A simple and elegant card game about blending, selling, and trading loose leaf tea. From the studio that brought you Cantankerous Cats!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Admin Day: More Progress, COVID Woes, Moving (maybe?!)
about 2 years ago
– Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 03:48:49 AM
Greetings, Teariffic Hoomins!
Today's update is going to be short and to the point. Mostly because I have been sick with COVID (more on that later), so I have been unable to do much for the past week and a half or so. I am feeling physically better now and I have been itching to write something, so this is that something! I will start with game updates for those who just want to know about business things:
1. MANUFACTURING UPDATES
Our manufacturer did solve the final piece of our plastic free puzzle! Our games are scheduled for final assembly as soon as everyone returns from Chinese New Year. Because all of our printing is essentially completed, they aren't expecting to spend a lot of time boxing everything up and getting it ready to sail over to Los Angeles. The ROUGH estimate to completion is March.
On the coin front: Before the holiday we did hear that, unfortunately, there were some quality issues with the final anodization process. That manufacturer requested a bit more time to figure things out, and I gave them approval to take as much time as they needed to get things right. We should have a timeline estimate for those once everyone returns from the holiday. We also learned that ALL of the metal coins actually take up LESS SPACE than the paper coins! This means even if you did NOT buy a Luminary edition, you can still fit ALL of your metal coins in the standard box. (More on this in a future update)
The coins and games will ship together to make logistics and freight easier, so once we have a timeline from our coin manufacturer I will post another update.
2. FREIGHT
Jason has started the conversations for securing freight now that we have estimates of final dimensions/weights from everyone. And the good news is so far, it looks like our manufacturer's advise is panning out. Freight for our project is looking A LOT more reasonable than it was a few months ago. But the cost of freight is only a part of the story. Our project is TINY by board game standards, and that could cause delays if people are still fighting to buy full containers. And that's going to be tough to gauge until our games are finished and ready to ship.
3. TWO-PLAYER MODE
Jason and I started working on the new two-player rules shortly before I got hit with COVID. The only talking point here is that we've mutually agreed to toss out the "Ghost Shop" concept because it bogged the game down too much to track an A.I. player. We are committing to making the two player game a VERY DIFFERENT game designed for two. It will be more cutthroat, lean, and likely be a very short experience with an emphasis on Solo Fulfillment. We will start working on this after my quarantine is over. Which rings me to the personal stuff that affects the business. Read on if you want to know, or skip to the end if this isn't for you!
4. I FINALLY GOT COVID-19
Long story short: in spite of all the care I have been taking since the pandemic started, I finally caught COVID-19. Most likely from an environment I had to be in where EVERYONE was sick with COVID and...nobody decided to tell me. (PRO TIP: Please do not invite people to work in a COVID den. Even if you hate them. This is a shitty thing to do to a person. </rant>)
I had it VERY rough and my symptoms were BAD for a few days, but I am mostly on the mend now (thank you vaccine+booster combo), though I am still contagious. This means I have not been able to access my workstation or my living space, which means no work or updates. And I won't be able to do anything major until I am five days out from a negative test, which has yet to happen yet. (I am still testing positive as of yesterday.) I am testing myself again tomorrow and if it comes back negative, I will be able to resume working around other people by Saturday.
But I HAVE been trying to make the most of my quarantine time. I started purchasing some snazzy inks and papers to test some calligraphy styles for the Bespoke and Luminary tiers. I will be sharing some photos as soon as I land on a style I like for the project. :)
5. MOVING! FINALLY?!
After...EIGHT MONTHS of actively searching, interviewing, e-mailing, calling, etc...
I. MIGHT...finally have a place to live. Still waiting to actually see a contract to sign before I get too excited, but everything sounds like we have the place. If we do, I will be spending a big chunk of Feb moving ALL of my things into the new place and rebuilding my studio so I can get back to work on the crafting parts of this project. It's a condo, so it's going to be WEIRD not having a yard or easy access to the street/front door/laundry, but it's big. Which means I will have space to build and make things.
And...that's it. That's what has been going on this month in the world of Aven. I also did manage to finally soft launch our new website!
If you want to take a peek at the new digs, feel free to click on that link. Once I get situated into my new place, I will be shutting down the Backerkit store, tallying up all the orders to see how much extra inventory we have, then shifting all pre-orders to the Mentha Designs website.
(As you can see in the store, all of the KS extras are currently "Out of Stock" and will not be able to be ordered until we confirm that we have enough supply for KS/Backerkit orders)
As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know. Not going to lie it's been the most difficult winter of my life so far, but hopefully I will be back to normal before too long once I have real keys to a real door this month.
Thank you all for your continued patience and support. I appreciate you all and hope you are having a kind start to your year.
State of the Game: The MPC is Here!
over 2 years ago
– Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 10:40:43 PM
Greetings, Beauteaful People!
Gentle New Year to all and I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season. It's been an incredibly challenging time of year for me personally, but the project has been chugging along VERY quickly in this last month. As I mentioned in the video, I've redrafted this update FOUR TIMES in the last couple of weeks because updates kept happening too fast after a lot of time with "not a lot to talk about."
In case you skipped the video, I'll break things down below:
The MPC is Here!!
The first production copy of Prosperitea has landed!!
The Master Production Copy of Prosperitea has arrived! We received it on New Year's Eve EVE (two days ago). Jason and I have already looked at the components and given our approval, so games should be in our hands and going out the door in less than six months. Timing is going to be tricky to pin down right now because freight is still horrifically inflated, but we are working on that situation with our manufacturer. We are likely going to hold off on shipping our products until AFTER Chinese New Year when prices hopefully stabilize a bit.
Ingredient Cards!
Everything look and feels AMAZING. The foil effect is gorgeous. And many folks that I've shown this to have said this is the most unique looking packaging in the board game space. It's 100% plastic free and 100% Recyclable. Using about 65% recycled paper (I'll get a closer estimate once we have a post mortem after games have landed).
Moar ingredients!
I will be shooting A LOT more photos and more videos over the coming weeks so you can get a better look at what is coming your way. For now, I just wanted to shoot assets as quickly as possible so you can see the progress.
Order Cards!
Coins and Tokens! They big and chonky.
Bonus Content!
We discovered we had ONE more space for a card in the sheet, so I decided to whip up a bit of last minute fun for the game: A new Ingredient!!
New Ingredient; Catnip!!
Catnip is yet another crossover ingredient with Cantankerous Cats. Prosperitea really wanted/needed a 4 star flavor card, so I added one on a whim. This combined with the Halloween expansion will make sure each ingredient deck has one four star ingredient.
Next Steps
At this point, next steps will be to focus on finishing the physical design of all bonus content now that I have real components sitting in front of me. This will be happening as our manufacturer finishes assembling games and subsequently ships them to us.
Personal Struggles: "Why No Updates?"
While everything with the game has been going VERY well, my personal life is still a bit of a whirlwind of trauma and tragedy. The holidays have not been kind to me as I still have yet to find a place to live (there is a solution, it's just taking longer than I had hoped), I have had to put down my dog (he will get a proper tribute and update when I have had time to settle into a new space), and I've been ill (don't worry not COVID! Just a run of the mill infection) all since getting back from a VERY GOOD series of conventions. This isn't trying to make excuses, but I hope that helps give some perspective on what I have been trying to juggle.
I only have so much time in the day to do non-critical work for my projects, and, unfortunately, working on updates is not considered critical work. My job is to make sure there is a game in your hands as quickly as possible. And lately, Kickstarter updates have taken a huge back seat to answering e-mails, coordinating with our manufacturers, and basically making sure that Prosperitea continues forward in a healthy, expedient manner. This is also why I highly encourage anyone that needs faster updates to follow my social media channels. ( @menthadesigns on twitter / insta. @bardofmanythings on insta)
I am far more active on Instagram and twitter than anything else and social media updates are very quick for me to produce. I can shoot some sweet photos and have a great post up as fast as my brain can think. But sitting down here at my desk is a half-day endeavor at the very least at a moment when my time is, unfortunately, being stretched incredibly thin.
As an indie creator, I need to have a razor sharp focus on getting my product finished and shipped. So most of my effort gets pointed in that direction. There's only one of me, and I can't be in multiple places at once.
But that is a whole other TED Talk for another time. For now, I will leave you with some more photos and my word that I will be posting A LOT of photos and video clips on the socials starting tomorrow. I can't NOT share what we have because it's great. And we were able to do this because of YOU.
I am tired, I am exhausted, and i am worn out...but I am INCREDIBLY happy and grateful for all of your support. And I am super excited that we finally have the first game in our hands. It's been a long wait, but I think it will be worth it.
Stay Safe, Take Care, and Be Kind to Each Other,
Aven, The Bard of Many Things
@bardofmanythings
@menthadesigns
Admin Day #1: Small Updates, Convention Plans
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 08:19:43 PM
Greetings, Tea Fam!
Aven here with a new thing to keep everyone up to speed on all things gaming. As i mentioned in my previous update, Tuesdays are going to become my "Admin Day" so I can take some time away from my schedule to catch up on...well. EVERYTHING. And I've decided part of that everything will be small updates for Prosperitea. These will be smaller and less heavily produced than a "State of the Game" post with the goal of providing a more constant stream of information without the pressure of producing audio/visual assets. With that out of the way, here's the week's update!
MPC UPDATES
Unfortunately, we are still fighting a bit of delay on the MPC. Things are progressing and parts of the game have been manufactured (yay!), but there has been a bit of confusion around the packaging we are making that we've been clearing up over the last week. (We should still have it in time to show off at PAX Unplugged.) We are asking for A LOT of atypical work because of our eco-friendly approach, and it's been a process that has a lot of folks on the manufacturing side asking a lot of questions they aren't used to having. Which is actually great!
The way Prosperitea is being packaged without ANY plastic has been forcing some "outside of the box" thinking and, in a small but real way, has been pushing this manufacturer to think about sustainability in a way they aren't used to. And they make A LOT of games. So this small project could help push even more people into a sustainable mindset more easily in the future because of the work we are doing together. And our contact there thinks this is going to be a BEAUTIFUL game when completed because of all of this work.
So while it has been a bit of a process, I feel very excited and proud of the work we are doing. With that on the table, there is a bit of related news for convention stuff!
Conventions
With the holidays starting to ramp up, conventions are making an effort to come back and those are CRITICAL for any small business in the creative space to succeed. Illustrators, writers, fabricators, and game designers without tens of thousands to spend on marketing need conventions to get their names out into the world. And it's good to see them coming back. We will be heading out to the following shows this season:
SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON: Nov 26-28 (Thanksgiving Weekend)
Jason and I will be running demos all day, every day! We will also be working with a great local vendor to make sure you can purchase our games on the show floor. Details will come in a future post, but you WILL be able to play and purrchase Cantankerous Cats, Thug Life, and pre-order copies of Prosperitea right on the show floor. Come say hi! =3
PAX UNPLUGGED: Dec 10-12
My favorite board game convention is back!! I have been attending every year since the beginning with our manufacturing/distribution partner Breaking Games for Cantankerous Cats. This year, I will be focusing on running demos of the FIRST PRODUCTION COPY of Prosperitea and showcasing the retail components from Meijia and metal coins from AdMagic/Breaking Games. And Prosperitea has been accepted into the FIRST LOOK program! <3
I will be in town for one day before/after the show for museum hounding and soaking up all the history in Philly.
EMERALD CITY COMIC-CON: Dec 2-5
GOING BACK TO SEATTLE!!! <3 <3 <3
It has been over a year since my last time in Washington and I only wish I had more time there. I will be driving up with Jose (the other illustrator on Prosperitea)! Jose will be selling comics at the "Cautionary Fables" and "Faery Tales" booth.
I am just scouting out the show this year as costs were a bit too high at the moment. But they do love our work and I definitely want to set up shop in 2022 when we are more established. I'll be collecting/trading business cards, hanging out and exploring Seattle some more, and paying a visit to all of our Seattle retailers and friends. Basically doing all the things one does to, ya know, start selling a thing. :)
PRE-ORDERS
We've gotten a fresh crop of pre-order backers! I will be finalizing those purchases today so we have more numbers in for the holidays. Thank you so much to the new folks in our communitea!
Question of the Week:
How much info do you want to see/hear as a backer? What sorts of things would you like me to talk about on Admin Days? Drop a comment to let us know!
Thank you all for your patience and support. Take care and I hope you all had a wonderful and safe (but not too safe! ;) ) Halloween/Dia de los Muertos
State of the Game: Roadblocks and Delays, but Other Fun Stuff in the Works
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 12:53:46 AM
Greetings, Beauteaful People!
It's been about a month since our last update and I am here to check in. The last month has been personally very crazy for me since I was in the process of moving, but today i finally had some time to sit down and produce a video for you all:
The TL;DW for everything is down below. I'll do my best to keep it short, but there is a lot to go over.
Thing 1: I Moved!
As some of you may recall, I am in the process of trying to find a new place to live. I still haven't found a place to live yet, but I have moved to a temporary housing situation in Pasadena. Rapidly trying to discard/donate/sell my belongings AND trying to pack up and move everything into the new space has been...exhausting. And I'm going to have to do this again in 1-2 months. This is taking a lot of mental/physical energy from me and I haven't had time to post updates. That being said, I have been making time for critical game-related tasks, which bring me to thing 2!
Thing 2: Manufacturing Delays
We still have not received our MPC, and we don't have a timeline on when that will happen. This is due to the power shortage and rationing in China. Our manufacturer was hoping we could squeeze in before they started getting rationed, but luck was not with us. If you want to learn more about the situation in China, you can check these links:
This means that we will definitely not have games this year, and we may be late in delivering them in 2022. If we miss the Chinese New Year, we may not have games until summer of 2022. It's not something I am happy about, but this type of situation is not something we or our manufacturers can really do anything about.
That being said, it isn't all bad news. We're going to shift to work on other parts of the project to make sure you folks have something as soon as possible.
Thing 3: Fun Stuff!
While we wait for the situation around the physical game to improve, I am going to shift my focus back on the digital versions of the game. I will do my best to repair/finish the Tabletop Simulator version of Prosperitea and update the Tabletopia edition. We are also going to attend San Diego Comic Con: Special Edition!
Jason and I will be running game demos for Thug Life, Cantankerous Cats, and Prosperitea in the tabletop room. We will also be presenting a couple of panels on different aspects of making board games. Details are TBD, but we will be there and if you are going to be in town, we'd love to see some of your faces!
Friendly Fridays are Coming back!
The holidays are coming and I want to share all of the cool things my friends and colleagues are working on. I'm going to kick things off this week by making a post about my friends and collaborator Heather Gross! Her new children's book is live on Kickstarter RIGHT NOW and it's adorable.
I happen to be a regular character on a friend's twitch show! It is called "Boardroom Feycourt" and it airs LIVE every other Tuesday at 7:00PM Pacific. We play a colorful cast of Irish/Scottish fairies trying to figure out how to survive in a modern world. It's all improv, the talent is fantastic, and in spite of our character's dark/mischievous personalities we are all as wholesome as can be.
I have also been working on an EP with my band Arbour and the Woodlouse! But I will talk about that in another post.
That does it for this month's update. As always, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out. The quickest response will be through e-mail. Kickstarter messages get check once a week on Tuesdays with the rest of my admin tasks. You can also feel free to drop a comment if your feedback or question isn't time sensitive.
Thank you all for your support and take care of yourselves out there.
<3
Aven Gonzalez
Master Barista of Prosperitea
@BardOfManyThings (insta/TikTok)
@BardOfMany (twitter)
@menthadesigns (On all things)
State of The Game: Sept 16, 2021
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 03:11:28 AM
Greetings, Beautiful People!
It has been a long time, but I finally have some more news about the "State of the Game!" As usual, the video is below but I will put the TL;DR in the text after the link.
For those who can't or don't feel like watching, I will give you the quick hits below:
After a Long Wait, the MPC is On The Way!
I know I've been quiet for a LOOONG time here on Kickstarter and folks have been asking for an update. The reasons why I don't update here much are many, but the primary one is:
There isn't a lot to do right now. As I mentioned in the last video, this is the boring, waiting part. Not much happens during this time of making a game and "hey folks, nothing to see here!" doesn't make for great update material. That being said, we finally have some exciting news!
The Master Production Copy (often called the "Mass Production Copy"). This is the first REAL copy of the game run from the actual machinery that will produce the final game. We should have this in our hands by early October.
The Metal Coins are also on the way! We got this news at about the same time as the core game, which is great. We should have these in our hands in the next couple of weeks.
Once I have all of these things, the game will begin the final production run! And that also means I can finish designing the Luminary Box!
Luminary Box Designs
I have been chipping away at testing for the Luminary box. If you've been following any of my IG accounts, you will know I've landed on a final choice of wood and dyes for the boxes and the look almost EXACTLY like the 3D renders!
Once I have the metal coins and the MPC, I will make final adjustments to the box to make room for all of the components and the Halloween Expansion.
Tea Stuff!
Tea stuff is well underway! Last month St Bastian's was very focused on producing tea for the Labyrinth Masquerade Ball. Now that the paperwork and cleanup from that event is done, it's full speed Prosperitea! We are having a meeting tomorrow to talk about timelines for reaching out to Bespoke Backers over the next 1-2 months.
More Updates! (some of this not in video)
We have finally reached a tipping point where we can start being much more active with updates. Once we have components in hand, I will be taking SO. MANY. PHOTOS. And some new video content. And Halloween is right around the corner, which the favorite holiday of pretty much everyone on the team. So we will be more talkative in the near future.
In the mean time, as always you can follow any of my social media accounts to see more day-to-day updates on what I have been up to. I am MOST active on Instagram. And I am trying to learn how to twitter and TikTok. ^^;;
PERSONAL (but not TOO personal): @BardOfManyThings (IG, TikTok) @BardOfMany (Twitter)
PROFESSIONAL ONLY: @menthadesigns (@IG, Twitter, TikTok)
This project is but one small facet of everything going on in my creative/professional life. I have to juggle a lot to make ends meet, and the socials are the easiest way to update because all I need is my phone and five minutes of time. On average a KS update takes me about 12-24 hours to produce something meaningful, so I try to save it for big chunks of info specifically related to Prosperitea.
If you have any questions, comments, or requests you can always reach out to [email protected] directly. You can also comment/message here on KS, but KS e-mails and updates may have up to a 7 day response time since I only check it on my Admin days. (which will be happening more in the near future. Something to talk about in a future update!)
Thank you all for your kindness, support, and understanding. Stay safe, Be Kind, and Take Care of each other.
