Stretch Goal Animal Poll
about 2 years ago – Sun, Nov 06, 2022 at 11:15:26 PM

Hello, Hani here!

I believe we’ll be talking quite a lot about animals today and Stretch Goal polls are going on down at the bottom so be sure to leave your votes before you leave.

1. Newly unlocked Animals: Bat & Manatee

Thanks to the help of our Backers, we were able to unlock our Bat and Manatee! How wonderful😊 A mammal in the sky and a mammal in the waters.

There was some feedback about the Bat’s belly and that it looked a bit cut off, so we tweaked the shape a bit.

2. Next Stretch Goal: 4 Extra Insect Cards

Our upcoming $125,000 goal is for our cute little insects. I’ve loved insects since I was little, so I used to raise Stag Beetles or catch Cicadas and had them roam around the house, hence, why I’m so excited to have all these six-legged creatures incorporated into the game!

3. Upcoming Stretch Goal: Animal Meeple and a Unique Animal Card

Okay, I think we need to talk about our next-next stretch goal in advance.

When we reach $130,000, we will have a new animal meeple and 1 Unique Animal Card to go along with this meeple, added to our copies. Now, we’ve been thinking a lot about which animal might be best, but we thought, why not ask the Backers directly?

Before we start with the votes I’d like to mention, as an animal lover, I want to be able to put as many animals into ‘Life of the Amazonia’ as we possibly can, and can only be sorry that we’re just not able to incorporate them all😢. But I hope you know that we read each and every comment and consider each feedback and input very carefully. A lot of Backers have recommended and asked for a variety of different Amazonian animals but I wanted to briefly talk about 3 popular animals that won’t appear in today’s poll.

• Arapaima/Bull Shark: A fish that measures 2m (6ft 7in) in size! I still remember the shock when I first laid eyes on this fish at the aquarium!  And who can hate Bull Sharks?! If these amazing creatures were to be made into Unique Animals, they would have to be one that would take up 2 river terrain hexes but we already have our dolphin and manatee, so these 2 have been pushed back for these reasons. We didn’t want the animals’ scoring method to be too far removed from reality, and as well, when there are more animals that can only live in water, we were worried that their abilities wouldn’t be varied enough.
• Ocelot: A cool jungle cat! Unfortunately, this little cutie has been pushed back due to its jaguar-like appearance and the abundance of yellow/brown quadrupeds. We want to be able to show the most diverse look of the Jungles that we possibly can.

🙉🐔🐸

So, here are our 3 candidates for our up-and-coming Stretch Goal! We’ve picked from among the animals mentioned by our Backers throughout the comment sections😊.

1. Howler Monkey : We need more Monkeys! Known as the loudest animal on the planet, these Howler Monkeys sure know how to Howl. If you’re interested in finding out how loud, click here. Isn’t the fine black coloring and the animated howling action just perfect?

2. Spangled Cotinga : We need more birds! Doesn’t the color just pop?! From the emerald coloring to the pink pattern on the neck, I’m not sure how these colors are made in nature! This emerald coloring is unlike any other animal, so it would be amazing to see this one come to life as a meeple.

3. Poison Dart Frog : We need more amphibians! I believe this intensively colored frog is one of the most iconic creatures that come to mind when people think of the Jungle! And wouldn’t be nice to have more cold-blooded creatures in our game?

Which of the 3 would you like to see as our next Stretch Goal? Choose 1 from the 3 Howler Monkey, Spangled Cotinga, and Poison Dart Frog, and leave your choice in the comment section below!

•  Only the comments under this very update will be counted as a vote! Comments on other updates and/or comment sections will not be counted so please leave your votes right under this post!
• 1 Vote per backer. So even though you leave multiple votes for us we'll only count the first vote you've commented.
• Votes will close: Midnight on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 Eastern Standard Time

Now, as our campaign is coming to a close, we couldn’t allocate an extensive amount of time to vote, but I hope everyone has a chance to get their votes in. Of course, I know it won’t be very easy just picking one…😅

Today’s fun fact to close up our update is the Manatee!

Did you know that our cow-like creatures are what may have inspired some of the mermaid legends?? During Christopher Columbus’s first journeys out into the Americas, he was said to have caught a glimpse of 3 mermaids😲. He wrote that “they are not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits.”.

That’s it for today. Don’t forget to leave your votes below and let’s make these last few days count!

Best,

Hani🎈

Wooden Waterfall Progress Update
about 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 02, 2022 at 02:49:20 AM

Hello, Hani here!

I received one of, if not the best kinds of notifications today😊. None other than a FedEx shipping notification!! We finally received our Wooden Waterfall samples from our manufacturers. So hang tight as I’ll be going over the details in #3 of this update!

1. Scenery Cards Unlocked

 At last! Our 4 Scenery Cards have been unlocked. Hurrah! Thank you to all our Backers who have contributed and welcome to all our new Backers. More cards, more fun, right?

I’d also like to note here that the Card Sleeves included in the Jaguar Tier will cover all the unlocked Stretch Goals as well! I wonder how many more cards will be unlocked🤔.

2. Upcoming Bats!

Isn’t the Bat a beauty??? How it’s spreading its wings and looks like it’s just about to fly off is quite unique and super adorable! I want to see this meeple come to life and be able to place one on my Jungle NOW! 

As we’re moving past the midway point of our campaign, some of our amazing Backers have shown concern over the slowdown, but I believe we’re doing pretty well. We have our Bat on the horizon! 🦇

3. Wooden Waterfall Sample

Finally! The long-awaited sample of the Wooden Waterfall has arrived. It is not yet in its final form, but I wanted to come by to share with everyone the Wooden Waterfall samples we received today and show you a bit of the process we go through, throughout the different modifications. I mean we are all in this together😊 so we want to let you in on the process!

The 1st sample was made back in September 2022. In this sample, assembling the water streams wasn’t possible as the sample water streams were measured incorrectly. Also, the cutouts weren’t secure enough, so there were issues with the whole assembly falling apart when trying to move the Waterfall around. However, we were able to confirm that the printing came out beautifully and the wood was strong with good thickness. Based on our first sample, we tried to implement a stronger structure, and the 2nd sample is our result and what we received in the mail today! Since we checked what printing would be like on our first sample, we decided a quick turnaround was more important as we just needed to confirm our structural modifications, therefore, the 2nd sample was ordered without any printing.

The difference in the 2nd sample is as below. I’d like to note that the contents below could be overly detailed so by no means do you have to read through those if you would prefer not to. I did, however, decide to be a bit detailed just in case there were Backers who were curious about our development process. So take a quick look-through if you’re curious😊.

(1) Cutout Modifications: We changed the cutout sizes to make sure they’re a lot tighter after thoroughly conversing with the manufacturers. The thickness of the 2nd sample came out just right, so it’s firm and secure after assembly but not too tight where it’ll be difficult to assemble.

(2) Modifications in the support structure and size expansion.

In our 1st sample, the bottom supports were not long enough, therefore, it wasn’t complete even after assembly. Due to this, when you would move Player Markers around on the Tracks they would rattle a bit and be a bit uncomfortable to use. In our 2nd sample, the length of the supports was increased, and we’ve updated this structure by adding a bar to connect the supports so that the supports increase the stability of the structure. As a result, our modifications have made all the levels of the Waterfall stable, and the Waterfall levels do not shake no matter where you place your Player Markers.

Additionally, the height of the supports was slightly increased. If you take a look at where the supports join the 3rd level on our 1st sample, you can see that the supports were flush with the floor and this didn’t give the stability we were hoping for. Therefore, in our 2nd sample, we increased the height of the support to make sure the 3rd floor was firmly supported.

As you know, our 2nd sample is not final either. We ordered the 2nd sample almost 2 months ago, and in the meantime, collected more feedback from our supporters! In accordance with our amazing feedback, we are due to make more changes and modifications to the 2nd sample you see here. Let me share with you the 3D rendering of all the additional changes that are to occur.

3rd Sample (planned)

• Like our cardboard Waterfall, the location of the bonus actions will be relocated. As mentioned before, the bonus actions were located in the corner of the 2nd floor but the visibility of these actions was low. As a result, the shape of the second floor will change slightly to welcome this refinement.
• On the first floor, the storage section will move to the right of the Flower Track rather than in front, which is where it used to be. This was because if the tracks overlap on the same floor, it may obstruct the view of the overlapping tracks when markers are placed.
• Like in our 1st sample, there will be a splash pattern cutout towards the bottom of the stream.
• Overall, the size of the spaces will increase as well as our icons! The bigger, the better… right?

I hope everyone understands that the Waterfall shared above is also not our final as we will continue to refine these components as we carry on to converse with the manufacturers to bring the best we can. We’ll be sure to share all the details of our process as we move forward in developing and progressing our Waterfall design 🙂

Finally, I wanted to also share a quick GIF of how the assembly should go for our Wooden Waterfall. Although the design isn’t final, the assembly method shouldn’t change too much, so I wanted to share it with all our Backers who were curious about the assembly process. So those interested, please refer to the GIF below. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask us!

Okay, well, that’s all I have for today’s update!

As always, we have to end our updates with a Fun Fact 😀 And since our Waterfall has made quite an appearance, why not one about the waterfalls of the Amazonia?!

Did you know that the Amazon has a waterfall that is 4 times taller than Niagara Falls? Located on the Potaro River in the Amazon Rainforest of Guyana, Kaieteur Falls is the world's largest single-drop waterfall. From its plunge over sandstone and cliffs, it is measured at 741ft (226 meters). Many falls have greater height, but few have the combination of height and water volume. Kaieteur is among the most powerful waterfalls in the world with an average flow rate of 663 cubic meters per second! Amazing right?

That’s all for today’s update. We’ll see you real soon!

Best,

Hani 🎈

New Card Art Sketches & Halloween Pumpkin Carving Template
about 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 09:25:19 PM

Hello, Hani here once again!

We are halfway through our Kickstarter Campaign. These last couple of weeks feel like they flew by in a breeze. Not to worry, we’ll continue to strive through the remaining 2 weeks vigorously!

1. Unlocked Stretch Goal: Tapir

Thanks to our growing number of new Backers, we’ve unlocked our adorable Tapir!

We’ve received some feedback that the Tapir’s coloring may look better closer to its natural color, therefore, tada! We’ve gone for a color not too similar to our other meeples, but closer to its natural color. Yay! A new animal addition is always an exciting one.😊🐽🐽🐽

2. Next Stretch Goal: Additional Scenery Cards

Next on our list of Stretch Goals that need unlocking is our 4 Extra Scenery Cards! There was quite a lot of feedback from playtesters in particular who have had the chance to play the prototype version that it would be nice if there were more Scenery Cards and Insect Cards added to the game. The added Scenery Cards will enrich our game above all else! No doubt!

⛺ Scenery Cards provide additional Environmental Points for Players at the end of the game.

For example, at the end of the game, if you possessed the “Dense Forest” Scenery Card(left image), you would collect 1 point per tree in your Jungle and the “Baby Caimans” Scenery Card(right image) would score the same Environmental points as one of the Caimans in your Jungle at the end of the game.

Scenery Cards will have varying art just like you see above :) I can’t wait to see what fun abilities will be added to the amazing art we have planned.

Now! To open our next Stretch Goal and see these cards come to life, Click Pixies unite! Help us gain more momentum by visiting Kicktraq and pressing that 🟩green “Visit Project” button🟩! 

3. Base Animal Art Sketches

Does everyone remember our last unlocked stretch goal? I’m so happy to share the new sketches in the works for our Base Animals. After our $100,000 Stretch goal for the “New Art for Base Animal” was unlocked, Sophia has been hard at work drafting up the new images. It will take a little over a month to have the images fully developed but I’d like to share with you the Sketches she has ready for us!

From the left, we have Decks A/B/C/D. The A deck is the art included in our prototypes. Each Animal in each deck will have different poses and the background will show varying times of the day and differing environments. With the diversified art, the different abilities of each deck will be visually conveyed as well. Above all, I feel like it’ll give the cards an overall completed look, doesn’t it already look amazing? Even though these are just rough sketches for now, I’m already thrilled seeing the active appearances of each animal and fulfilled with what’s to come!

The sketches for the Family mode deck(5th deck), which was unlocked as our $90,000 Stretch Goal, have yet to be completed. The idea is since it is a family-mode deck, it would be nice to portray a family instead of a single animal. Like a Macaw pair, or baby animals are always cute, right?! I’ll be sure to share the Family mode deck with you as soon as the sketches are ready to go!

4. Happy Halloween

I love spooky Halloween! Costumes, trick or treating, all kinds of scary ghosts, zombies, and we can’t forget the pumpkins! We thought this Halloween, we’d prepare a template for your pumpkin carving night. If you have yet to carve your pumpkin and haven’t picked out your theme for this year, how about a cute frog? We tried to make a simple design so that it could be done with your little ones as well… what do you think? We tried to characterize one of our base animals, the frog🐸.

If you are a Backer in need of a Pumpkin Carving Template, click here to download the template for the cute little frog above to be featured on your front porch :)

🦇

I’m sure there are some of you who have already noticed but the $115,000 Stretch Goal has been revealed! It is one that has been requested by many, the BAT is incoming! How perfect would it be for our Bat to be unlocked Halloween week, right?

I’ll conclude today’s update with a fun fact about our newest addition, the Tapir.

Often called the "Gardeners of the forest," Tapirs carry the seeds from fruits and berries in their tummies and when they pass through the tapir, the seeds are spread throughout their travels.

Hope you all have an amazing weekend and a safe Halloween!

Best,

Hani 🎈

Otter Results & Cardboard Quality (including Waterfall)
about 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 05:35:36 AM

Hello, it’s Hani.

Let’s get straight into business!

1. New Card Art Stretch Goal Unlocked!

YAY! Sophia is working on the artwork as we speak. Once the sketches are drafted we’ll be sure to share the new artwork to feature on our cards. Thanks to all our new and existing Backers who helped us unlock this Stretch Goal!

2. Next Stretch Goal: Tapir

What animal will we encounter next? Drum roll, please!🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁  

It’s none other than our Tapir!! Quite the unique-looking creature, the Tapir. As a Korean, quite strange indeed. It seems to have a head like a smaller-nosed elephant with a body of a pig, and it’s known to grow up to 2.5m (8.2ft) in length apparently. Making this creature quite a lot bigger than me!

We did see a few feedbacks in our comment section about the Tapir’s coloring so Sophia and I are in talks at the moment. The yellow color, as everyone had expected, was to distinguish it from the other brown meeples. If the Tapir Stretch Goal is unlocked, we’ll be sure to try out various color variations so that our Tapir meeple friend doesn’t differ too much from its actual coloring in the wild, all the while making sure it is easily distinguishable from our other meeple friends. How about introducing your wild-life-loving friends to Life of the Amazonia so we can get to putting this awesome Tapir in our copy?😉🐽🐽

3. Otter Survey Results

The results of the Otter Coloring Survey that was conducted last week were,

Pink 25 VS Brown 216, a landslide victory for our Brown Otter!

I… was expecting somewhat of a similar number between the brown and pink, but brown got almost 10 times more votes than I expected. So our underwater predator will now be forever the brown color, say goodbye to our lovely pink otter! 👋👋

The KS page will also be modified according to the final color change, but please note that the colors of the Otter in videos and some images may not be possible for edits. Thanks so much to our 241 Backers who contributed by voting!

4. Card Board Quality

We’ve received quite a lot of questions and comments regarding cardboard quality. First, to put it quite simply, our cardboard quality is great! But let me get into the details.

The picture on the left is the normal Gray Board we initially tried out, and the picture to the right is the CCNB board that is used in the current prototype. The CCNB board is a “Clay Coated Newsback”, which is a type of Gray Board that is much stronger than the normal Gray Boards we see. In particular, our manufacturers recommended the CCNB board due to the sturdiness that was needed to support our Waterfall and Token Vaults. Although it is 1mm thick, it is much sturdier and has excellent durability. If you look at the 2mm normal Gray Board, which many of our Backers might have experienced this material through most board game components, oftentimes these boards/tokens when used several times, start to come apart as gaping occurs in-between this type of material. 

This is because the normal Gray Board consists of several layers and these different layers can separate when handled often.

On the other hand, when comparing the CCNB to the normal Gray Board, the 1mm CCNB does not use multiple layers but consists of a single layer, so the density is far higher than that of regular Gray Boards. Therefore, it will not break down after several uses. It also has the advantage that it looks nice and neat when viewed from the sides. Our prototypes have been made with CCNB and we’ve conducted multiple playtests in a span of 3 months, and we can say it is quite durable. So it doesn’t seem we need to worry too much about the boards and tokens being too weak, bending, ripping, or breaking. If you are debating whether or not to purchase the upgraded Wooden Components, even without it I’d like to say that the Toucan Tier is sturdy enough on its own. 😀

🌊

Additionally, I want to talk a bit more about the cardboard Waterfall. We’ve been getting quite a lot of questions about the durability of our cardboard waterfall. I can tell you now that we are currently testing several samples while continuously coordinating the details with the manufacturers. To tell you a bit about where we are in the development stages of the cardboard Waterfall, there have had 3 major changes from the current prototype waterfall design.

1) The folding lines have been aligned. In the past, the folding line was not made in a straight line making assembly not that simple. Some parts handled more pressure than others so durability was an issue. Therefore, realigning all the pressure points where the weight/force would be applied in a line made it easy to assemble, and made sure that the force was evenly distributed to increase durability. Our manufacturers told us that the samples made this way were much more stable. Once we receive the final samples we’ll be sure to share the details with everyone here.

2) The Bonus Actions have moved. In the existing Waterfall, the Bonus Actions were located in the corner of the 2nd floor on the Waterfall, so visibility was impaired for some players depending on the seating arrangement. So, we changed the location so that the Bonus Actions could be more visible to everyone around the table.

3) Enlarged the size of the Waterfall spaces. We received feedback from some of our playtesters that the spaces on the Waterfall were too narrow. In light of that, we decided to reduce the height of the water stream and increase the size of the Waterfall spaces to make it easier to place the Player Markers.

We’re also looking forward to getting our brand-new Waterfall prototype in our hands! Please note that this is also not our final version. The design team will continue to draft, brainstorm, and ponder on this until mass production early next year. At this time, the opinions of our Backers and our playtesters who have received and tried out our prototypes will be considered the top priority.

🌲

In addition, we are waiting for our Wooden Waterfall samples to come in as well. We do however have our samples for Serengeti’s Wooden Rock of Ages! Not to be confused with the Wooden Waterfall, our last project’s Wooden Rock of Ages samples are in, so let me share them with you!

This is an upgrade component for Wild: Serengeti and not our current project, but I think the image could convey what our Wooden Waterfall will look like so I wanted to share a quick picture. The quality of printing and the finish of the wood seemed great but the cut prediction was slightly off so the sample as a whole was slightly loose. As a result, we are waiting on new samples for the Wooden Rock of Ages which has been modified with narrower cut-lines along with our Wooden Waterfall of life.  When the samples arrive, we’ll be sure to share the details, so hang tight! 😀

🐜🐜🐜

I was in the US for a bit as an exchange student, and the mascot for my school at the time was the Anteater. So to me, the Anteater has a pretty special place in my heart. So, today, I want to wrap up the update with a fun fact about our Anteater!

Did you know that Anteaters primarily eat ants and termites – it is said that they can feast up to 35,000 of these a day. (35,000 a day!! How many ants and termites are there in the world to begin with?!) They don’t have teeth, so they slurp up their prey with their long sticky tongues. It has to eat quickly, flicking its tongue up to 150 times per minute.

That’s it for today! Until next time😊

Best,

Hani🎈

Rulebook Update for Solo Mode!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 05:01:34 AM

Hello, Hani here😊

Before we start today’s update, if anyone has not yet had the chance to vote for our Otter’s coloring, pink vs brown, please vote here! Voting is due to close this Saturday (Eastern Standard Time) so make sure you get your vote in!

1. $95,000 Stretch Goal UNLOCKED

We now have our Piranhas! One of the most iconic animals of the Amazon if I do say so myself😁.

2. Our next Stretch Goal is “New Card Art for our Base Animal Cards”!

The existing game only has one image per Animal, used throughout all A/B/C/D decks. When the $100,000 stretch goal is unlocked, our amazing artist, Sophia Kang, will draft up new art to be added to each of the A/B/C/D decks along with the newly unlocked E deck! So each of our Base Animal Cards will look unlike the other😃, doesn’t that sound exciting? Each of our 5 decks will feature varying art of our 8 Base Animals and I cannot wait! Personally, this stretch goal is the one I’m looking forward to the most. Now let’s get to reaching that $100,000 goal and unlocking this for everyone!

3. Solo Mode Update

Who loves Solo modes?! Our solo mode has been updated in the rulebook. Of the 9 total campaigns, 6 have been opened first, with the remaining 3 waiting to be revealed soon. The newly updated solo mode can be found on pages 18-21 of the rulebook so check it out!

Click to see the rulebook

Balance tests are still in progress. Please be aware that details and specifics are subject to change.

I personally love the solo mode because I’m able to enjoy the game and take the time to really think over my strategy without being so conscious of time when playing with others. If you’re a solo-mode fan, tell me more about why you enjoy solo modes. I would love to hear the reasoning behind your love for solo modes. 

If animals can play board games, I’m sure the animal that would enjoy the solo mode the most would be the Jaguar. Therefore, I would like to wrap up today’s update with a fun fact about the Jaguar.

The jaguar is a solitary creature aside from the first couple years of life that is spent with their mother. Jaguar males are very territorial, with their home range overlapping that of several females, but fully prepared to defend themselves and their territory fiercely from other males.

That is all for today’s update! Make sure your votes for the Otter’s are made and let’s get to unlocking our next stretch goal!

Best,

Hani🎈