Backerkit is up!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 01:45:54 AM

Hey!

First of all: Nicole is fine! The hurricane took a turn at the last minute and avoided her house. She is completely safe! She asked me to thank everyone for the kind words of support and well wishes. Thanks for your patience while we’ve been dealing with post-Irma catchup!

The Backerkit is live!

I have exciting news - the Ninjitsu! pledge manager has launched! In the next few days, you should get an email from Backerkit - this will allow you to enter your mailing address, confirm your order, and pick up any add-ons that you might want.

If you have any issues, the Backerkit team is extremely responsive. And, before you ask:

You will be able to change your address.

Your address will be alterable right up until the games land in the USA and we start preparing them for shipment. Never fear; the address that you enter now can be changed, and we’ll give you plenty of warning before we need to finalize it.

An important announcement

Ninjitsu! is the fourth Jellybean Game. Scuttle! printed and shipped without issue, but while getting Dracula’s Feast and The Lady and the Tiger out, we ran into a few problems. 

To prevent this from happening in the future, we’ve made some changes: we’re going to be switching all our printing to Panda (who manufactured several of my favourite games: Scythe, Brew Crafters, Dead of Winter) and we’re going to be fulfilling Ninjitsu! using a service called ShipNaked (who have fulfilled many campaigns, including those for the Tiny Epic series).

This was a decision we’ve only made in the past week, so I wanted to let you know now: this may affect Ninjitsu!’s timeline. We’re going to do what we can to deliver on time, but at this point I would guess we're going to be about a month or two later than anticipated.

If you feel like you've been misled or you don’t feel comfortable with the updated timeline, get in contact and we’ll be happy to provide you with a full refund. I’m letting you know this now so that no one is disappointed; I’d love to be able to get the game out to you before April, but I can’t honestly be sure that’s going to happen.

The other effect of this change is that The Lady and the Tiger/Dracula’s Feast add-ons have seen a slight price bump. They’re now $24.95 each in Backerkit, with an additional $5 in shipping if you live outside the US. Again, if you added funds to your order in anticipation of them being $20, get in contact and we can provide a full refund.

Additional copies of Scuttle! (with all expansions + the promo pack) and Ninjitsu! (with all expansions + the promo pack) are still only $20 apiece. Huzzah! (They're physically much lighter games; almost half the weight of The Lady and the Tiger or Dracula's Feast.)

Jellybean Shirts and Notebooks

One of the benefit of shipping everything out from the US is that we can offer Jellybean Shirts and Notebooks in the Backerkit!

Jellybean Shirts was a Kickstarter campaign we ran a few months ago - we’re currently getting everything ready to print, and so if you fill out your Backerkit survey in the next week, you’ll be able to add one of these three gorgeous shirts to your order:

Jellybean Notebooks were an item we added to Dracula’s Feast and The Lady and the Tiger. The Dracula’s Feast notebooks are a little smaller than the others, but they’re all gorgeous and available as an add-on for less than $5. No extra charge for shipping!

Keep up-to-date!

If you click through to our main project page, you’ll see that we’ve updated the banner to show the game's current status:

As we progress through the steps of production, we’re going to keep this image updated. As you can see: Kelly has completed every ink in the game (and we unlocked a LOT of new cards through stretch goals) and she’s now in the process of coloring them!

Here are some of my favourites:

The Ancient Grimoire that unlocks the supernatural powers found in Masters of Magic

Shape Shift: look closely and you’ll see that’s a raccoon cleverly disguised as a tree.

Solar Flare, my favourite Event card from Heavy Weather.

Speaking of Heavy Weather, I have another exciting announcement!

We’ve added two new cards to the game!

I’ve spent most of the last month blind playtesting Ninjitsu! It’s been amazing! I don’t even know how many people have downloaded the game and provided feedback, but it's just getting better and better with each version. Thanks so much, playtesters!

Blind playtesting is a vital step of the publication process. It ensures that there are no underpowered or overpowered cards, that all the graphic design and terminology is easy to understand, and that the rulebook is laid out in a logical manner.

As well as that, it’s extremely useful for seeing what’s missing from the game or could be improved. In this case, blind playtesting quickly revealed that the Heavy Weather expansion would be better served with a few more Event cards. Kelly and I got together to brainstorm, and we came up with Sunshower and Solar Flare.

You can think of them as $110k and $120k stretch goals, if you like! ;)

Sunshower has a neat little ability - you discard the current Weather card, play a new one, and then everyone draws as many cards as are currently in the Weather discard pile! This gives it a really different feel if it’s played at the start of a game (when there will probably only be one card) or at the end (when there could be almost a dozen!)

Solar Flare is one of the inks I shared above - it has the simplest ability of all: Play a new Weather card.

That’s right; after a Solar Flare, there can be two Weather cards in play at once. It can get pretty crazy!

Kelly is in the midst of coloring all the cards as we speak - I expect them to be done within the next week or two. I’m on the last round of blind playtesting, and I actually have a favor to ask:

If you’re new to the game, interested in helping playtest, and you can print and play the game this weekend, get in touch! We’ve made a few changes based on the last few rounds of feedback, and I want to see how it goes with someone who’s never played the game before.

(If you provide written feedback, I can add a $5 credit to your Backerkit account. If you can record a video of yourselves learning the game, I can add a $20 credit! 

Email me on [email protected] if you’re available and interested! If you’ve already sent an email but never actually got around to playing, check the Google Drive folder for v8 - that’s the one I’m looking for feedback on! :)

On Saturday I’m going to FMGCon in Oshawa. If you’re going to be there, come say hi! I’d love to play a round of Ninjitsu! with you.

Finally...

We need a name for the series!

As you all know, Ninjitsu! is the sequel to Scuttle!

But what you might not know is that Kelly and I have been talking, and we’d love to do more in the series. Standalone, gorgeous games that can be shuffled together for even more fun.

Here’s the trouble - we can’t work out what to call the series! The next two games are going to be Vikingar! and Brains! (I’ll let you guess what those two are about...) - if you have a suggestion for what we could call the entire series, leave it in the comments! If your name is used, I’ll give you a special thanks in the rulebook, and you can live a life proudly knowing that you chose the title for this gorgeous series of family-friendly games.

That’s all for this week! I’ll be back next week with the latest in Ninjitsu! news.

Thank you so much for your support,
-Peter C. Hayward
You rock!

P.S. In each of these updates, I like to link to a currently-running Kickstarter that I think you might enjoy. This week, it’s Zipang Portable - this is a great little card game I played in November of last year. It’s like a more strategic Love Letter, but just as quick and easy to learn. Check it out!

Hurricane Irma
over 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 08, 2017 at 07:37:43 PM

Hey!

This is just a short update to explain why I’m not posting a longer update: Nicole, the business half of Jellybean Games, is based in Florida. As I’m sure you’re aware, Hurricane Irma is on her way for a visit.

Nicole has spent the majority of this week preparing her house (she was planning to fly north to safety, but her flight got canceled, so now she’s going to hang out with Irma for the week). I’ve spent most of this week jumping in and trying to get up to speed on the various parts of the business she takes care of, and it hasn’t left me with enough time to write one of the lengthy updates I like to write.

To top it all off, I’m jumping on a plane in a few days, flying back to Canada. I’m going to try to catch up on Kickstarter updates on the plane, so hopefully when I land (in about a week) I’ll be able to check in and let you know where everything’s at.

In short, though:

Blind playtesting is going phenomenally well (thank you so much to everyone who’s been helping out!), and Kelly is wrapping up the last of the arts now. I also have some exciting Ninjitsu! news…but that will have to wait until next week!

Sorry about the lack of loquaciousness in today’s missive - I’ll let you know once Irma has passed and we’re fully operational once more!

Thank you for your patience and support,
-Peter C. Hayward
Very glad there’s no enormous visitors heading towards where I live any time soon

We did it!!!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 04:22:38 PM

Holy smokes!! At midnight last night, the Ninjitsu! campaign ended at $122,396

Ah. Maze. Ing.

Seriously. The whole Jellybean team is stunned by this result - thank you all so much for making it happen. We are so honored by the faith you’ve put in us.

We are going to make Ninjitsu!, and we are going to make it rad.

There’s going to be a little break before the next update, while Kelly recovers from illness and I enjoy my last two weeks in Australia. Then, we’re going to come back and hit the ground running! Most of the art is done, I'm going to spend more time than I should in the next two weeks playtesting the game, and so we're expecting to have things off to the printer before too long. 

Speaking of playtesters...

We're looking for blind playtesters!

If you've ever read any of my design diaries, you'll know that I live and die by blind playtesting! Blind playtesting is when you get people to download the rules and learn the game without you there. Then, they report back with any issues or confusion they had while playing the game.

We are looking for some blind playtesters for Ninjitsu! If you're able to help, we'll be able to add a credit to your Backerkit as thanks. You help us make the game better, we help you get more great games! ;)

If you're interested, email me on [email protected] (yes, I really do have the world's coolest email address) with answers to the following questions:

1. Have you ever played Scuttle!, or do you know how it plays?

2. How many other people would you be able to rope into playing the game with you?

3. What's the earliest/latest you'd be able to do some playtesting?

Like all Jellybean Games, Ninjitsu! is fun for kids, adults - the whole family! We're looking for people who haven't played the print-and-play, but who are willing to print it out and make their own copy. If that sounds like fun to you, get in touch!

Contest results!

After looking through the suggestions for the Supernatural expansion, we found a clear winner: Donald “deddragon” Dierks’ suggestion - Masters of Magic.

It’s too late to update any of the Kickstarter imagery (whoops!) but the expansion is officially going to be renamed to Donald Dierks' suggestion. Thanks so much, Donald! You’ll be given a special thanks in the rulebook for your contribution. :)

(If you haven’t checked out the free print-and-play, the main cards in the expansion are elemental wizards - Master of Water, Master of Wind, Master of Fire, etc etc. Masters of Magic is such a good name for the set!)

Backerkit's a'comin'...

We use a pledge manager called Backerkit for our Kickstarter projects, which we'll be inviting you to in about two weeks from now. Backerkit is where you’ll be able to enter (and update) your address, add extra orders to your pledge, choose exactly what add-ons you’d like, and make any other changes or adjustments as necessary! You can even upgrade to a different reward level, I believe.

I’ll make a post when we launch the Backerkit, and run you through exactly what to do if you don’t get the email. For now, the best thing to do is just make sure your Kickstarter account email is up to date so the link can come through without any problems.

A weird coincidence

A few minutes after the campaign ended, Kelly pointed this out.

What are the odds, hey?? Amazing.

See me live in Melbourne!

Okay so I’m going to be honest - this is not at all related to Ninjitsu! It’s just something else happening in my life that I’m quite excited about.

For the past 2 years, I’ve been co-hosting a weekly podcast with my ex-fiancée SJ. It’s called Being Honest With My Ex; each week, we get together and discuss our relationship, our attempts to make a living creatively, our current relationships, and issues that we disagree on. We get along really well, while being sort of surprised that we were ever considering getting married.

(We are such very different people. SJ doesn't even play board games!)

I’m currently in Australia because we're doing a live show! I live in Toronto, SJ lives in Melbourne, and so I’ve flown across the world to record a couple of episodes of our podcast live.

If you’re in Melbourne, and that sounds like something you’d like to see, the details can be found here.

If you’re not in Melbourne but that podcast sounds at all interesting, you can find us at beinghonestwithmyex.com

(WARNING: we often touch on adult themes and use adult language!)

It’s always great to meet a backer; if you’re in Melbourne, I’d love to see you there! You can verify in person that I really do have a blue beard. It's more than just a rad email address!

We're going to grab a beer with the audience afterwards; it'd be lovely to meet you!

Seriously, thank you so, so much. Jellybean Games is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and without your support, we wouldn’t be here.

With your help, we’re able to continue our mission: filling the world with as much cool stuff as possible!

Ninjitsu! is going to be pretty, fun, family-friendly, and responsible for so many hours of bluffing fun. And it’s all because of you.

Thank you so much for your support. I’ll be back in two weeks!
-Peter C. Hayward
One happy, happy dude.

P.S. In each of our post-campaign updates, I’m going to link to a currently-running Kickstarter that I think you might be interested in. This week, it’s Itchy Feet: The Travel Game! This looks like a nifty little card game, with cute art and a whole bunch of humor. It’s only got 4 days to go, and it’s already at almost $80,000!

 

Check it out!

One day to go!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 10:14:16 AM

Pouncing penguins! We have TWENTY HOURS to go, and have unlocked EVERY STRETCH GOAL!

!!!

As I write this, we’re just about to hit $115k! This campaign has done SO MUCH BETTER than I could ever have imagined. There’s a serious chance we’ll end at more than 4000% of our funding goal.

Amaaaaazing. Thank you so much for your support! We have now upgraded this game to Maximum Radness, and it's all thanks to you!

Let’s check out the chart:

At $95k, we unlocked the final card from the Heavy Weather expansion, Blizzard!

Blizzard has a cool catchup mechanic built in: when it comes into play, the player with the least cards in hand draws a card.

Then, everyone else discards down to the number of cards that player has in hand.

The result? Suddenly, everyone is holding as many cards as whoever has the least cards in hand! It’s a real equalizer.

With this card unlocked, Heavy Weather is now a full-sized expansion! That’s right - thanks to you, everyone who backs at the NINJA MASTER level or higher is going to get THREE full-sized expansions, as well as The Elements mini-expansion!

If you’d like to get in on the “bonus free expansion” action, I’d recommend upgrading your pledge to the NINJA MASTER level! For just $19 + shipping, you’ll get Ninjitsu!, the Traps! expansion, the Supernatural expansion, The Elements mini-expansion, the Ninjitsu! Promo Pack, AND the Heavy Weather Expansion!

That’s a whole lot of game!

In case you were wondering, the expansions are all completely modular. You can play with any of them, none of them, or any combination thereof!

What’s more, at $100k, we unlocked TWO PROMO CARDS for Heavy Weather:

Ball Lightning is an event card - when it comes into play, you discard the top card of the deck. If there are any cards matching that number in play or in player’s hands, they all go into the discard pile. Then, you destroy the current weather card and play a new one.

Aurora Borealis is a weather card - while it’s in play, players draw a card whenever they play a card as treasure. It’s simple, but a bit weird - it really messes with the flow of the game, which makes it perfect promo material!

Unless someone picks up one of our two top slots (For $499 you can appear on a card; for $999, you and FOUR OTHERS can appear on a card!), that means we have FINAL CARD counts!

• Ninjitsu!: 41 cards (+ 2 errata’d cards from Scuttle!)
• Traps!: 14 cards 
• The Supernatural expansion: 15 cards 
• The Elements: 5 double-sided cards (+1 rule-card) 
• Heavy Weather: 13 cards (+1 rule-card) 
• The Promo Pack: 12 cards (+1 rule-card)

I’ll let you know if anything changes, but that’s almost certainly going to be the final card line-up!

Scuttle!

A few people have been asking about how Ninjitsu! integrates with Scuttle! (especially when it comes to stuff like whether the cards need to be sleeved), so I thought I’d take the time to explain how it all works:

If you don’t know, Scuttle! is the pirate card game that we launched on Kickstarter about 18 months ago. It’s a fast, fun, piratey game, with lots of treasure-stealing and protecting.

Ninjitsu! is the sequel - instead of the rambunctious, scallywag feel of Scuttle!, Ninjitsu! focuses more on stealth, subterfuge, bluffing, and reading your opponents.

Ninjitsu! treasures can be played face-down as hidden treasures - cards played this way can be swiped by your opponents, but run the risk of being sneaky traps.

To combine the two games, all you need to do is shuffle the Scuttle! cards (with any number of expansions) into Ninjitsu!, and play the game by Ninjitsu!'s rules. Cards from Scuttle! cannot affect hidden treasures (the print-and-play rules give some examples of how that works)

You can play cards from Scuttle! as hidden treasures if you want to - it's occasionally advantageous. BUT it’s important that people know that the card you’re playing is definitely not going to have a trap on it, otherwise playing hidden treasures becomes an overpowered strategy.

As such, if you’re going to sleeve these games, I thoroughly recommend playing with transparent sleeves. If you only have colored sleeves, give each of the games a different colored back - that way, when there’s a Scuttle!-colored hidden treasure, you know you can safely steal it.

I’ve mentioned this before, but combining the two games is my favourite way to play either of them. There are a lot of cards in Scuttle! that protect your cards from being stolen...but nothing protects a card from being swiped.

Similarly, if you find that your treasures are being swiped too often, play a Pirate Queen (who protects all revealed treasures) and start playing them face-up instead!

Backing at the PIRATE NINJA level will get you everything from Ninjitsu! that I listed above, AND it the complete Scuttle! - both expansions (Scurvy! and The Curse of Black Jack) and the Scuttle! Promo Pack.

The PIRATE NINJA level will get you 100% of the content we've released for these two games so far! Pretty rad.

Help us name an expansion!

I have a question for you!

The entire time it's been in development, the expansion that introduces magic into the world of Ninjitsu! and Scuttle! has been called "The Supernatural expansion", but the longer that sits with me, the more I'm wondering if we can come up with something better.

Can you think of a better name? 

Check out what's in the expansion (it's made up of all the cards from the free print-and-play which don't currently have art in the PDF) and let me know if you can think of a better name! Remember, it can be combined with Scuttle! and Ninjitsu! both, so a ninja-specific name won't work.

If we end up using your suggestion (or a variation thereof), we'll give you a special thanks in the rulebook!

Leave a comment with a suggestion, and strap yourselves in for the final 14 hours!

That’s all from me today - my next update will be tomorrow after the campaign closes. We’d talked about doing a Kickstarter Live video, but Kelly is currently in bed with a tummy bug, so we’re going to have to cancel that. Sorry, everyone!

In lieu of video Kelly, allow to bring you some of what she's been working on lately:

That's right - she's been working on the additional Ninja Turtles we unlocked through stretch goals! They're gonna be fuuuun. I'm so pleased that we managed to get them into the game!

Thank you so much for your support,
-P

Final 72 hours!!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 04:49:18 PM

Galloping gazelles! Since the last update two days ago, we have smashed through two more stretch goals, and are well on our way to hitting a third!

Let’s take a look at the chart!

That’s right, we have a mere TWO stretch goals left! Let's have a look at what we’ve unlocked since Monday!

Three more ninja turtles!

The promo pack is now going to come with FOUR unique ninja turtles! Kelly is still working on the art for these, but I suspect they’re going to be totally radical, man. ;)

If you’ve checked out the free Ninjitsu! print-and-play, you’ll have seen what the turtles do. For anyone who hasn’t: they’re each considered treasures (with a base value of 1), but unlike every other card in Ninjitsu! and Scuttle!, their real value is when they’re not in play.

The turtles are unique in that they can be played in reaction to an opponent’s move. They each have a different reactive ability: one lets you ignore a trap’s ability, one hides a treasure of your choice, one prevents one of your treasures from being destroyed, and the last has the most powerful effect at all - once it’s played, no one can win until the start of your next turn.

They’re a little too weird to put into the base game, but they’re perfect promo material! I’m still playtesting them; so far, they've gotten a great reaction!

I’m so excited that they’re going to be heading out to all our Kickstarter backers!

Vampire Ninja

When the Ninjitsu! campaign hit $89,188 it overtook Dracula’s Feast as the highest-earning campaign that Jellybean Games has ever run!

To celebrate, we added a Vampire Ninja into the game. He’s a 3-point treasure card, with an ability that harkens back to Scuttle!’s Pirate Ninja:

Play this as a hidden treasure. TRAP! While this is face-up in front of you, your hidden and revealed treasures are worth -2 and your opponents’ hidden and revealed treasures are worth +2.

The Traps! expansion has several of these ongoing traps - when they’re revealed in front of you, you get an ongoing penalty (or your opponents get an ongoing bonus). This is a particularly nasty one, and perfectly fitting of a vampire ninja who’s been captured by an enemy clan!

Become a Ninja!

Our highest reward levels allow YOU to be a part of the game! The $499 pledge level offers you the chance to have Kelly draw you into the game. Or for $999, you can have yourself and three others appear in Ninjitsu! The group could be your family, your gaming pals, your pets...anyone you like!

Originally, we were going to have anyone drawn into the game appear in the Promo Pack, but Robert Stone (one of our regular commenters) suggested a card ability that I think is super fun, so I’m making a special offer:

The first person to pledge for the BECOME A NINJA or the NINJA CLAN level before the end of the campaign, will have the card with their likeness go in the game itself! That’s right, your smiling face will be a part of every copy of Ninjitsu! for as long as the game is sold.

What’s the ability? A hidden treasure, worth an additional point for every treasure in your hand! 

Isn’t that cool? And it could be YOU! Both of those pledge levels are limited, so get in fast!

Upcoming stretch goals

Can you believe, we only have TWO stretch goals left! At $95k, we’ll unlock the FINAL card from the Heavy Weather mini-expansion. Like Mario eating a mushroom, this is all it’ll need to grow up and become a fully-fledged expansion!

The final Heavy Weather card is Blizzard, and it’s a doozy!

What does it do? As soon as we hit $95k, I’ll be more than happy to tell you. :D

62 hours to go! Thank you so much for making this happen. It’s just hit 1am, and I’m too excited to sleep!

Talk to you soon,
-P