POND is now available for late pledge preorders!

For those of you coming to Gen Con, since they were previously sold out, I've added 2 more tickets to all POND Demos at Gen Con!

That said, even if you don't sign up for a demo, come find me at the purple demo tables in Hall B (there'll be a tall POND banner) and show me your pledge or pre-order of POND to get a convention exclusive promo card, the Ming Dynasty Frog! (Get it, cuz my name is Ming?) (Ask me about this card's nickname if you see me.)

I'll be bringing this same promo card to conventions in the future so if you can't get it this GenCon, you'll still have a chance to get it for free at Origins Game Fair and Gen Con next year!

As for updates, this month has been another busy month for myself and PondHQ! I exhibited at Dokomi in Germany, Origins in Columbus OH, and finally Anime Expo in Los Angeles CA!

Despite all of that traveling, alot of playtesting and development was done with the help of Game Weaver Games~

We are changing quite a few things from the current Tabletop Simulator version, which will be seen at Gen Con and will be uploaded to TTS shortly before Gen Con.

Players will now just get 1 March and 1 Attack each turn by default. Megaphones were adding too much overhead but didn't really create a lot of rewarding decision making, while making cards that gave megaphones too powerful. 

We're changing the starting decks to have some more variety. Because megaphones were so important, frog with knives were basically all players needed to win. We're giving players 2 more starting cards that give you an march or attack to make movement and attacking more consistent throughout the game.

Long Fwooogs are now unique to each faction! HOW CUTE~! They'll have the same effect as before but now feature a small kicker ability unique to that faction that rewards playing into that faction's unique strengths (for example, attacking multiple times in a turn with Cowboy frogs)

Instead the game ending trigger will simply be when the total supply of VP tokens run out. VP will not be a counter that goes up, but rather a total limited amount shared by all players. Crowns as a game ending mechanic was skewing how important the fountain (middle pond) was, especially because taking the fountain from another player is costly and essentially requires one player to pay that cost while all the other players benefit from the fountain holder being removed. The fountain and attacking Long Frogs now just rewards an extra VP, which still make them valuable, but not nearly as significant.

Hibernated frogs will no longer be worth extra VP. Instead, you'll want to hibernate frogs in order to eventually awaken them as HEROES! This will let hero frogs come into play a bit more naturally and won't feel as much like a "win more" button.

Speaking of Heroes, each of the factions have their own EPIC version that will be recruitable as a hero ONLY by that faction, deepening the asymmetry!

Thank you for your continued paitience as I, PondHQ, and Gamesweaver continue to work through POND while also trying our best to survive convention season.

The next 2 months are still filled with conventions so progress will continue to be slow, but I do still believe we'll be able to go to print by the end of the year!

- Ming