It's been a few days now since the conclusion of the Bolted campaign!

Thank you so much to everyone who's joined -- I'm so excited to get the game finished and into your hands.

If you missed the livestream I had with Ryan North, you can watch it on Twitch. I showed off a ton of the art I've working on for the game!

[ LINK TO VIDEO ]

I've had my head down working on more artwork this week, but here's a brief update on what to expect from here:

• I'm going to tunnel into a little hole for a while to crank on the artwork and other elements. My goal is to have everything finished and off to the printer by the end of May.

• You may hear about more playtesting opportunities between now and then! One cool thing to do is to sign up for remote playtesting if you're interested in spending some quality time with the rulebook. I'm not sure when I'll be sending that out for review, but that link is how to be specifically notified when I do.

• You are also welcome to join me on Discord -- I've just added a new games channel specifically for playtesting and sharing updates on Bolted. This includes an announcement of playtesting sessions later this week!

• Pledge manager survey links will probably start going out in June.

• Shipping will probably begin in August or September.

Tariffs, trade wars, etc. are definitely a key concern of mine, but I have a good manufacturer lined up and I'm confident I can get the product made -- the only part still uncertain is the costs that will end up being involved. 

That's not something worth fretting over in April though. So much about that can change from day to day that instead, I'm just going to focus on what I can control for a while, and we'll see what the situation is later this summer. Things could be entirely different.

More from me soon! Thanks!!

The Backerkit #Pocketopia event is ending on Thursday at 1pm Pacific!

And that means the Bolted campaign is ending too!!

Thank you again to those of you who've backed the game already.

If you haven't, this is your best chance to pledge for a copy before the campaign closes.

ACTUAL SCREENSHOT FROM RECENT PLAYTEST:

Join me live on Twitch on Thursday April 3, 12:30pm Pacific time for a final-hour countdown!

I'll be working on Bolted card artwork, and I'll be joined by a special guest:

Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics and many other fine things!

Going into this campaign, there was already uncertainty swirling about the chance of new tariffs against China, where I am planning to print this game.

So today's ridiculous news -- that increased tariffs on imported goods from China will put a +54% surcharge on manufacturing costs -- is not exactly a surprise, although it is a super huge bummer.

There's a chance this may change by the time the games are finalized, manufactured, and ready to ship. Regardless of what might happen next, I am committed to maintaining my stated pricing on this game.

The tariffs are unpredictable, but there is one other factor that controls the price of manufacturing: Volume. The more games I print, the less expensive each copy is.   

I do not want to take a huge risk on a ton of extra inventory. I want to print pretty close to the number I will need.

So if you're on the fence about this game, I urge you to back it today so I can realize the best volume pricing on the overall print run! 

This is, after all, the only print run that's guaranteed to happen. If these tariffs go up any further, why would I print more copies later.

Like, things suck right now. Generally speaking. 

I sometimes feel very sheepish talking about this silly game, With All That's Going On Right Now. 

But there are a few reasons why I keep banging this drum:

Fun is necessary. Fun is energizing. Fun is productive.

So here are some of the cards that I've had fun making recently:

I don't even think those hybrid pieces make sense -- they create too many weird rule situations and they look more unnatural than usual -- but they were pretty fun to make.

HALF A DAY LEFT ON THIS CAMPAIGN! Thanks very much for your backing; for your championing and your referrals; or for your kind attention.

This isn't going in the game but it's a funny thing I found while looking for artwork for the game:

Can't dispute that!!!

Hi, Bolted pals! A couple quick updates from me, the guy who is behind this project!!

Thank you everyone for being on board this project!!

We have less than 2 days before the Backerkit campaign reaches its conclusion. I'm so grateful for your support and I am thrilled to see that the game will be printed.

I'll use Backerkit's special functionality to keep pre-orders open after the campaign, for anyone who comes in late -- but the higher, limited pledge levels won't be available then.

We have surpassed $18k in funding, which means we have UNLOCKED spot gloss printing on the box! This will give it a VERY fancy look; it will be a very dramatic effect.

There is one further stretch goal. If we reach $23k in funding, all backers will receive free downloads of my Wondermark comic collection ebooks! There is sometimes a surge at the end of a campaign, maybe we'll get all the way there!! It would be super cool if so.

Unfortunately, my cross-collab partner project Centipede failed to meet its funding goal. They'll regroup and perhaps launch their game again in the future. However, a few people have asked what this means for the special Centipede bonus card that I created for Bolted:
 

I have been using this card in my playtests recently and it's really fun.

I had to downscale it from 6 "leg" connectors to 4, just because the cards were having a hard time fitting onto all of them:

It's a risky card to play, because you're penalized for every connector you leave open, but it also opens up a lot of chaotic possibilities.

So, in honor of the fallen Centipede project, I have PROMOTED this card to a REGULAR GAME CARD and it will be included in the base game!

The other two bonus cards - Gax Head and Piranhamoose Antlers - will continue to be given FREE to those who qualify for them (early bird backers and repeat backers respectively), but I'll also make them available for purchase as add-ons when the time comes to fill out your final surveys.

I'm already super happy with how the game plays, but all the rounds of playtesting have also been very helpful at identifying edge cases and putting new tweaks through their paces.

And it's also been really fun to meet folks and play the game with them!

Here are the times I'll be hosting virtual playtest sessions this week:

Sign up to play here!

I am ALSO just about ready to start opening up UNSUPERVISED playtesting, which means, you get to read the rules and play the game by yourself. 

The goal of that is to provide feedback to me on how clearly the rules are written.

If you’d like to play with your own group — we use a web browser, so you can either play remotely via video chat, or you can play IRL if everyone has a laptop — you can sign up for that here and I’ll follow up with detailed instructions shortly.

ICYMI, I did a short post on the Wondermark blog this week about some of the design choices going into the game cards.

You can read the whole post here!

tl;dr It's been really fun to design these cards. I keep going back into the ones that feel too "normal" to make them just a bit weirder. They can't ALL be wackadoodle, of course, but SOME of them should be.

Thanks again for being a part of this game!!