Next week, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. Please respond to your survey in a timely fashion since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts. We'll alert everyone when the surveys are closing and do an update letting everyone know, so don't worry about missing it.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://wildgardens.backerkit.com.
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact support at https://wildgardens.backerkit.com/faq.
Today we have a very small update for you. We know that everyone has been excited to see which content creators would be featured in the Media Expansion Pack and it's time to show them off! Without further ado here are the personalities you'll see out and about in the world of Wild Gardens.
Mandi Hutchinson is here from Salt & Sass, and because her mom is such an amazing cook she's stopping by too!
Jenna from the Board Game Garden has arrived, and she brought her two favorite fluffballs with her!
Wait until you run into The Brother's Murph on your hike! Then things are going to get really interesting.
Tim Chuon is here and ready to snap a picture of whatever amazing meal you're cooking up!
Amy and Maggie from ThinkerThemer have come all the way from Australia and are ready to have some serious fun!
A wild Rodney from Watch it Played has appeared and is looking for some berries!
Monique and Naveen from Before You Play HAVE A DOG WITH ADORABLE STUMPERS!!! I didn't even know that until now!!!
Let us know if your favorite board game personality made the list. And don't forget to make sure the Media Expansion is part of your order so you can add these cards and the exclusive solo campaign featuring all these crazy characters to your game!
We have the results of our recipe card vote! Here are the winners:
Herb Garlic Morels on Grilled Polenta (Fungus)
Gooseberry Cake (Fruit)
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Nuts and Seeds)
Anise Hyssop Peach Tartlets (Flowers)
Chimichurri (Leaves)
Fiddlehead Ferns Sautéed in Garlic and Lemon (Barks and Stems)
Hunter's Pie (Roots)
Chicken and Wild Rice Soup (Aquatic)
Thank you so much for your valuable votes and contribution towards shaping the direction of the community expansion pack. Now that the ingredients and recipe cards have been finalized for this expansion, it's a perfect time to delve deeper into what is featured in these packs.
Each expansion pack showcases a unique theme while maintaining an equal amount of gameplay content. This means that every pack will include 18 new cards that can be seamlessly integrated into your game. Within each pack, you'll discover 8 fresh ingredients, 8 new recipes, 8 new guests, and a special card that grants you access to download a brand-new solo scenario.
Let's begin by exploring the variety of ingredients and recipes. Every pack features 8 double-sided recipe cards that introduce new forgeable ingredients and recipes, expanding your existing deck. These additions create fresh combinations of ingredient tokens, allowing you to cook an even wider array of diverse and mouthwatering meals to earn points.
The "meat" of the expansion lies within the eight new guest cards. Each guest card in the game possesses a completely unique ability, offering an abundance of strategic possibilities to score points. These new guest cards, exclusive to each expansion pack, introduce innovative ways to acquire resources, construct your cooking/serving engine, and present exciting opportunities to increase your endgame score. By incorporating these guests into your game, players can explore new strategies and combinations that diverge from those in the original box.
Lastly, each expansion pack includes a download for a new solo scenario, exclusively tailored to that specific expansion. This scenario embodies the thematic essence of the expansion, incorporating many of the new ingredients, recipes, and guests found within the pack. Our team had an absolute blast crafting these solo scenarios, which immerse players in absurd and often hilarious situations. For instance, in the Team expansion's solo scenario, you'll interact with numerous Rose Gauntlet team members, resulting in delightful and entertaining gameplay moments.
We hope this overview provides you with a clearer understanding of the features awaiting you in each expansion pack. Should you have any questions or require further information about the expansion packs, please don't hesitate to leave a comment!
Nicolas is sad we couldn't include everyone's wonderful recipes
Dear backers,
We want to thank you all for your amazing recipe submissions for our Wild Gardens community expansion. We received so many delicious ideas, it was a tough decision to choose our favorites. But after much deliberation, we have finally narrowed it down to our two top picks for each category. Remember if you don't see your favorite recipe listed it could be because it's already featured in the game!
The options are:
Deep Fried Morels (Fungus)
Herb Garlic Morels on Polenta (Fungus)
Gooseberry Cake (Fruits)
Gooseberry Bubble Bread (Fruits)
Hazelnut Chocolate Spread (Nuts and Seeds)
Hazelnut Waffles (Nuts and Seeds)
Anise Hyssop Whoopie Pie (Flowers)
Anise Hyssop Peach Tartlets (Flowers)
Wild Mint Chimichurri (Leaves)
Wild Mint Limonana (Leaves)
Fiddlehead Ferns in Herb Butter (Barks and Stems)
Fiddlehead Fern Focaccia (Barks and Stems)
Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes (Roots)
Jerusalem Artichoke Hunter's Pie (Roots)
Manoomin Salad (Aquatic)
Chicken and Wild Rice Soup (Aquatic)
Unfortunately, we were not able to fix the polls so that voting can happen for each category. If you want to give a shout out to your 2nd and 3rd favorite recipe, please comment on this update. We'll do our best to add those shout outs to our tally when choosing the final recipes!
In other updates: we're still working on getting the Pledge Manager ready to open and that will likely take another week or two at least. We'll also be back next week to reveal all the content creators that are featured in our Media Expansion Pack and to talk about the expansion packs in more detail.
Thanks so much for continuing to follow this project and be involved in our discussions!
The Wild Gardens Team
*Please keep in mind that the recipe names or their categories could change in the future due issues that come up in playtesting or final development, but we don't anticipate that happening.
We started designing Wild Gardens at PAXU in 2021 and it's incredible to see it become a reality 2 years later. By not only hitting our funding goal but exceeding it we'll be able to make this beautiful game into something that players can enjoy for years to come.
Wild Gardens is a game that was created as a response to all the things that we missed during quarantine. It's a love letter to the friends and the sense of community we were excited to get back too. Through Wild Garden's playtesting and campaign, we've gotten to chat with old friends and meet many new ones. We're excited to see this community continue to grow and we hope you made some new connections with others.
For the next few days our team is going to take some time off to celebrate. We'll be back next week with the vote for recipe cards and more info on when to expect the Pledge Manager. In the meantime, we invite you to celebrate with us by playing good games with your friends and eating some great meals.
We're excited to announce that the Wild Gardens Rulebook is ready to be revealed! Please keep in mind that the game is still in playtesting and the rulebook is currently a work in progress. This means that rules, cards, and tokens may change in the final version of the game. You can read the rulebook here!
A Quick Note of Gratitude for the Final 48 hours
As we come to the close of our BackerKit campaign, we wanted to take a moment to thank everyone responsible for helping us get to where we are today with Wild Gardens. From the creators who inspired us, to the team who pulled everything together, to our fans and backers making this project possible -- thank you, thank you, thank you.
The support and encouragement from our backers have been outstanding and we can't wait to deliver this new world to your tables. If you know anyone who may be interested in the game, please share the project with them so we can continue to build an amazing community around Wild Gardens!
We are thrilled to share with you an exciting first look at the solo play of our upcoming game, Wild Gardens. Our friend Jenna at The Board Game Garden has provided a cozy playthrough of a solo scenario, giving you a chance to see how the game works in a solo setting.
The Board Game Garden is known for their engaging and informative board game content, and we are honored to have them share the fun of Wild Gardens with everyone. In this video, Jenna will take you through the scenario step-by-step, as you investigate mysterious happenings at this year's Flower Festival.
This solo playthrough is the perfect opportunity for you to sit back, relax, and get a taste of what the Wild Gardens solo campaign has to offer. You'll get a glimpse of the game's unique solo mechanics and how the story driven scenario plays. Please be aware that this is a scenario from the game, so it contains spoilers.
Your support has been crucial to the development of Wild Gardens, and we want to thank you for being a part of our journey. We've worked hard to ensure Wild Garden's solo campaign is as exciting and dynamic as Keystone: North America's was, and we hope this first look gets you even more excited for its release.
We encourage you to sit back, relax, and enjoy this cozy playthrough of Wild Gardens. We can't wait for you to experience the game for yourself and see all that it has to offer!
We wanted to send a quick reminder to all of you who haven't submitted your recipe ideas yet for our Wild Gardens community expansion. As a quick recap, we are inviting all backers to share their favorite recipe or dish that features one of the eight winning ingredients from our recent poll:
Morel mushrooms
Gooseberries
Hazelnuts
Anise Hyssop
Wild Mint
Fiddlehead Fern
Jerusalem Artichoke
Wild Rice
To submit your idea, simply comment on this update with the name of the dish and the main wild ingredient featured in the recipe. We'll be reviewing all submissions (from this update and the previous one) and choosing our favorites for a follow-up vote. The winning dishes will be featured in the game's recipes cards!
We've already received some fantastic ideas from our community, and we can't wait to see what else you all come up with. Let's celebrate the diversity of flavors and ingredients that make foraging and cooking an exciting activity.
The Board Game Garden
In other news, we wanted to let you know about an upcoming event that you won't want to miss. The Board Game Garden will be streaming an exclusive look at solo play for Wild Gardens on Twitch this Sunday, April 16th at 2pm ET. This is a great opportunity to see the solo story campaign in action and learn more about how it plays. You can watch the stream here!
Thank you all for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!
A bowl of delicious honey mushroom ravioli
Dear backers,
We are thrilled to announce the ingredient winners that will be featured in the community expansion of Wild Gardens! After a flurry of voting, we have a clear winner for each ingredient category. The ingredients are:
Fungus-Morel mushrooms
Fruits- Gooseberries
Nuts and Seeds- Hazelnuts
Flowers- Anise Hyssop
Leaves- Wild Mint
Bark and Stems- Fiddlehead Fern
Roots- Jerusalem Artichoke
Aquatic- Wild Rice
We are excited to see these ingredients come to life in the game and look forward to incorporating them into the gameplay and artwork.
But we're not stopping there! We want to take this opportunity to celebrate the winning ingredients and the creativity of our community. We're inviting all backers to submit their favorite recipe idea or dish that features one of these ingredients. It can be a classic dish or something unique that you've created yourself.
To submit your idea, simply comment on this post with the name of the dish and which ingredient it features. We'll review all submissions and choose our favorites for a follow-up vote. The winning dishes (one will be chosen for each ingredient) will be featured on the recipe cards in the community expansion pack.
We can't wait to see what culinary creations you all come up with. Let's celebrate the diversity of flavors and ingredients that make foraging such a unique and exciting activity.
Thank you all for your participation, and we look forward to seeing your delicious dish ideas!
The time has come to vote on your favorite ingredient submissions for the Wild Gardens Community Expansion Pack! We received a tremendous response to our invitation to submit your favorite ingredients, and we are thrilled to present our top 16 submissions for your consideration. We've chosen our top two submissions for each ingredient type and the one with the most votes in each category will win. And if you don't see your favorite ingredient below it could be because it's already in the game!
The poll is now live and can be found in this update. Backers will have until Friday, April 7th to cast their vote. We encourage all backers to participate in this process, as your votes will determine which eight ingredients will be featured in the community expansion of the game.
To cast your vote, simply click on the poll found within this update and select your favorite ingredient from the list. You can only vote once, so be sure to choose carefully. We are excited to see which ingredients will come out on top and can't wait to feature them in the game.
The 16 ingredients up for consideration are:
Morel Mushrooms (Fungi)
Chantrelle Mushrooms (Fungi)
Gooseberries (Fruit)
Wild Currants (Fruit)
Hazelnuts (Nuts and Seeds)
Heartnuts (Nuts and Seeds)
Spicebush (Flowers)
Anise Hyssop (Flowers)
Wild Mint (Leaves)
Shiso Perilla (Leaves)
Fiddlehead Ferns (Barks and Stems)
Yarrow (Barks and Stems)
Jerusalem Artichoke (Roots)
Prairie Turnip (Roots)
Wild Rice (Aquatic)
Sea Lungwort (Aquatic)
We were blown away by the variety and creativity of the submissions we received, and we thank all of our backers for their enthusiastic participation.
After the ingredients have been voted on and we've announced the winners, the next step will be to create delicious recipes based on them. So, start thinking about how you would cook some of these amazing foods!
Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to revealing the winning ingredients soon!
Best regards,
The Wild Gardens Team
*Please keep in mind that the chosen ingredients could change in the future due issues that come up in playtesting or new knowledge regarding the ingredients, but we don't anticipate that happening.
We are excited to invite you to join us for a live play through of Wild Gardens, on Twitch next Thursday, April 6th, at 7pm EDT.
This is a fantastic opportunity for you to get a sneak peek of the game and see how it works in real-time. Isaac, Lindsey, and Josh will be playing through the game, demonstrating its features and answering any questions you may have.
Your support has been invaluable to us, and we want to thank you for being a part of our journey. Many of you have been asking for more details about how the game plays and we're excited to have the chance to answer your questions live and show off how fun this game is!
During the stream, we encourage you to ask questions, share your thoughts, and tell us about your favorite foods! We want this to be an interactive experience for everyone involved and can't wait to chat with you live.
We hope that you can join us for this exciting event and get a taste of what’s to come in Wild Gardens. Your support means everything to us, and we look forward to seeing you there!
We are thrilled to invite you to participate in the creation of the Wild Gardens Community Expansion Pack. As we develop this expansion, we want to include the Wild Gardens community in the process by featuring your favorite ingredients, meals, and even feature backers as guests in the game!
Over the past week, we've been blown away with everyone's positive reaction to Wild Garden's foraging theme, and know that many of you have preferred plants, spices, fruits, and herbs that you love to include in your favorite dishes. As our first step in building the community expansion we want to celebrate your passion for the outdoors and cooking by inviting you to submit your favorite ingredients that you'd like to see in the game.
Here's how it works: simply post your favorite ingredient as a comment on this update. We will collect all submissions and create a poll with the 16 most popular ingredients. Once the poll is live, backers will have the opportunity to vote on their favorite ingredients, and the top 8 will be featured in the community expansion of the game.
By submitting your favorite ingredient, you'll not only have the chance to influence the game, but you'll also be helping to create a more authentic and immersive experience for all players. We believe that the community aspect of Wild Gardens is one of the things that makes the game truly special, and we can't wait to see what ingredients you all come up with.
Whether it's a rare mushroom, a wild fruit, or a fragrant herb, we want to hear about it. So let us know what you're passionate about, and it just might come to life as a card in Wild Gardens.
Thank you for being a part of the Wild Gardens community, and we can't wait to see what ingredients you all come up with!
This sketch was the first concept of the game!
What Inspired Wild Gardens?
When 2020 began I had given myself the mission to take time to connect with my local community. I volunteered with a local campaign, opened my home to the effort and quickly started to make friends. I had hoped these friends would become a part of my life for years to come.
Unfortunately, when the world shut down later that year, it cut me off to those friendships. I was forced, like many others, to live a confined life within my home. As a person with a preexisting condition, 2020 became a period of solitude, instead of the period of community connection I was hoping for.
That time was incredibly hard for me. However, in that period I found ways to cope that helped me find joy and connection in my seclusion. Part of that joy came from the unexpected creators on tiktok and youtube.
Creators like @alexisnikole, @chaoticforager, @homegrown_handgathered, @redleafranch, @theloreofnature, & @kenapeay shared their love of foraging, food, plants, and trails with me. They inspired me with their passion, and flooded me with moments of joy, education, and positivity. Something that I desperately needed at the time.
As I continued to follow their journeys, I found myself changing. I spent time learning about and caring for plants. I took time to learn to cook different recipes. I explored and discovered ingredients to forage on walks. And while I messed up and found frustrations along the way, I still dreamt of world where this could be my reality.
As I learned more about the skills of foraging and cooking, I found myself wanting to share this with others, and thought of ways in which I could connect to this world in my own way. So naturally I turned to my more honed talent of designing games. After a long time dreaming about how I could connect the theme to the gameplay, I finally, in one great push took pencil to paper and began to create what would eventually become Wild Gardens.
While the initial design was good, I knew it could be better, and over the course of a year and a half we developed it into what Wild Gardens has a become today. An introduction to the wonderful world of foraging, learning, cooking, and sharing meals. This game is a love letter to the creators that inspired me.
With Wild Gardens my hope is that more people can experience these joys that were passed to me. That it can provide a medium to further the message of those creators, and that it can bring forth more opportunities to connect with others across the table.
As my quest for connection continues, and I now feel comfortable enough to open myself and my home again to my local community. I am so excited to share Wild Gardens and things that it stands for with them. I’m still learning, and am by no means an expert, but I incredibly excited for the journey and friends waiting ahead.
Thank you to all the content creators that helped inspire this game! Here is a big list of everyone that I would like to shout out. You should definitely go follow them!
We thought that this game and theme was something special and that others would feel the same way. We felt confident that we would be able to hit our funding goal and bring this game to life. But to hit that goal in the first 24 hours was something that we never expected! We are incredibly humbled by the reaction to this project and so excited that Wild Gardens will be hitting everyone's tables next year. Our team and everyone who worked on this game would like to take a moment to say THANK YOU to for supporting this project and our small indie company.
The designer of Wild Gardens, Isaac Vega, started working on this game during COVID as a way to feel connected to others at a time that was lonely and hard for many of us. We'll be releasing another update soon where he'll talk about his inspiration behind the game and the journey it took him on!
