Long Fwooogs also provided 1 hibernation, but thats been completely removed. Instead, a new rule has been added to the overall game: - Whenever you shuffle your discard into your deck, choose 1 card from your discard and hibernate it
This way, every cycle of your deck (which should be around ever 2 to 3 turns), you'll get 1 hibernated card. Hero frogs are then still created by merging your hibernated frog cards into a hero.
We've also cleaned up the text for alot of cards to make them easier to digest, like the Frog with a Net card now just says "Choose 1:" for their 3 options!
The last big change is that combat dice have been slightly adjusted to have 3 Swords, 2 Bombs, and 1 Miss, instead of 2/2/2. This makes combat a bit more lethal, and promotes attacking as advantageous a bit more as well, as before moving to control was just much more efficient compared to attacking.
The cowboy frogs always carry moisturizer
Finally, the Factions have been rebalanced a bit, specifically the Cowboys and Wizards, to make them play more consistently. Right now, I am VERY happy with the balance of the 4 factions AND how asymmetric they feel in play. Each faction really feels like they lean into a specialized strategy off the bat but they all still maintain very good balance with each other.
We'll be doing this final open beta playtest over the next month while we wrap up all of the assets of the game, with the goal of going to production by mid October (for everything except the rulebook, which print alot faster so we'll be working on that after the rest of the game's print files are set)
If you'd like to provide feedback for the open beta, please join us on the discord to tell us what was confusing, or if you found any typos!
Sorry for the delayed update this month. Right after Gen Con, both me and POND were at Otakon, and now this weekend we'll both be at Anime NYC!
If you pre-ordered POND and are going to Anime NYC this weekend, make sure to stop by PONDHQ's booth to pick up some adorable Frog plushies~ (or just order them online!)
