The Penguin Journal

Penguin SLAP! is our first game. Friday we launched our first kickstarter. Saturday was our first time running a booth at a convention. I have so much more respect for people who run booths at conventions. Penguin SLAP! at Boston FIG 2018 Boston FIG was a one-day thing, there's a lot to see, and people get tired after walking around. Each person who passes by might not pass by again, so there's pressure to try and engage every person you can. And there are a lot of people passing by for those eight hours. After the first hour or so you start to get hoarse, but at least by now you've figured out your sales pitch. A few more hours later your feet get sore, then your back from hunching over the table, then you start to realize you haven't eaten and your stomach is starting to growl. Then a little kid comes over and says "look mommy, penguins!" and you forget everything again. It was awesome. We showed our game to tons of people. We had a guestbook...

Tomorrow is the big day, we're going to be showing our game at Boston FIG Fest 2018! Today was the load in. Setting up the booth. We're really excited! We've got art prints, coloring pages, puzzle pages, business cards (featuring the different penguins of course!) as well as the game to demo as people walk by. We're even going to be part of a kids scavenger hunt, after which we'll be giving away a few copies of the game. :) The booth! We arrived in Boston about a week ago, and we travel pretty lightly, so most everything was acquired here this week. The banner was an online order (gotta give 4imprint a plug here, their service was GREAT!) and we brought the art prints with us, pretty much everything else was either printed or purchased here. (A good amount of which was purchased last night. It's hard to shop when you work full time. Each booth gets a vote box. Patrons at the convention get two votes to vote for their favorite games. You...

We're now Low Sodium Games.   You shouldn't be so salty, it's a Low Sodium Game. We previously were called "richCraft," (which was on our old boxart and was the name of our twitch channel) and while the name was a semi-portmanteau of "Rich" and "witchcraft" I thought it was unbalanced how I was in the name and not Jules. We previous started a small company with a salty-sounding name, so we thought to continue the tradition. (For the record, we live near the ocean, hence the "salt" names.) The design is a play on the periodic symbol. Sodium is salt, and sodium's chemical symbol is Na. We made it "Nah" instead of "Na" because we say "Nah" a lot. The atomic number for sodium is 11. This is the logo you'll see on our new website, lowsodiumgames.com , (which is now where penguinslap.com redirects.) We're launching our kickstarter soon! We'll be posting lots of upd...

Penguin SLAP! @ Boston FIG Fest 2018 We're happy to announce we'll be showing our game at Boston FIG Fest 2018! BostonFIG celebrates independent game development in New England, across the United States, and around the globe! They're a non-profit organization that seeks to support and showcase the efforts of independent game developers, as well as youth programs focused on game development and related fields. This year we submitted our game for curation and review, and we were selected to showcase (and potentially sell...) our game to the public! For more info on Boston FIG Fest check out their website at https://www.bostonfig.com/ We're really excited, and of course this means we'll be announcing MORE STUFF in the coming weeks! HYPE!!!

We're constantly looking for new ways to tweak our game to make it more enjoyable for everyone playing. As we've playtested over and over again we've noticed something that occurs occasionally that makes the game, well, less fun. You can get eliminated really early if you decide to play risky or if you're just unlucky. "I just wanted to eat fish." And it's a drag when it happens. The game is about slapping each other and trying to knock each other "out." Sometimes new players will have a very offensive hand and will simply go all out on their first turn without understanding that their attacks can be turned against them  if they aren't careful. They end up starting a slapping back and forth only to run out of cards and get knocked out of the game before they've even had a chance to learn how to play. And that's lame. Polar bear is not so happy about- WHOAAA THEY HAVE BLUE TONGUES It can be argued that high risk/high reward is just in ...

Today I wanted to start a series of posts that focus on some of our "special" cards. Introducing the Fishing Rod! (I was actually torn between "Fishing Rod" and "Fishing Pole," so I asked our followers on facebook which wording they used. Someone ended up messaging me the difference between the two. A fishing "rod" can be cast, whereas a fishing "pole" does not have a reel and cannot be cast.) In Penguin SLAP! each player can only catch fish from the "fishing holes" closest to them. Or, more specifically, you can only draw cards from the two draw piles closest to you. P1 can only draw from those two fishing holes. So in the above example, P1 can only draw from the two draw piles closest to them. The draw piles on the other side of the table are permanently out of reach. But P1 really, really , wants the green fish on the other side of the table. What's a penguin to do? ohh, looks like somebody knows! That's right! You...

We've decided to start a small distribution of fliers to help promote our game. (Well, partially to promote the game, and partially because I like puzzles) Click to enlarge! We're going to travel around to ice cream shops, diners, and cafes and see if we can leave a few of these behind. They'll be free to take, and they'll be available online here too! The Tuxedo Telegraph will contain articles that will give a little more backstory and character to the penguins, while also challenging you with little puzzles. I'll post the answers to the puzzles here before the next issue posts. There currently is no schedule for these (I don't know if it'll be a weekly/monthly/quarterly thing) but I'll keep making them as long as I have time to.

Hey everyone! For the past few months Jewlz and I have been focusing very heavily on our day jobs and because of that haven't been able to focus on Penguin SLAP! as much as we'd like. Unfortunately we weren't able to give the giveaway the attention it needed and as a result  nobody donated.  So, we're going to include Jewlz's "Breath of the Penguin" painting in a future drawing/giveaway of some sort. Later on in the year we still plan on doing a gaming marathon to raise money for the kids at Shands, so keep an eye out for that and for a chance to win "The Legend of Egg: Breath of the Penguin!"

We're happy to announce we'll be doing Extra Life again this year! For the second year in a row, we're raising money for Shands Children's Hospital! Last year we blew past our expectations. I set our goal for a mere $100, and by the end of the livestream (and chicken dancing) we had raised $430!! We're starting earlier this year, so we plan on beating last year's amount by quite a bit, but we need your help! We're kicking off this year with something different! Jewlz has done some hand-painted cosplay art, featuring Egg Penguin dressed like a character from a very popular video game that came out this year. For every dollar donated, you'll get one chance at winning her one-of-a-kind, only-one-in-existence painting! The Legend of Egg: Breath of the Penguin Donate at: tinyurl.com/pengiuinslapcharity The drawing will be held on June 30th! IMPORTANT!: Unfortunately, if you donate as anonymous you won't be eligible for the drawing since, well, we won'...

New cards! We've revamped our card art to make the game more visually interesting and easier to understand! From old to new! We've added: - Icons! Some cards (like the Ice Cap above) have icons in the upper left instead of text now. - Detailed rules! While trying to be as concise as possible, I've put text on every card that resolves all of the common questions playtesters asked while playing. - Discard Rules! If a card can be discarded to slap, it now says so in an elongated bubble on the bottom of the card. - Action Banners! Cards now have a banner in the upper left that states if the card is played as an action, reaction, anytime, or as equipment. This helps players know quickly if they can play a reaction when slapped (and when to play cards in general) - Action Symbols! Green cards now have action symbols that give you an at-a-glance as to what they do. For example, the Old Boot above has a hand of cards with a "+1" letting you know it lets you hold one more ...

Here's where Penguin SLAP is in it's development! We're currently doing a "Who's that Penguin?" series on our Facebook page.  It features the Penguin Personas from our game in the style of a popular monster-catching franchise from the 90s. WHO'S THAT PENGUIN!? Today we're submitting Penguin SLAP! as an entry for the 2017 Cardboard Edison Award. Submissions are judged based on engagement, originality of theme, and originality of mechanics.  To be eligible, the game cannot be available through any retailer or kickstarter before March 2017. Our game mechanics and theme are completely original, let's hope the judges feel engaged playing it! We've submitted Penguin SLAP! to boardgamegeek.com  We're currently waiting for the admins to review our submission before we get indexed on the site. The Penguin Personas have their own video series!   Each week on our youtube channel  we're releasing a speedpaint video that goes th...

After 3 days of fundraising we BLEW through our goal of $100, raising an  ASTONISHING,  INCREDIBLE,  $429 You guys blew his mind with your kindness THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED! 100% of the $429 goes directly to Shands Children's Hospital in Gainesville, Florida! Near the end of day 2 we promised to do a Penguin-themed-chicken-dance if we raised $250. Behold, in all of it's glory:   We can't thank everyone enough for their support and contributions, for sharing the page with their friends and family. Without all of your support... we'd just be a bunch of goofy penguins playing games. Thank you. (OH, also, the donation link is still active if you want to donate! tinyurl.com/penguinslapcharity !)

You can also donate RIGHT NOW BY CLICKING HERE! We're getting closer to November and our Extra-Life fundraiser for Shands Children's Hospital! We've been working on organizing and have settled on 3 days where we'll be gaming for 8 hours each. Friday, Nov 18 (3-11pm) - Indie Card Games, Board Games, and Couch Co-op Games. Saturday, Nov 19 (1-9pm) - Retro and Competitive Video Games, Mulitplayer Board Games. Sunday, Nov 20 (1-9pm) - Dungeons and Dragons. We'll ALSO be playing a round or two of Penguin SLAP! on all three days, so keep an eye out! dis beby penguin is so essited. On Friday the 18th we're planning on playing games such as Discount Salmon , Coup , Affordable Space Adventures , Pikmin 3 , and Nintendoland . If we can get enough people to join in (and the machines for it) I'd also like to try Artemis Space Bridge Simulator. OG Stevie Strow's Family Friendly Video Game Showcase On Saturday the 19th we'll be hanging out with Original Gamer S...

We're proud to announce our participation in the Extra Life fundraiser this year! Shands Childrens hospital has a NICU for newborns, like the Egg Penguin. This November we're going to have a 24-hour gaming marathon (spread out across a few days) to raise money for University of Florida's Shands Children's Hospital. ALL proceeds from the fundraiser go DIRECTLY to the hospital! Of course, you don't HAVE to wait until the marathon, if you want to donate to Shands Children's Hospital, you can do it here right now. During the marathon we're going to play card games, board games, computer games, and console games! As indie game developers we'll focus on some of our favorite indies and, of course, we'll also be playing Penguin SLAP! Keep an eye out in November for details on when we're doing the live-steam marathon!

There are currently nine Penguin Personas scheduled to be in the final game. From time to time, we're going to spotlight one and do a write up on how we came up with the idea for it and it's journey from inception to completion! Our first spotlight is the Emperor Penguin! (This is the part where you go to facebook and share out post.) When coming up with the Penguin Personas the initial idea was to use the various species of existing penguins. (Emperor, Rockhopper, Little Blue, Galapagos, Adelie, etc.) In the planning stages, the first drafts of the Emperor penguin were of exaggerated Emperor penguins. But they felt a bit bland and predictable. Everyone expects a guy with a larger-than-life personality to be larger-than-life. ...so we made him tiny. Instead of being an Emperor penguin (the largest species of penguin on earth) we made him a little blue penguin (the smallest.) From first draft to final Something about a bossy one-foot-tall penguin seemed absolutely ridiculous and...

Dr. Strangepenguin or: I Should Not Have Access to Photoshop. We wanted to kickstart in October. Kickstarting in early October means the kickstarter ends early November, which means we get our funds before November ends, which means if we order the shipments immediately people can get the game in time for Christmas or whatever winter holiday they may celebrate. Ho, ho, ho, in time for Christmas! That was the plan, but printing a game is expensive ...and shipping is slow. In order to print the game affordably we need to sell quite a few more copies of the game than originally planned. That's workable, but we'll need to scramble to advertise and get the word out. Then the shipping hit the fan. Card printing companies print in China. China is far away. Shipping from China takes about two weeks. We want to make sure the card print quality is good, so we're printing test decks from several large-scale (Chinese) printing companies. (We even found some American ones! ...that pri...

This weekend we received our first test prints! We ordered two decks. Complete with quick rules cards! Penguin Personas and fish cards! The artwork is getting really close to final! We'll be taking these to board game cafes and to meetups to promote the game! 

So this labor day weekend we printed out a card sheet of our latest art. It's crazy to see how far the game has come! The upper temp art has been replaced with much cleaner final art. (The new prints have some black holdout edges around them) Look at all that detail! Below are some of the Penguin Personas we've been working on. It's been a while since our first test print, so since then I've had to scribble rule changes and updates onto the old cards. I still want to do some color balancing to make the penguins pop off the background more and some of the artwork is still in-progress, but the cards are just about there for the promotional print. We plan on doing a give away for a free copy of the promotional edition of the game on Facebook! If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, like/follow us on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/penguinslapgame/ And you can also subscribe to our email list to get notified when the Kickstarter goes live next month!...

We're getting close to finishing the card art! Here's what some of the card backs look like! In Penguin SLAP! there are 4 different colors of fish cards. Each color does something different! There are multiple draw piles, so having a general idea of what the fish cards will do before you pick them up allows you pick the best fish for your hand! The different colors also gives you a general idea of what your opponents are capable of! Watch out for the Yellow cards!

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