The final draft of the rulebook is ready for proofreading!
Read the rulebook here!
If you find issues in the rulebook, please come to the discord and let me know!
For camp...
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 int...
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Brother Ming Games
3 months ago
Pledge Manager & Late Pledges Open! (Pond Monthly Update #6)
Hi everyone!
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...
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Brother Ming Games
6 months ago
SHARK BAGS!!! (Pond Monthly Update #5)
BAGIMALS!!! (Follow the Kickstarter now!)
PondHQ, the illustrator of the POND board game, is launching her own kickstarter for a collection of adroable ocean backpacks! The...
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Brother Ming Games
7 months ago
Pond Monthly Update #4 (Gencon success & final beta testing!)
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...
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 Ge...
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:
Shipping costs for US customers will be increasing a bit from $12 -> $18.
A new sticker pack will be available as an add on for anyone who wants to contribute some additional support.
How Tariffs and AI art trends has me feeling (screencap from Totoro)
Ok depressing news out of the way, what's next for POND?
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!!!
Road to Production for POND
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:
Create custom icons for dice and resources (they're all royalty free icons right now)
Add custom art for the long fwooog cards for each faction
Create the art for the card shop playmat
Create a blind test ready rulebook and physical prototype
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.
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!
