Hello, all! I hope your February has been great and not too cold! 

First of all, sorry for the delays! It's definitely been a year of surprises for me so far. I learned I'd be moving very suddenly, handled that, and then had a doctor's appointment that led to surgery the next day! I'm in the process of recovering, but it's been a lot of pain and I've certainly not up to handling things as I normally would. There are several other people here on the Weird Giraffe Games team telling me to rest and take my time, so I'll do my best at actually resting and recovering, so I can get back to things and not need further surgery. 

There's also been some great stuff, including things related to this campaign!

We'll be releasing the initial print and play soon :D While this is our first time using BackerKit to crowdfund, it should be sent to the email you signed up with once it's complete.

We also have a digital version on Screentop that's playable as well, in case you'd like to play it with friends online or even locally without printing and cutting and sleeving! Corey Andalora, the designer of the game, was kind enough to put that together 💥 

Oh, and the box has changed! I had wanted to get a plastic case so the game could be super portable, but while that was my favorite option of the options I knew of, I recently discovered shelf boxes, which seem to work out even better than the plastic case! Plus, you can see more of the art; check it out below!

As for the Fire in the Library reprint, the promo cards are nearly ready and the game as a whole is getting finalized. I'm working on a box update to this, as well. The previous box was a magnet box, which the majority of people liked, but there were some complaints about. I'm now looking into having a shelf style box for this, as well, to see it just fixes everything! Wouldn't that be grand? 

We've had some delays, but there's been progress as well! For the next update, I hope to have the following complete: 

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or anything else you can comment below or submit a help ticket. In either case, Beth will get back to you as soon as she can. Submitting a help ticket will get her attention much quicker, as she doesn't get notified when people comment on BackerKit.

I hope the rest of your February is lovely, and there should be another update posted next month! 

Also! We'll be at Saltcon and Dice Tower West soon (I'll hopefully be at DTW myself as well, if I'm healed up enough to travel)! If you're going too, come check our booth out, we'd love to see you 💚 

- ⚗️🧪💥 Carla, Weird Giraffe Games

There have been a lot of updates made to Explosion in the Laboratory! The cards are nearly all finished and ready to go, check out some of the cards below! There are a few more updates needed to make the game super colorblind friendly and I'm hoping to get those done by the end of the week. 
 

The rules have been proofread and edited a few times, plus made a bit more fancy! If you have some spare time and want to proofread the rules, I'd greatly appreciate it! Plus, you could get your name in the rulebook! How cool would that be?

The rules are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xEfpaoGG3tK-ffSnlB7huxB31WcvMIlA/view?usp=sharing

If there's anything confusing, missing, or misspelled, please comment and let me know! If you don't have a google account, feel free to email me at carla@weirdgiraffegames.com. 

Explosion in the Laboratory is moving along! I'm hoping to get all the remaining files finished this month and hopefully approved by the printer. 

Here's what we're hoping to get done by the next update:

Thanks again for all your support! Feel free to reach out to us with any comments and questions that you have.

- 🧪 Carla, Weird Giraffe Games

Thank you so much! What a fantastic finish to a great campaign: 376 backers and $7,001! It has been so rewarding to receive such a fantastic response. We are so proud of Explosion in the Laboratory and cannot wait for you to receive the game and get a chance to play it!

I have updated the main campaign image to be the status image for the campaign. You'll be able to quickly check the status of everything, so you won't have to go through all the updates to know where we're at. I do hope you'll read the updates, though!

It should take about 2 weeks for BackerKit to process and send us all of the funds, during that time we will be working hard to finalize things for manufacturing. I plan to post an update every month to keep you informed about what's going on. This means that there might be more than 4 weeks between updates, if one update happens early in the month and the next happens late in the month. 

If you have not received an email from BackerKit already, please take a look at your BackerKit account to verify that everything is in order with your pledge. If there's an issue, I'll be sending out messages later today and I can send you another one next week. If you have a different financial situation than when we launched for whatever reason and still want to get Explosion in the Laboratory, let me know; I can still get you into the pledge manager later on.

If anyone missed the campaign and still wants to back, they can do so here: https://explosion-in-the-laboratory.backerkit.com/survey_stores 

Once the pledge manager is ready and we are close to manufacturing, I will send out invites, which is the system you will use to pay for shipping, as well as having an opportunity to add on some of our previous titles. Whatever amount you pledged now will be credited to you in the pledge manager, so you will be able to easily pick and choose the items you want.

This is typically later in the process than with most other publishers, but don't worry! We simply want to know exactly the climate we'll be shipping in AND we want to make it easy for all the people that move. 

We have a Discord server! You can join here: https://discord.gg/V5ZwdK3 It's a joint server with Galactic Raptor Games. We'll have contests, giveaways, design and publisher talk, and random chats there, so if that interests you, you're welcome to join! It's one of the easiest ways to see all the most up-to-date things with Weird Giraffe Games, as we post there daily! 

Explosion in the Laboratory is becoming a reality because of you. Thank you for your pledges, your enthusiasm, and your support. You have helped us create a rather amazing game and we definitely appreciate it.

Things are moving along! We're more than on track to get Explosion in the Laboratory to you by summer 2023. This deadline has a good number of months added, just in case basically every step of the way goes slower than I anticipate. We're currently on schedule to hopefully get Explosion in the Laboratory to you in early 2023, but delays will happen at some point, as no process goes perfectly. Especially when we're still dealing with pandemic-related issues! Here's an estimated timeline, just so you know what's coming up:

Here's what we're hoping to get done by the next update:

If you have any questions, please let us know! The very best way to reach us now that the campaign is over is via our helpdesk: https://weirdgiraffegames.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new 

Carla and the Weird Giraffe Games team

Hello all!

The Weird Giraffe Games team has been hard at work figuring out what exactly to do with stretch goals on this campaign. We didn't want to come up with a bunch of random stuff you can unlock and earn, and we're already planning high quality components. Even if we don't make another dime, we want you to have the game as it deserves to be! But then... what's a team to do for extras?

Enter... Promo Card Pack! As mentioned in our previous update, the stretch goals will be promo cards that will become the Promo Card Pack. These cards will go out to everyone who backs at the $9 pledge level or higher. And, as previously mentioned, every $500 over our original goal of $2,500 earns a single promo card. That's right, that means that, as of the time of writing this, there will already be FOUR promo cards coming since we're over $4,500! That's sooooooo amazing, by the way, thank you. With your help we can make even more!

In the past, we also did social goals as well. Things like sharing a post, following us on our various social media accounts, etc. And we have ideas for that too! So, here's a few ways we can get more promo cards: 

We'll also have a few more ways to earn promo cards in future updates, as well! 

We've seen some amazing interest in promo card ideas, and we'd love to know what kinds of promo cards you want. Do you have an idea for one? Even an inkling of an idea of one? Let us know whatever you've got! One of the best things about promo cards is that they can be ANYTHING! Totally silly? Absolutely! Full of puns? You know it! It would makes our day seeing what creativity you have inside you :D AND it's just plain fun, try it! Post your ideas below, or even start a new discussion if you prefer. Our home is your home. 😊
 
Thank you so, so much for being a part of this journey with us, we've been so delighted by the support we've received. You're all incredible, lovely people, and it's an honor having your support! If you have any questions, comments, or anything else, feel free to comment below or create a helpdesk ticket if you don't want it publicly visible.

- Carla, Weird Giraffe Games 

You are all so wonderful! This campaign has been amazing so far and it's all due to you. Together, we've guaranteed that Explosion in the Laboratory will be a reality and become a game. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Since we are now funded, but we're not planning on having the traditional sorts of stretch goals for this campaign. Instead, we're going to be working with a promo pack of Weird Giraffe Games cards together! Every time we hit another $500 after $2500, we'll add in another promo card! I'll also be adding more ways for promo cards to be added in the next update! 

With the Fire in the Library second edition, this means that all the current promo cards need to be redesigned to fit in the new art and style. You can see these below! 

Remaking all the older promo cards seems like a great place to start with the Promo Pack! However... there's a lot of choices for what get added to this promo pack! The above promos were given out for supporting the Stellar Leap Kickstarter (Stellar Map) and for meeting the designers of Fire in the Library or visiting the booth at a convention (Forge Gloves and Rogue's Cloak). 

We'll be working with poker sized cards for this first promo pack, but that includes a lot of possible crossovers, including for Explosion in the Laboratory, Fire in the Library, Wicked & Wise, Studies in Sorcery, Stellar Leap, and some of the future games, as well! Beth Sobel has worked on some of those games, so her style could definitely make the promo cards have that extra touch! For instance, we could have a Bucket Treasure card added to Wicked & Wise. Or a Sword tool added to Fire in the Library! Or a Dragon inspired Process card for Explosion in the Laboratory! 

Since we already have promos in the promo pack for Fire in the Library, what sort of crossover promos for Explosion in the Laboratory would you like to see? Something more space themed, like the Stellar Map or more dragon themed for Wicked & Wise? 

FYI, I have files of abilities for promo cards for each game that could easily be slightly tweaked to be more... dragon-like or less impressive and more bucket-like. Plus, the playtesting team here is ready to go to verify that the promo cards are a good fit! 

One of the best parts of crowdfunding is getting to know the people who support us better! I loved to use the comments section on Kickstarter to get to know you and hopefully we can do the same in the community section here. We have a ton of topics posted already, plus the one about the promos! Let's talk about it in the Community of the project! 

We are all so appreciative and humbled by the response to Explosion in the Laboratory. It's been a complete joy to work on and we can't wait to bring the game to you.

If you'd like to help us get to more promo cards, please keep sharing the campaign and reviews of the game. With your help, we'll add so many of them before too long!

Feel free to reach out, my email is carla@weirdgiraffegames.com and I'd love to hear from you!

Thank you all so much!

Carla, Weird Giraffe Games