Pledge Manager Coming Soon & Final Animal Card Images
about 2 years ago – Fri, Dec 02, 2022 at 04:39:14 AM

Hello, Hani here!

Can’t believe that 2022 is just a month away, crazy how fast time goes right? I’ll get started on today’s update right away 😊

 1. BackerKit surveys are coming 

As I’ve mentioned in our last update, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. Pledges don’t end at Kickstarter, the final step is completing the pledge through our pledge manager, Backerkit. Completing the pledge manager is ESSENTIAL in order for us to fulfill your pledge so please make sure to reach out to us if an invite does not reach you.

1) What does Pledge Manager do?

• We’ll be collecting information crucial to shipping, such as your address and your final list of chosen products, via the pledge manager. If the Pledge Manager is not completed, we cannot ship your Rewards to you.
• Also, shipping fees along with VAT for backers in the EU/UK/CA regions will be paid through Pledge Manager.
• In addition, you'll be able to purchase Add-on(s) or additional copies of the game or our previous titles like Wild and Wild-related Add-ons through the Pledge Manager. If you are a Kickstarter Backer(including $1 pledge backers!) you will be able to purchase additional copies or add-on(s) at the same rate as our Kickstarter Pledge.

2) When?

• Survey Opens: December 5th, 2022
• Starting next week, Backers will sequentially receive a special link to their individual Backerkit survey from December 5th through December 9th. All Backers will receive an email with a special link to their BackerKit survey. For the smoke test (where a random sampling of 5% of the backers will get the pledge manager early), about 100 backers will receive their survey email this week. If you have yet to receive your invitation by December 9th, please contact us directly via KS messages or our direct email at [email protected] (no m at the end). Sometimes, emails with links are automatically categorized as junk/spam so we ask that those folders are periodically checked as well.
• Survey Closes: January 15th, 2023
• The pledge manager will be open for about 1 month. It will close on January 15th, 2023. After that date, you may no longer be able to edit your pledge. However, address changes will still be available after January 15th, 2023.

3) How do I complete the pledge manager?

• 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'd 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 as long as it is before we close the surveys and get our final counts.
• 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://life-of-the-amazonia.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://life-of-the-amazonia.backerkit.com//faq. 

2. Current Status

1) Finalizing balance through playtests

We have finally confirmed the abilities of all the cards and we are currently working on a minimal numerical balance.

2) Finalizing Art

At last, all the images for the Base Animal Cards have been completed. I’ll reveal all the cards for you here! 

How do you like it? Are you as excited as I am about the new art?? This brings us to a total of 40 unique images for just the Base Cards alone.

And I have one thing to add, among the feedback we received from our Backers, there was feedback that asked for blank cards to be made on the backs of the Family mode so that players can customize the Animals as they wished. So, without further ado, tada! We’ve left the backs of the Family mode, F Deck, as the Empty, E Deck. Giving players an empty deck so they can go wild creating their very own unique abilities for these creatures!

Originally, it would have just been a plain back, but I like that it makes the card more efficient by allowing players to add their own abilities. I think it would be so much fun creating and using abilities at the difficulty level players would like. If you create an interesting ability or would like to share your invention with the LOTA crew, please share with us your creations on BGG.

In addition, the box and packaging designs for the Add-ons have been completed as well. Take a look!

3) Determining the Final Components Through Sample Work

Our non-paper components sample orders, which take the longest to produce, are being processed, and we plan to place our final orders for these components by mid-December. Therefore, final samples for all our components should be available by January.

Order File for the Waterfall of Life

4) Finalizing the Rulebook.

The finalization of the rulebook will be scheduled once playtests have concluded.

3. IMPORTANT NOTICE! 

From December 22th to December 30th, Bad Comet is going on Vacation. We actually don’t have chances to take summer vacations, so it’s quite a precious time we received amidst the wait for receiving our pre-production order samples. Therefore, during this period, we will not be able to reply to emails and comments😥. All feedback we receive during this period we will thankfully collect and reply to each and everyone when we return on January 2nd, 2023, so we kindly ask for your patience. 2022 was an endless run so we hope to take this time to re-calibrate and organize ourselves so that we can be the best fit, energetic selves for the year 2023!

Lastly, we can’t go without a Fun Fact about our animals, can we?!

I’m sure everyone is aware of how slow our sloth friends are, but did you know that sloths only defecate once a week? Scientists have estimated that it takes an average of 2 weeks for sloths to digest their food. What’s even more interesting is that sloths sleep, eat, and mate up in the trees, but they always come down from the trees to go potty! 

Now, we’ll be back with our next update in January with pre-production pictures. Until then, Happy Holidays and a very Happy New year!

Best,

Hani Chang 🎈

What’s next?
about 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 11:27:45 PM

Hello, Everyone! Hani here!

It has now been a week since our campaign concluded. Our team is doing their best to finish up product plans after having a good rest over the weekend after our campaign concluded. Today I wanted to briefly share what’s to come from this point on, up until all our Backers receive their copies of Life of the Amazonia.

1. Timeline

Moving forward, we’ll be going through 3 major phases.

1. Pre-production: Nov 2022 ~ Jan 2023
2. Mass-production: Mar 2023 ~ Aug 2023
3. Fulfillment: Aug 2023 ~ Dec 2023

It’s crazy to think it will be a whole year until we can get these copies to our Backers but personally, I am not a fan of not being able to keep a promise. Therefore, the timeline above is quite a modest one, I’ve included quite a bit of a buffer in consideration of all the uncertainties we may or may not face. Hopefully, fingers crossed, just like last year’s Serengeti, our team can each put in their efforts to finish up our deliveries sooner than our projected dates!

Of course, in the event that unexpected natural disasters, lockdowns, wars, or logistical disruptions take place, the projections mentioned above may also face an unexpected adjustment. Now, I hope this does not happen, but in the event that our schedules may need to be altered, know that I’ll always share the details and reasons here with the Backers via a Kickstarter update.

2. What are we doing now?

We are currently in our Pre-production stage, and from November to January of next year, we will be doing 4 major things: 1) Finalizing balance through playtests, 2) Finalizing Art, 3) Determining the final components through sample work, and lastly, 4) Finalizing the Rulebook.

⚓ Finalizing balance through playtests 

We finalize the game balance by conducting and recording numerous online/office playtest data. The analysis of the data obtained through playtests is not only for the newly unlocked Unique Animal/Scenery Cards/Insect Cards, but also existing cards and our solo modes to ensure that the data collected is thoroughly analyzed to update the game's contents accordingly.

🎨 Finalizing Art

While developing the existing art by reflecting on the various feedback from our Backers, the art elements added through the Stretch Goals will also be completed. Base Animal Card’s B/C decks, Family Mode art, Insect Cards, and Scenery Cards, all unlocked through Stretch Goals, will go through a drafting phase and on to the finals. Also, the game box art will be fully developed at this time.

🏭 Sample work 

Before we put in our orders for mass production, we will run through several sample orders to determine our final quality. Prototype production and several sample works have already been carried out, but the final order will be decided through the sample works we’ll see from November to January. We will make our final decisions on Pantone colors of the animal meeples and consistently keep up with our manufacturers to see that the durability of the components can be even further developed. Fortunately, our reliable manufacturers are always happy to cooperate with all our needs to improve the quality of the components and actively keep in constant contact with us. As soon as our sample works arrive, I’ll be sure to be by to share it with you here through a KS update.

📖 Finalizing the Rulebook

The finalization of the rulebook will be scheduled once playtests have concluded. We have this scheduled for January 2023.

3. What’s next?

Our Pledge Manager is scheduled to open early December.

• Starting December 5th, 2022, Backers will receive an invitation to their very own Pledge Manager link in subsequent order from our Pledge Manager(PM), Backerkit. More comprehensive and detailed information regarding the processes of the PM will be shared through a Kickstarter update right before the invitations are sent out in early December.
• For those of our supporters who were, unfortunately, unable to join us during our campaign, Late Pledges will be open for those who would still like to participate through our PM in early December. All the products, including the Kickstarter Exclusives, remain the same, but there will be a slight increase in cost as we only offer our discounted rates during the Kickstarter campaign period. If you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity, click here to subscribe to our newsletter, we’ll be sure to remind you once late pledges are open!

I believe this rounds up what I have prepared for today’s update. The next update should be in about 2 weeks’ time, in early December. I’ll go through a detailed explanation of our Pledge Manager then!

We can’t forget about a fun fact to end our update, can we 🐧

Did you know that the toucan's bill is quite weak? So, it can't be used for digging or fighting like how other birds use their beaks. Hence, why Toucans tend to take shelter in hollowed-out trees usually created by Woodpeckers!

That’s all I have for today. I hope everyone enjoys what is left of November and I’ll see you real soon!

Best,

Hani🎈

Thank you!
about 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 16, 2022 at 03:14:25 PM

Hello, Hani here.

Bittersweet, but our month-long journey has come to an end! It could have been long or it could have felt like it went by in a breeze but these last 30 days we spent here with you will be a memorable one. I’d like to send my gratitude, my thanks 300 times over to the Backers who have been with us along this journey. A total of 2,277 Backers allowed us to raise $170,890 and unlock 19 Stretch Goals! Thanks to this, we were able to invite a total of 10 animals to join our game, including our Black Jaguar and our Poison Dart Frog. Now with that said, let’s find out a bit more about the Stretch Goals we’ve unlocked in the last 24 hours!

🐵🐸🦍🐆🦥🦨🦔🦎🐊🐢🐬🐟🦅🦜🐛🦇🦋🐜🐝🪲🕷️

4 Extra Scenery Cards: YES! We now have a total of 42 Scenery Cards! Through these Scenery Cards, we’ll try to show as many different aspects of the Amazon as possible. With the help of our Backers, we were able to include so many animals and insects in the game, but this isn’t merely enough to showcase the 6,700,000km² the Amazonian Rainforest holds! How big is 6,700,000km² you ask? Well for us, it’s 67 times the size of South Korea, the country our HQ is located! Haha, of course, South Korea is quite a small country, but try comparing the size of your Country or State with the size of the Amazon and you’ll be able to feel the vastness of the Amazonia in a whole new way. To better incorporate this vast and diverse Amazonian Rainforest into our game, we’ll be sure to make the most of our 42 Scenery Cards. I’ll do my best to explore the various aspects of the Amazon with our lovely artist Sophia, and show the grandeur the Amazon has to offer while also capturing the ability of the Scenery Cards as well😊. Let me show you the 27 Scenery Cards that were included in our prototype. 

Please keep in mind that some of these cards are mere sketches and will be complete here real soon.

Additionally, the 15 new Scenery Cards to be added to our game will be shared through future updates as they are completed! Golly, I think Sophia will have a lot on her hands for the time being. She’s not only in charge of designing our adorable little meeples but she’s also bringing us the amazing art that is added to all our Cards! How about a 🥳🥳 in cheer for Sophia! 🥳🥳

Black Jaguar: WooHoo! We’ve unlocked our stunning Black Jaguar! Whew, I’m already expecting quite the rumble on who gets to place the Black Jaguar in their jungle. The Black Jaguar is just an alternative cosmetically varied ani-meeple of our Jaguars but I think we can expect quite a lot of fun House rules. Once you get a chance to try out the game let us know if there are House Rules we need to try! I’ll be awaiting your suggestions😊.

Howler Monkey: Scream Monkey fans! Holler for the Howler Monkey! When I was writing yesterday's update, I for sure thought that the Black Jaguar would be our last Stretch Goal, and let me tell you I was quite upset, to say the least. To tell you the truth when we had a vote internally, this little Howler Monkey was me, Gunho, and Lucya’s first pick. So you can imagine our dismay when we tallied up our votes. BUT, I woke up this morning and I was so happy to see that maybe, just maybe we could have our Howler Monkey included in the game! By the way, I know the Goal was set quite high, so I was worried a bit, but we did it!! I really want to say thank you to our Backers once again. The loudest animal in the world will join us to stand in our Jungles. Hurrah!!

Here are the 26 animals joining us in our Jungles.

As with all of our team members, I read through each and every comment, and through some, our whole day is filled with sorrow, and with others, we feel as though we can soar through the skies. Each and every day of these last 30 campaign days have felt like a never-ending roller-coaster. I enjoy creating these games and designing the components, but I also love our campaigns and what the crowdfunding platform brings to our projects. We meet those who support our vision and really grow and develop it together. Once again, thank you for making this all possible.

Now that our campaign has come to a close, our team will aim to finalize game developments, create the game with the highest quality possible, and get these games into the hands of our Backers as quickly as we can! In the updates to come, I’ll share the details of our upcoming plans, what we’ve developed, what we’ve finalized, what has been produced, and when we hope to and have shipped out the games!

That really is all that I have for you today. Today’s fun fact to end our update will feature our very last friend, the Howler Monkey.

The howler monkeys call is one of the loudest calls produced by any land animal! Under certain conditions, it can be heard from about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) away. They call to let others know where their territory is, alerting them to stay away. When one group of howlers calls out, another group answers with a loud whooping bark, or roar, of their own!

That's all for today. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I’ll see you real soon.

Best,

Hani🎈

24 HOURS LEFT! Let's bring home our Stretch Goals!
about 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 05:57:01 AM

Hello, Hani here!

I cannot believe 30 days have passed since we started this campaign when it only seems like yesterday we went live. With just a day left of our Campaign, I’d like to get started with today's update. Today, I’ll just be going over our Stretch Goals.

1. Meeple Poll Results / Unlocked Stretch Goals

A whopping 368 Backers participate in our last Stretch Goal poll! The results are in and I’d like to announce them here and now~ Drum roll, please! 🥁🥁🥁

1. Howler Monkey: 71
2. Spangled Cotinga : 84
3. Poison Dart Frog: 213

🐸

The Poison Dart Frog is the proud winner. Taking up 1st place, the little Dart Frog graciously took its place as our $130,000 Stretch Goal, and was officially included in our game!

Yay! It’s always been on my mind that there were no Herptiles in the promo pack, but I’m glad that our small but powerful creature here will join us to make our promo pack even richer!

💰

Not only has our frog been unlocked, but through our $135,000 Stretch Goal we’ve unlocked sizing up our Resource Bags!

The samples included in our prototypes were 120x150mm(4.7 x 5.9 inch).  At the time of producing our prototypes, we had no intentions of making Upgraded Wooden Tokens, so the bags were produced in line with our punch-board tokens in mind. In addition to that, my hands are quite small, so I wasn’t able to immediately grasp the inconvenience that this would have caused players with larger hands. From now on, I’ll be sure to always consider universal sizes when designing our components!

With this Stretch Goal, we will be increasing the size of the bags to 160x180mm(6.3 x 7 inch). I think a 160mm(6.3inch) width should be a size that will be easy to use for players with larger hands.

(For reference, we actually have yet to receive our 160*180mm bags. So these photos are not actual photos of the larger bags but are depictions of what they are to look like)

Not only this but in our prototypes, the colors of the bags did not come out quite as we wanted. They were way too bright and too close to the base primary colors. We were able to achieve the colors we intended them to be through the 2nd bag samples that we received from the manufacturers. They’re a bit more natural in tone and slightly darker in color, so they’ll blend even better with the overall game components! Also, the color of the pulls will all be unified to black.

🦗

Whilst writing this update, our $140,000 Stretch Goal has been unlocked. More Insect Cards! Hurrah!!

With this, we have a total of 48 Insect Cards. A bit closer to reflecting the 2.5 million species that inhabit that Amazonia, right?

We opened these last 3 Stretch Goals at such a fast pace. Thank you to our existing and welcome to our new Backers!

2. Next Stretch Goal

Now, the next upcoming Stretch Goal is always a bit more exciting than the already unlocked ones, right? So moving forward!

The next Stretch Goal in line is our Cotinga, who finished 2nd through our Meeple poll. It was a close call between our Cotinga and our Howler Money but it seems the bright blue really caught the attention of our Backers and now is in line to join our LOTA animal crew!

Click here if you’d like to check out a video of the Spangled Cotinga. The blue and black colors are so magically blended it feels as though you can see the texture of the brushwork like it’s an art piece!  If some higher power was to have created this bird, I’m sure they must have been one craftsman, stitch by stitch, putting all their focus on each and every feather created.

3. What’s next?

I believe this may be the last update before our Kickstarter Campaign comes to a close, so I want to take this time to reveal all our remaining Stretch Goals.

Our next Stretch Goal in line is Scenery Cards! Wait, where is that “booo~” sound coming from? I know, I know, additional cards may seem a lot less appealing than Ani-meeples. Especially if you were to just see them through our Kickstarter page. BUT! I want to reiterate that Scenery Cards are an important element of the game that all players can use together and is something that will further enrich the game. Also, each card will include an amazing image from our one and only Sophia. So, I’m sure once unlocked and once everyone has these in their hands, I’m sure you’ll love it!

Quick note! There are a few changes to our Nature Cards so I want to go over them for just a second.

※ Insect Cards are due for a name change but because we have yet to decide on a final name, I’ll be calling them Insect Cards for now.

Before

In the prototypes, Scenery Cards and Insect Cards were all mixed into 1 Deck. Overall, though not always, players ended up looking to purchase Scenery Cards late into the game and Insect Cards in the early stages of building up their Resource bag, and through this, we witnessed the inconvenience of having the Scenery Cards and Insect Cards in the same Deck.

After

Reflecting on the feedback, we separated the Scenery Card deck and the Insect Card deck and changed the rules to draw 3 cards of each. With the deck now split, we also modified the images on the back of the decks as well! By dividing the deck it made it possible for players to use the Nature Cards more efficiently and a lot more strategically.

Not only that, but we also added a Refresh Bonus to the Terrain Tile and Waterfall Bonuses. You’ll be able to refresh the Nature Cards that are laid out if it’s not in your favor! Making it a lot easier to find cards that will fit your strategy!

4. What’s coming up after all this?

Well, our next next Stretch Goal, also our last, is the one and only BLACK JAGUAR!!!

This glorious creature will be given to all our Backers who pledge for Life of the Amazonia through this campaign as this marvelous feline is a Kickstarter Exclusive! Unlike our other Stretch Goal Meeples, our Black Jaguar will not be included as a Unique animal, but as an alternative cosmetically varied ani-meeple to one of our orange Jaguar meeples, as many of our Backers have suggested. Now, our Black Jaguar doesn’t have any other abilities than what our orange Jaguars have but the lush black fur is quite nice, no? How about bringing this one home and into our jungles?

This Black Jaguar is so cool, so fancy, that we decided to keep it as a Kickstarter Exclusive. A special treat that can’t be found in Retail Editions or anywhere else! Only for those who have enjoyed the moments this campaign has brought on, together. As always, our little team, Bad Comet, is forever grateful to all our Backers here for joining us on this journey and creating this project together. If one day we actually get to meet, let’s greet each other by bumping our Black Jaguars together, it’ll be like our little secret Kickstarter Campaign crew handshake😉.

We have about 30 hours left on the clock, do you think we’ll be able to bring the Black Jaguar home and into our Jungles before then? For all our $1 Backers, could this be an enticing addition that could change your pledge tier?! 

That about finishes up what I had prepared for today. Now, to end with a fun fact. Let’s do one about our new recruit, our Poison Dart Frog.

In the wild, the Poison Dart Frog's toxin, or poison, is created from their diet. They like to eat poisonous ants and insects. #nomnoms Yet, in zoos they’re not poisonous as their diet is controlled.

I’ll see you real soon!

Best,

Hani 🎈

Deck D Art Reveal & Base Animal Card Modifications
about 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 03:43:05 AM

Hello, everyone!

It’s Hani, glad to be back so soon. Today, I mainly want to go over a bit about our artwork. 🎨

1. Extra Insect Cards Unlocked

We now have 4 extra Insect Cards added to our amazing project! Did you know that Over 90% of the animal species in the Amazon are insects? Of the bunch, if you have any Amazonian Insects you would love to see added to our game, please let us know through the comments below. We have quite a few Insects Cards now added to the game so we may have room to include more of your favorites. The insect images currently included in our prototypes are as follows. 

Please note that the images below are not final and many are in the “sketch” phase.

Any aside from the insects you see above that you’d love to see? Or do you know of any fascinating insects in the Amazon? If you do, let us know, and we’ll be sure to refer to it when planning!

• And not to worry if you’ve made a comment with your favorites before, we have all the comments about insects made in the past already noted.
• Once the balance testing has been completed and the quantity and ability of the Insect Cards are confirmed, we will finish by matching the insect images with the abilities at that time.
• The name “Insect Card” may change. As some of our Backers have pointed out, spiders are not insects. But we don’t want to remove our spider friends from the lineup😟. Therefore, the cards may change to “Arthropod Cards” or “Tiny Creature Cards”. If you have any amazing ideas or know of the perfect name for these cards also let us know below! Thank you.

2. Next Stretch Goal

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! As you may know, our upcoming Stretch Goal will be the addition of a new Animal Meeple through our Backer poll. Voting is currently underway, so if you have yet to cast your votes, please be sure to check it out. Click here to vote. Not only is 1st place important, but which animal places 2nd may very well take part in future comings 😉.

3. Deck D Art Reveal

Remember our $10,000 Stretch Goal? Our amazing artist Sophia has completed the D deck’s stunning night Scene!

It’s never easy to observe animals with the naked eye after the sun goes down, but being able to take a glimpse into the lives of the Amazon Jungles after sunset seems like we’re taking a peek into a secret world no? Take a look at our nocturnal Jaguars, who are more active at night, we tried to portray them with a bit more stature. The new art for the B/C deck and our Family Mode will also be shared as soon as they’re completed.

Oh! And I’m sure those who are keen, will have already noticed but the template of the Animal Cards has also changed. As mentioned before, I’ll go into some details for those who are interested but a read-through is not necessary😊.

(1) Terrain Condition Relocated: The Terrain Conditions have been relocated from the top of the card titles to the top left corner of the cards. The feedback we received quite a bit from our playtesters was that the terrain conditions of the cards were too small. As it is an important condition that must be kept, we moved the location to the upper left corner and enlarged the size by about x2 so that even players sitting quite a bit away could also easily recognize the conditions.

(2) Species Icon Relocated: With the Terrain Conditions moving to the upper left corner of the cards, the Species icon has moved to the right of the card titles. As a result, now the formatting resembles our Nature Cards and is a bit more cohesive.

(3) Increased Font Size: We’ve increased our font sizes as large as they could possibly go! The bigger, the better, right? For decks like our D set, as it is our 4th deck with not-so-simple abilities, we weren’t able to increase the size of the fonts too much due to the amount of content but comparing them to our prototypes, the new cards should showcase much larger font and icon sizes. I’m sure we did a number here to increase visibility! 

(4) Fruit Icon Change: There were a few feedbacks in regards to the existing Fruit Icon and that it didn’t give off an Amazonian feel. The fruit depicted was Amazonia’s Acerola, but used as a small icon, it ended up looking a lot like an ordinary apple or tomato😟. So, we did a bit more digging and brainstorming and ended up switching our design to a Pitanga! 

Gives off a bit more of the tropical fruit feel, no? Accordingly, the Fruit Token images among our Resource Tokens have also been modified with this new design! What do you think?

🙈

I think that about wraps things up. To end today’s update, our fun fact will be about our Tamarin friends!

Did you know that Tamarins give birth to twins quite often? As well, all the members of the group will help the mother take care of her babies, with the father helping out the most. Teamwork makes that dream work, right?

That’s all I have for today. Make sure you cast your votes for our upcoming animal SG and I’ll see you real soon!

Best,

Hani🎈