Merry Christmas in July! Surprise Add-on Reveal:
4 months ago
– Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 08:48:32 AM
Technically at the moment it's Christmas Eve in July, but we'll count it, right? 😉
You may have noticed, a new tier has appeared! There is an equivalent add-on option.
Both are ways to get the Christmas surprise:
🎉 An adorable festive cookie cutter! 🎉
This custom cookie cutter includes an imprint design of the penguin as pictured above 😍
- It's 3D-printed from an FDA-certified food-safe filament, and it is hand-wash only (not dishwasher safe).
We hope you'll love this special add-on as much as we do!
Remember, these cookie cutters will only be available until midnight PT tomorrow (3am ET on July 26th).
And of course, we'll also have our Новогодний сюрприз next week!
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For those who are new to Kickstarter:
If you would like to add this cookie cutter to your current pledge, click "Manage your pledge":
And then click "Change your pledge":
This will take you to a screen where you can confirm (or upgrade!) your pledge tier, and then to the Add-on screen, where you can add a Christmas cookie cutter (or several 🥳).
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IMPORTANT! Please note: if you're in an Early Bird pledge tier and you switch out of it, you will not be able to switch back into it! So make sure you continue to the "Add-on" section before making changes.
You will also have a chance to review your changes before confirming them.
If you have any troubles, please feel free to email us, and we will do our best to help you out!
Are you ready for a holiday surprise?
4 months ago
– Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 10:42:55 AM
We know it's July, the height of summer, and nowhere near the winter holidays. But...
🎄We're in a festive mood!🎄
Since July is conveniently a 31-day month, just like December, we're actually going to have two surprises for you—one for "Christmas in July" and one for "New Year's in July"!
So mark your calendar: at 9am PT / 12pm ET on July 24th, a brand new special Christmas add-on will become available, just in time for Christmas in July! This special will only be available through midnight on the 25th (about 39 hours total, so we can give a fair shot to both coasts).
It will work very similarly for Новый Год, in the very final hours of our campaign. A brand new New Year's–themed add-on will be available starting at 9pm PT on July 30th / 12am ET on July 31st and going through the end of the campaign!
That's a different start time, but both specials will be available for the same amount of time!
A few things to note:
- You will be able to add these specials to your current pledge, and each will also be available as its own tier.
- We may be a bit biased, but they'd make a pretty perfect Surprise Prize for your first game!
- We haven't decided yet if we will make this add-on available in the pledge manager later (opinions welcome!), but if we do, it will be at a slightly higher price. So make sure to grab them while they're live during the campaign!
More details to come when the tiers go live, but we hope you're excited! We sure are 🥳
How it all began
4 months ago
– Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 10:52:01 AM
A little housekeeping: if you haven't yet, please make sure to let us know how you'd like to be listed on our site.
- Did you know you can receive—and send—private messages (including from us) here on Kickstarter?
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We're about halfway through our campaign, and we're so excited to see how many Stretch Goals we will reach!
Today seems like a good day to look all the way back to how this (somewhat crazy) journey started.
Gifts Galore grew out of a beloved family tradition. Every year, without fail, we gather on January 1st for food and fun (and presents 🥳).
Last year, we decided we wanted to surprise everyone with something to make our holiday even more fun. As we tossed around ideas, it didn't take long for us to decide on a board game.
Even though we only intended for it to be a treat for our family, we had no idea what we were really getting into! But we dove right in, drawing a board and buying some stickers to make it festive:
At that point, we had very little sense of the rules for gameplay. We knew it would be a trivia-based game. We knew the purple and red ornaments would be something special. And we knew the game would end in that big circle in the middle.
But our game board came before the rules, which was pretty silly in retrospect. For the longest time, we had absolutely no idea what to do with those 6 spots leading into the center. Eventually, with time running out, we decided to add a MadLib element to our game—so any time someone landed on one of those spots, they would contribute a word to a New Year's–themed MadLib. The game ended long before the MadLib was filled out (oops!).
The whole premise of the Surprise Prize was born out of wanting someone who was getting one big group gift to still have something to look forward to. (Then, we decided to make that even more fun, by spelling out the name of the gift and wrapping each individual letter as its own present 😂)
So yes, pretty silly, but we always want to make our holiday as fun and special as possible! And remember, the game was just a fun thing for the family members we'd be celebrating with. They were the only ones we expected to see this:
Despite the imperfections, we had a wonderful time adding this game to our celebration on January 1st. There was so much laughter, and as we've shared before, it really did save our dinner!
Not bad for a game we didn't even playtest before springing it on the whole family. 😅
When we started working on the updated version of the game, the one you'll be playing (hooray!), we also started with updating the game board, but by then we had a pretty decent sense of the rules—and what needed to change from our very first game.
Still we focused initially on that core game, centered on opening multiple presents with loved ones. Very quickly, we added the version for playing without Mystery Gifts, so that if you gift this game to someone, they can play it immediately, even without having these bonus little gifts prepared.
It was only when seeing the game through our playtesters' eyes that we realized we were, in a sense, thinking too small. After all, many of us only have one big gift-giving event (if that), and we want you to enjoy this game throughout the entire holiday season!
So we added a couple more variants for you, making it possible to play at White Elephant parties, with big groups, and really however you want! And if that's not enough variety, remember, we playtested with candy, which also works extremely well. 😉
So that's a bit about how we went from a small family game to a versatile game with four rule sets to choose from.
Which variant of the game are you most looking forward to trying out? Let us know in the comments!
Two updates to our Stretch Goals!
4 months ago
– Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 09:13:55 AM
Thanks to everyone who responded to our question about the $4,500 stretch goal perk!
You overwhelmingly voted for the drawstring bag for number tiles, so that's exactly what we'll do 🥳
Did you notice the other major change in the graphic above? That's right:
🎉 We've moved the following stretch goal to $6,000! 🎉
We're learning as the campaign happens, and that includes seeing the likely demand for the different game types. This has allowed us to play with the numbers a bit, which revealed a huge opportunity if we reach that new goal!
We won't reveal what exactly the reward will be just yet, but we will share that:
- It will impact and be included with every game
- It's something we always wanted to include, but the numbers weren't in our favor before
- It doesn't affect gameplay, so don't worry—even if we don't reach this goal, your game will be complete
We really hope we'll be able to reach this stretch goal by the end of the campaign so we can offer you this perk!
For now, we're still working on reaching that $3,000 goal. So if you're up for it, please consider sharing our game with friends who would be interested in adding some extra magic to their holiday celebrations! 🎄
Meanwhile, have a fantastic weekend!
Which stretch goal perk would you prefer?
5 months ago
– Tue, Jul 09, 2024 at 10:52:48 AM
It's so amazing to think of our game being played in your home this holiday season!
With plenty of campaign time left, we're really hoping to reach a few of our stretch goals so we can offer you some bonus perks.
It's important to us to include upgrades for every reward tier at each goal reached. Now that we've added a new bonus goal at $3,000, moving that planned sticker to a bit earlier, we have a bit of a gap.
So, what would you like as a stretch goal perk at $4,500? This is for you, so we figure it's best to ask!
The options:
- A drawstring bag for storing number tiles
- A custom temporary tattoo, likely featuring one of our adorable penguins
- Festive coloring and activity sheets you can print at home (digital download)
- A custom button with a festive (and likely adorable) design
- Something else—within reason 😉
Feel free to let us know your idea in the comments! Keep in mind it has to be scalable to approximately 100 backers (or more), and we aren't making any promises. But we'd love to know, and we're happy to explore the possibilities for you.
Poll closes Friday evening.
Of course, if you have any other thoughts or questions, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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Shifting gears a bit, as we explore the world of Kickstarter, we're also getting to meet other creative folks with fun projects, one of which we want to share with you:
If you're looking for some musical ambiance for your holiday celebrations, check out Jazz & Blues Revue's forthcoming holiday album: The Jazz & Blues Holiday Soirée!
Get a feel for their music with "The Boogie Woogie Christmas Party."
Keep in mind, their campaign ends in just a few days, so take a look soon!
