Folks, with this update I believe we've accomplished EVERYTHING we discussed over the past 4 weeks! The one last aspect we hadn't fully figured out was a packaging solution for the neoprene mats that would ALSO hold the base game box. In our last update we unlocked the bag for the neoprene mats, which nicely solves for the packaging side of things, but we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get the main game box in there too.

Well...  after further discussion with our manufacturer and some creative thinking, we have now solved for a way to hold the base game box as well!:

Please keep in mind the image above is just a mockup and not to scale...  but suffice to say, we will have a special pocket in the front of the bag that will hold the game box! And the bag will still be printed with the game logo for easy visibility wherever you decide to store it. We'll make sure the pocket is large enough so that the game box will fit snug, but not too tight, and of course the bag itself will be perfectly sized to hold all 5 neoprene mats.

I'm simply THRILLED we were able to come up with this, and at no extra cost to you!

With that, this is likely to be the last project update until the campaign closes. I'll actually be traveling for work just as the campaign ends, so I'll catch you all on the flipside when I return...

A very heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who helped get us here, and I can't wait to get this awesome little game to you later this year. THREE CHEERS!!!

Lots of exciting stuff to cover today, so let's get to it!

First and foremost, we're THRILLED to announce that we've unlocked two awesome upgrades, based on some of our earlier discussion and polling. Let's show you...

Bay cards: We previously discussed making bay cards available, both as a downloadable/printable image file and also as a $5 add-on. Well...  how about FREE instead - does that work for you?! Yes! We will include 15 (enough for 3 per player) bay cards in the base game, and they will fit right inside the box for easy portability. The bay cards also provide the same convenient scoring areas that the neoprene mats offer, so you will now have the full experience inside a super tiny box!

The draft rulebook has already been updated to reflect this change, which you can find here:

Bag for mats: For those who love that super-deluxe neoprene mat experience, but also longed for a good way to store them, we've got great news for you too! We previously discussed possibilities of various forms of custom boxes that could hold both the mats and the original game box/components, but the logistics and costs there proved too much for this campaign. Instead, we're happy to include a printed draw-string bag that will fit all 5 neoprene mats, at no additional cost!

We are still working through the exact dimensions for the bag, and we're not ruling out the possibility that it would be able to fit both the mats and the game box (either inside the bag or via an added pouch), but I'm not sure yet if that's definitely going to be viable...  so no promises, but that would be really cool if we can make it work!

Our robot renaming effort was super fun and engaging, and we're stoked with the final results! Here's an image that demonstrates all the names that you all suggested and/or voted on, each different from the set of names we started the campaign with:

I think "meteor" is my favorite of the bunch, but I seriously love all these... what's your favorite?! Comment below...

Here's the full table of all the final names:

Thank you all for your participation - we hope you will love seeing your naming ideas and preferences included in the final product!

We're now heading into the final days of the campaign. If all goes well, we'll see an influx of new backers at the 48 hour mark (when all the people watching the campaign get their final notice).

NOW IS THE TIME to share the campaign page out to your social channels! Let your friends know why you're backing the project...  let them know what aspect you're most excited about...  let them know how cheap the game is here (just $15 on BackerKit only!)!! Board game groups on Facebook are especially helpful to post in!

Thanks so much for taking this journey with us, and we can't wait to show you the final production as soon as it's available. Cheers!!

SUPER good news for folks in the US! I've been working with our US warehouse (The Game Crafter) for over a week to get to better rates for US backers. The key to this was getting much more granular: First I obtained exact rates for each of the 50 states, as well as surrounding islands, for each of the 19 different weight ranges. Then I was able to create a master table containing about 1000 cells with all the rate numbers, and then calculated the necessary fees and such for each one from there. In order to get all those exact rates, The Game Crafter had to do some special coding on their platform, since this is not how their normal Print-On-Demand business works. Huge thanks to JT and his crew helping us out with this - I'm very grateful for our partnership!

Suffice to say, we now have even more accurate numbers for all of the US, and in most states the result is that your final shipping is now a little bit cheaper. If you go back into your BackerKit survey you will see the new shipping amount already reflected.

NOTE: You do not need to do anything! No matter what, your new, correct shipping rate will be charged when we close the surveys and charge your cards in 9 days. 

NOTE: This update only applies to backers in the United States. All other regions already had as granular rates as we could get in place. 

This was a ton of work to do, but I'm thrilled that we could get the rates ratcheted down even more for you! Let me know any questions. 

In the meantime, we will be showing Widget's Workship and fulfilling orders at GenCon - if you could give this entry on BGG a thumbs up, we'd SUPER appreciate it!