Animal Kingdom Trading Card Game

Hero Pack Survey Closing Soon + Updates
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 08:38:58 PM

Good Morning Mayors!

We hope that you're doing well? It's been almost 3 weeks since we posted up the survey allowing you to opt in for the early Hero Packs. We're going to leave it open for 2 more days, and then close the survey and contact everybody who responded wanting them now. If you've been undecided until now, think hard as you have 2 days to say yes! And if you missed it? You can find it here! - https://forms.gle/ygJiMCMaHLY5QfJX8

While we wait for the art of It's a Wild World to be completed, we've been putting the time to use in various ways. We'd like to let you know what we've been working on below: 

Complete PnP/TTS: 

We're currently waiting on the last few pieces of art required to release complete versions of our Print 'n' Play and Tabletop Simulator module. These versions will contain the final retail versions of all four Starter Decks, as well as all 30 cards from Hero Pack 1. We'd like to thank everyone in the AK community for the extensive and invaluable feedback over the past year, which we've used to tailor the final Starter Deck lists. (Experienced players will no doubt be happy to see that the playability of the Natasha Pola Starter Deck has been particularly improved!) 

Rulebook: 

One of our top priorities currently is creating the definitive Animal Kingdom TCG Rulebook. This includes a revised Quickstart Rules guide, an Advanced Rules section, and expanded versions of the existing Glossary and FAQ section. Once this is finished it will be packaged with the Print and Play for easy access.

Playtesting:

We've been continuing to playtest the Starter Deck and It's a Wild World play environment to further refine the gameplay experience before we're able to send it to print. We also recently announced 'play with the devs' playtest sessions! By joining the Animal Kingdom Discord server, you can opt-in for a chance to be invited to playtest sessions with the developers! These playtests use decks that we provide, and give you a chance to play with cards that won't be revealed until you're opening packs yourseves. 

Getting feedback from our players has proven extremely useful for us so far and we hope to continue putting that feedback to good use. 

You can join the discord using this link, if you're not already there - https://discord.gg/QJFsxkxCzP

Further Products: 

We've also been hard at work planning and designing future products, such as themed Structure Decks and the previously mentioned Set 2, "Hijinks on the High Seas". We don't want to talk about them until we've delivered all of your It's a WIld World pledges, but once you have those in hand we'll be excited to show off what we'll be offering in the future!

And finally for this update, we'll leave you with some of the latest spoilers that you may have missed! Until next time, take care!

      - Monster Channel

Community Promo Poll results are in...
almost 2 years ago – Sun, Nov 03, 2024 at 08:54:56 PM

Hello Mayors!

The Community Promo vote is now over, and our winner is... Lady of the Tavern! 

She'll get the beautiful borderless promo treatment seen here, so all of you Kickstarter backers will get to see FlareFox's art shown off in its full glory. I'd like to say that it was a close race but... Well, you can see the results at the end of this post! She took the lead on the first day, and it was never too closely contested. 

We love this treatment for promo cards, so just because your particular favourite may not have won this vote, it doesn't mean that it won't have another chance in the future! Keep an eye out for future news about promotional cards.

- Monster Channel

Hero Pack Survey!
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 11:16:22 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Community Promo Poll!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 12, 2024 at 12:06:54 PM

Good evening Mayors,

The community vote for the bonus promo card is here! We've selected a dozen cards for you to pick from, and whichever one gets the most votes by the end of November 2nd will be the one that gets the full-art treatment! All of you who backed will be getting a copy of this with your pledges.

https://forms.gle/7aWN4MqjY6wEtyR96

You can vote using the above form, and you can vote for up to 3 cards as we understand that it can be hard to just pick a single favourite!

You'll be able to edit your votes up until the final day in case you change your mind at any point, so don't be afraid to get your votes in early even if you're not entirely decided on your choices.

And don't worry, the survey for the Hero Packs will be coming very soon. We just wanted to make separate announcement posts for both of these things :)

 -  Monster Channel

September is here, as are the Hero Packs!
about 2 years ago – Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 08:59:26 PM

Hello Mayors!

We hope that you're all having a good summer and that it's not too stuffy where you are? It's been a bit stifling here in the UK, but our moods have been greatly improved by a recent large package that we received...

Hero Packs!

They're finally here, and we are SUPER thrilled at how cool they are! Professionally printed foil cards in actual sealed booster packs, it's something that we wouldn't have imagined a couple of years ago. Now we have them in hand, and we're very excited to get them to all of our wonderful backers (you!) to see what you think of them.

As we mentioned when we ran the Kickstarter, all of these are cards that are available in the full It's a Wild World set, BUT this is the only way you're going to get any of these cards in foil. In fact, this foiling style is exclusive to the Hero Packs themselves, so even the foils in the main set won't have this lovely foiling pattern to them! Exclusive foils to show off to friends and players who didn't get in on the Kickstarter :)

Whilst we're here, why don't we actually take a look at what's in them? If you've been hanging around in our Discord server then you'll already know the contents. It's the extra cards that we allowed in the tournament earlier in the year, that were added to the Tabletop Simulator mod and printable decks! But for those of you who haven't seen them, here are a couple of pictures.

We've opened a few of these packs in order to check the quality of the cards, and they are excellent. It sounds silly to say that 'they feel like professional high budget trading cards', but it's really the best way we can describe them. We're very happy with the print quality and card feel, and we look at these as a successful test for what we'll get when the full set and Starter Decks are sent to print.

That said, there is one thing with these packs that didn't go exactly as we planned. When we sent them to print we'd asked for all of the cards to be randomised, as you'd expect when you open any kind of sealed booster product. What we weren't told until after they arrived is that the randomisation available for an order this size wasn't the full machine randomisation that we thought it would be. The cards in these packs have all been randomised, but it was via what they called 'manual random packing'. This means that they were done by hand, and as a result a few of the packs that I've opened have contained 3-4 of the same attribute. Thankfully I haven't seen duplicates of the same card in packs, but from what we've opened it appears like a portion of the packs may be biased towards a single attribute due to the randomisation method.

We did talk with the printer once we noticed this, but it's not something they can do anything about as with the numbers of Hero Packs that we ordered, this was the only way they can do the randomisation.

We apologise that this it the case, but we do want to say that:
- This will in no way affect the It's a Wild World booster boxes and packs, as they far exceed the minimum number of cards they need in order to do full machine randomisation.
- Although some of the packs have the single-attribute bias, there are still exactly the same number of each card spread among the set so it's unlikely that it will lead to people opening multiple packs that are heavy in one attribute.

 

How do I get my hands on these packs?

The big question! They're currently here in our office, and all of you have 2 options. 

1 - You can get the Hero Packs shipped out early, and receive them soon. If you choose this option it will require you to pay the shipping fee to send them out (roughly £3-12 for most counties, but it will be detailed in the survey).

2 - You can wait for the full product release, and they'll be shipped alongside your full pledge. This won't cost any extra shipping, as they'll be posted along with everything else that you're due to receive.

We will be sending everyone a survey in the near future to allow you to select which option you wish to take.

Additionally we have the League Promo cards from our tournament on hand and ready to ship, and for those of your who are eligible for them we can ship them alongside your Hero Packs. Everyone who entered the event should be in the Discord server, so please keep an eye out for an upcoming announcement.

 

What about those cool uncut sheets in those pictures?

We have a limited number of these that we requested alongside the packs, and we plan to give them out! How exactly? We suggest that you follow us on our Social Media pages and keep an eye out for some upcoming giveaways! We will be sure to announce them here when we run them, but you'll need to be following us on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter (X), or be part of our Discord server to enter.

 

How's progress going with It's a Wild World, and the Starter Decks?

We are still working to finish up the artwork for the set at the moment, and that's the main thing we're waiting on now. We're getting there, but with artists only able to work on a single piece at a time we did underestimate the amount of time that it would take to get the hundreds of pieces or art that we needed for the set.

Whilst we wait for this, all of the finished cards that we currently have are being prepared for printing, so that there will be minimal downtime once we have all of the cards ready. We're also in constant contact with the printer, so once the artwork is all finished and we have all the cards prepared correctly, it shouldn't be a long wait to get into the print queue.

 

So! Please keep an eye out on our social media pages and on your e-mail inboxes in the coming days and weeks. We will of course post here once the surveys have been sent out too, as we don't want anyone to miss the chance to get their packs early!

 

Take care of yourselves, and please enjoy this gif showing off the fancy foiling exclusive to the Hero Pack cards!

- Monster Channel