The pre-order campaign for the new Wondermark game Bolted is going strong on Backerkit! You can pledge to reserve your copy now, if you haven’t already!
Would you like to play the game with me personally? Above are the time slots for VIRTUAL PLAYTESTING SESSIONS in the coming week,
I’ve had a lot of fun playtesting the game with folks over the past few weeks! Each session is a tiny bit different, as I tweak various rules and cards.
It’s also a lot of fun to meet people and chat! And uniformly, players have had fun — or so they’ve claimed. And why would they lie???
Bolted is a puzzle game in which you build Wondermark-style characters out of individual parts cards. It’s a game of “making friends”! See what I did there!!
It’s quick, strategic, and always ends up with a very strange result:
I’m not certain it’s the best idea to give every “friend” you make in this game terrible existential agony, but it’s what I’m going with for now.
Backers who pledge to Bolted in the first 48 hours — so, by 9:59am Pacific on Saturday March 15 — will also get a Gax bonus card for free!
NOTE: GAX DOES NOT LIKE THIS, BUT I AM HIS BOSS
Repeat backers (from any of my previous crowdfunding projects) will also get a very powerful Piranhamoose Antlers card:
All the final game cards will be in color like these; the black & white example above is just for playtesting purposes.
I’m excited to remind folks that we are in the LAST FEW DAYS of the Pintopia campaign!
Most of the pledge tiers are for various numbers of pins, as you might expect.
But I’ve ALSO just added a new tier called PLEDGE MANAGER ONLY:
The best deals on groups of pins can be found in the regular pledge tiers (where every additional pin is cheaper than the last, as volume pricing does its magic).
But, if you’d prefer to peruse everything later and/or make Ă la carte selections, you can now opt in to the Pledge Manager tier for just $2.
This will give you access to the pledge manager after the campaign (with $2 credit already on board, natch), where you can then build your own reward of individual items, including:
Pins – of course!
Stickers – individually OR in sets
Wondermark greeting cards
But also, a few extra things will show up in the pledge manager as well:
Wondermark books and prints
Stickers of each of the NEW pin designs
T-shirts! I’ll be using this post-campaign order period to determine the long-term interest in making shirts of the new designs… So an initial, limited number will be made available.
If you haven’t joined the campaign yet, you have until APRIL 18, 1PM to pledge at any level, and gain access to these items! Here is a colorful button to click:
They originated in comic #729 (with a brief cameo in #730 as well).
For each of my book collections, I have colored a handful of strips to make them special for the book. Occasionally I have then run the colorful versions later on the site, but I never reposted this one, until now!
I’ve shared it online a bunch this week – such as on Reddit – and I’m pleased to say that, despite being 13 years old, it still hits.
AND…if you’ve backed any of my Kickstarter campaigns before (and you use the same BackerKit account for this project), you will automatically get a free sticker set added to your order. A computer will figure this out!!
Launch Livestream
Peter hosted a livestream on our launch day, and I joined him for the first hour or so. We discussed my work, his work, the travails of both, and all kinds of interesting topics.
Before & after the launch time (which is 10AM Pacific time on Thursday), I’ll be livestreaming with my Pin Partner™ Peter™ over on his campaign page:
What will we be talking about? Maybe pins??
I imagine the topic will come up!!
What is “Pintopia,” anyway?
Wait, what is this whole project about? The sponsoring organization (BackerKit) describes it this way:
🎉 Welcome to Pintopia — a celebration of creativity and collaboration from a diverse group of artists collectively running enamel pin crowdfunding projects from March 28th – April 18th.
The more Pintopia pins you back, the more FREE pins you can earn ✨Â
⚔️ 2 FREE Cross Collaborative Pins if you back both pins from a cross collab project pair
đź’Ż 1 FREE Full-Color Pintopia 2024 Pin once ALL projects are 100% funded
🏆 1 FREE Gold Pintopia 2024 Pin if you back 5 projects or more
So, in other words, it’s a ton of different artists – over 125 of us! – all launching collections of enamel pins, all at the same time.
BackerKit is really pushing the cross-promotion angle, so I hope it works out for us all!
Early bird bonus gifts
One of BackerKit’s features is to automatically assign bonus gifts to certain backers.
For example, I have it set so all backers (at any level) in the first 48 hours will get a free postcard set added to their order!
Returning backers (anyone who’s participated in one of my crowdfunding campaigns before, such as on Kickstarter) will get ANOTHER bonus gift, a free Wondermark sticker set!
This is all tracked in the backend if you have a BackerKit account.
The old pins are showin’ up too
My existing pin designs are available anytime from my online store. But, sometimes a campaign like this will nudge someone off the fence into participating!
So, all of my existing designs will ALSO be available, as add-ons to any order of the new pins.