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The most amazing mystery backer in our Kickstarter campaign

kickstarter funding progress bilder sudden jump at the end

How MysteryAngel87 saved our Kickstarter campaign

It was 2 hours before the deadline of our Kickstarter campaign, we’re 90% funded with €13,500 of €15,000 pledged. Dries and I both assumed that it was over. We did everything we could to get this Kickstarter campaign funded, but it was time to face the music.

With only 2 hours to go, we would need €1,500 in pledges or an additional 25 backers at €60 per pledge. We couldn’t fund the Kickstarter campaign ourselves: not only is it against the Kickstarter rules, we also wouldn’t have the money required to fund a first production run. So we started sending emails to our manufacturers and suppliers that, alas, the campaign wasn’t successful and that perhaps we’d do a relaunch next year…

Deus Ex Machina!

…then suddenly we received an email from Kickstarter.

Bilder on kickstarter

huh, wait… WHAT? How is that even possible?!

It turned out to be a huge pledge from a single unidentified backer with no nickname, but a very appropriate email address:

mysterysangel87@gmail.com

mystery guest

Who could be responsible for such a thing? Was it one of our parents, friends or family members, or just a cruel joke? We didn’t even consider the fact that this could be a benevolent benefactor.

The emotional rollercoaster

We did what everyone would do in this situation, we lost our cool and called EVERYBODY we knew. Everybody denied any involvement, some were even offended that we would consider them a ‘suspect’.

We were up €15,087 with 30 minutes to go…

…when 15 minutes before the end, a backer cancelled their €50 pledge…

canceled pledge 50 euro on kickstarter

If one (1) more backer would cancel within those last 15 minutes, everything could still fall apart.

Palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy, mom’s spaghetti.

5 minutes before the campaign deadline, Dries could no longer cope ?

Payment failed?!

The campaign ended with only €37 on top of the funding goal. But funded nonetheless! Kickstarter started charging all credit cards…

Yet another twist upon twist: Mysteryangel87’s payment didn’t come through! At this point we were on the floor after the wildest emotional rollercoaster ride of our lives.

It seemed like the worst case scenario: a funded Kickstarter campaign where we promised backers a great game, but €1,500 short for a production run.

We suspected malevolence, ill will, foul play. I know you expected more of us since there were 260 kind-hearted people who just pledged to our Kickstarter but our emotions got the better of us. We decided to send Mysterysangel87 a message through Kickstarter:

text

The response was swift:


Hooooozah! We pinched ourselves blue and couldn’t believe what had just happened. Still can’t fully grasp what, how and especially why this occured.

Setting the record straight

This post seems to revolve around a single backer, making it seem like he’s the only one responsible for the success of our Kickstarter campaign. Just to clarify:

WE ARE ETERNALLY GRATEFUL TO ALL 225 BACKERS.

The Kickstarter community consists of some of the most amazing people out there. Their continued support means everything to us and a lot of other creators who couldn’t exist without them. ????

Unravelling the identity of the MYSTERYSANGEL87

Is this person a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma? Let’s put on our deerstalker hats, get out our magnifying glasses and use our powers of deduction.

  1. The email address is MYSTERYSANGEL87: 87 could be a random number or it could refer to the year of birth, making this patron 30 or 31 years old
  2. Google Analytics shows that this pledge originated from Belgium, the browser language was set to nl-nl (Dutch).
  3. The message on Kickstarter was written in perfect English. The messages was signed with ‘benevolent benefactor’, not the easiest words in the English language
  4. When we first saw the pledge, we tweeted a screenshot and asked ‘is this some sort of joke?’. The message through Kickstarter started with ‘this is not a joke’. That might indicate this person follows us on Twitter.
  5. The pledge was made 30 minutes before the end of the campaign so this person must have followed our campaign closely.

 

That’s it… That’s all we’ve got so far. We sent another message through Kickstarter thanking this backer from the bottom of our hearts. No response to date.

Help us unravel this mystery. All clues or tips are welcome. We need to catch this guy or girl and give him or her a piece of our… heart! ❤️

Bring out the Sherlock Poirot inside of you and send us a message if you have any hot leads!

Did you know?

The perp has never been caught!

  1. help us catch him or her!
  2. reward for golden tip
  3. we love mysteriesangel
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Making party games, good ones!

Dennis and dries playing a party game and having fun

Monkeyshine: making party games, good ones!

Call us MONKEYSHINE games from now on

We have a new name, one that says ‘mischief’, ‘buffoonery’, and other general shenanigans. Seemed a perfect fit for 2 Belgian boys making mostly party games. We started of as ‘Deer Lord Games’, named after our firstborn son the party card game that started all of this, but that name no longer cuts it because we have…

New party games in the pipeline

The reason why we are updating our name (and site, and logo, and everything) is because we have new games coming up! We’ll probably crowdfund them through Kickstarter, like we did with Deer Lord.

We super duper sincerely hope that you’ll love our games as much as we do, so test them out, back ’em, and let us know what you think!

>> We’ll be launching our next game Bilder 1st of July, but you can download a finished prototype right here.

What kind of games can you expect from us?

We like the call them ‘party games’, but in a slightly different way than how Board Game Geek defines it. So what do we at Monkeyshine think a party game should be?

  • creative: think pictionary, time’s up, dixit, games where you have to use your imagination instead of following a strict set of rules (we devoted a whole post to this)
  • dynamic: party games are all about social interaction between players and create a lively atmosphere.
  • straightforward: games with a logical set rules that you’re able to learn in under 5 minutes
  • good-looking: maybe you’ve noticed that we put a lot of work into the design of our games? …not really a requirement for the ‘party game’ label but let’s face it, definitely a plus.

We make the kind of games that can take up the whole night, but also serve as great pregame. Feel free to turn them into a drinking game (though alcohol is definitely not required to play/enjoy them), use them for your bachelorette or stag party, or as a casual game to break the ice.

created by these 2 primates:

dries de geyter monkeyshine about page

Dries De Geyter

Dennis Lippens monkeyshine about page

Dennis Lippens

bilder print and play pdf preview

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  1. PDF files with cards to print -cut- play
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  3. Completely free


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how to prototype board games with a laser cutter

lasercutting board game prototyping

A makerspace (also known as techshops, makerlabs or fablabs) is a place where you can make use of new technologies, such as lasercutters and 3D printers, and the knowhow of its community members to create pretty much anything you want. In our case, that’s prototypes for upcoming games!

In ‘The Sound of Sirens’, you control merfolk of different musical genres to lure ships to their death. Initially, these ships were just playing cards, face-up on the table, but we wanted to make things a little more exciting. So we designed 3D ships that serve as ‘card holders’, turning the playing cards into billowing sails. It all works on tension and friction, so no glue necessary (keeping the cards nice and tidy)

lasercut-ships

ship-assembly

Before you start lasercutting, there’s 4 things you need to check

Step 1: warm up your machine

We used a BRM LASERCUTTER 120X90 (100 W)

lasercut BRM machine

Step 2: check your materials

We used plywood with thickness 3.4mm or 1.4 inches

measure tool

Step 3: prep and download your files

The 2 important parameters when laser cutting are

  • Speed: how quickly the laser moves
  • Power: how strong the laser beams

Even at incredible speeds, this lasercutter is still accurate to 0.1 millimeter. But faster speeds also mean less energy can be released on a single point. This means that sometimes the material isn’t cut all the way through and you have to start over.

Proper testing before you start is vital! Try and cut a small circle out of your material with a preset speed & power and see whether you get through all the way and how easy it is to punch out the pieces. Adjust speed and power accordingly, until you reach the desired result. Only then start cutting your actual project.

Step 4: set the origin point

We use the software Lasercut 5.3

Lacercut program preview

The blue dot in the top right corner represents the origin point. That’s how you tell the laser cutter where to start cutting.

Step 5: Cut away!

…then, cut away! But if you need some more in-depth info about the process, and some guidelines don’t be afraid to ask!

lasercutting game pieces for prototyping 10x speed
bilder print and play pdf preview

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  1. lasercut AND pdf files with components & cards to print -cut- play
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Don’t Get Me Started Gameplay

Don’t Get Me Started is the best game for haters

A game for pessimistic cynical killjoys who can turn every conversation into a real downer. Draw cards with topics ranging from easy to hard to complain about and go on a rant while others try to predict your negative personality. Get ready to place your sticks in the mud because your whining can finally be useful!

DGMS-Gif-Dries

GET THE GAME

You can get the Print & Play in our shop.
New and improved look and everything!

Gameplay example

Liz starts as the ‘hater’. Jenna, Tracy, and Jack are ‘know-it-alls’.

Liz draws the top card from the topic deck and reads it out loud:

airline companies
airplane food
the miracle of flight.

The know-it-alls pick a random difficulty card and share the result amongst themselves and keep it hidden from the hater. It was the card so the topic is ‘airplane food’. The hourglass is turned over. Liz can already start thinking (in silence!) about things to hate about all 3 topics. Jenna, Tracy and Jack use their notepads to individually write down what they hate about airplane food. When the time is up, the know-it-alls will have come up with several reasons, but don’t reveal them just yet.

The know-it-alls now reveal that the topic is ‘airplane food’ () and the hourglass is turned over again, as Liz now gets 30 seconds to rant and name everything she hates about airplane food (as many reasons as she can list).

dont get me started party game

Liz: “Don’t get me started on airplane food! It tastes and smells horrible when they serve it to you. The plastic cutlery is flimsy and breaks easily. It’s very wasteful since nobody ever eats the darn thing. Erm… On top of that, it’s waytoo expensive!”

 

hourglass runs out

time’s up!

Everyone reveals what they wrote down (see table).

Jenna

  • tastes bad
  • too hot / too cold
  • can’t open peanuts

Jack

  • tastes bad
  • always cold
  • too expensive

Tracy

  • horrible taste
  • limited choices

Each argument that was guessed, earns one point (for both the hater and the know-it-all). So this round, Tracy and Jenna both earn 1 point, Jack and Liz both earn 2 points.

The game continues with the next hater, until everyone has ranted 3 times. Count points and declare the hateful winner.

Alternative rules

You don’t like these rules? Well, you really are the perfect player for Don’t Get Me Started, aren’t you. But also, here are some alternative ways to play the game .

More examples of cards

Here are some more cards and rants of ACTUAL people (most def not robots). The views expressed here are not the views of the people running this website. No sirie bob.

In contrast to the examples here, only one topic per card will be chosen during the game.

losing things (easy): Don’t get me started about losing things! Why can’t my good-for-nothing brain ever remember where I put things? Try looking for your glasses if you can’t see straight. It’s infuriating when people ask you ‘where did you see ’em last?’ I don’t remember, that’s the whole point!

dropping things (medium): Don’t get me started about dropping things! peanut butter & jelly sandwiches always fall face-down. Things always break when you drop them on the floor… Bags rip open at the worst possible time… And can anyone please make a pair of pants with pockets that don’t immediately ejects car keys as soon as you sit in a car?

finding things (hard): Don’t get me started about finding things! You can never find what your looking for and when you do find something that was lost, you no longer have any use for it. When you do find something its usually broken or worthless. I should find a briefcase full of money, but instead I only find broken dreams and empty promises!

the apocalypse (easy): Don’t get me started about the apocalypse. Why aren’t there 4 horseWOMAN of the apocalypse and more importantly: why hasn’t it happened yet? Very disappointed in the Mayans and all prophecies for that matter, come true damn you! Also, ‘Apocalypse Now’ was overrated.

zombies (medium): Don’t get me started about zombies. They’re all so stupid, they walk too slowly, die too easily. And what’s up with them wanting to eat brains so badly? That’s the worst tasting part of the body… They should also learn to not only walk in a straight line and maybe duck for cover once in a while.

shotguns (hard): Don’t get me started about shotguns. They are the reason I can never ride in the front of the car. Furthermore, they take too long to reload and have no range whatsoever. When you’re up and close they make it too easy: you don’t even have to put any effort in aiming anymore. You just point in the general direction of the thing you no longer want to exist, and pull the trigger. LAME!

abductions (easy): Don’t get me started about abductions. They take you somewhere you don’t want to go, then you have to stay there maybe. I don’t really like strangers touching me. They might ask for ransom and your dollar value might disappoint or your loved ones might not pay up. Writing letters with newspaper letters also seems like a long and inefficient process.

aliens (medium): Don’t get me started about aliens. When are they going to get here? Why don’t they tell us where they’re hiding? In movies they are either abducting us or killing us.

spaceships (hard): Don’t get me started about spaceships. The typical rounded top window must give a terrible view of what’s bellow you. The flickering dashboard of lights seems very confusing. They should stop landing in cornfields to confuse us. Unnecessarily cruel.

GET THE GAME

You can get the Print & Play in our shop.
New and improved look and everything!

Rant over!

If this were a game night, we’d be tallying up the scores and crowning a winner as the other players pretend to be happy for them.

But did you know there are many ways to play Don’t Get Me Started? Some don’t even require keeping track of answers and score, or you could even flip the entire game on its head and make it all about LOVE instead 🙂

DGMS-Gif-Dennis
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independent Bilder reviews and opinions from many different blogs!

bilder review header image

We are absolutely in love with Bilder but we’re biased. Maybe you should listen to what professional board game reviewers have to say…

But if you need a second opinion, or a third, or fourth, we got you covered:

“Where BILDER stands out is in its ability to unlock your imagination, asking you to turn an innocuous piece of wood into a lightning bolt, a snake, ocean waves, a staircase, a sword from Minecraft, or whatever else may suit your fancy to get your point across (…) It encourages creativity, and exercises mental muscles that many adults could stand to use more often.”

~Dyan – Women Like Board Games

“If you enjoy games like Concept or Imagine you’re going to love Bilder. It’s a huge amount of fun, there’s lots of variety in the cards and pieces, and lots of replay value.”

~Chris – Casual Game Revolution

“Bilder will be the next family night, fun time game that everyone will be able to get together & enjoy. Bilder is fun, complex, & will get the imagination flowing in each & every person that plays no matter how old they are.”

~Christoph – Boardgaming FTW

“Oh you thought it would be easy to build a ‘bank’ and get your friends to guess it? Well hold on to your hardhat bilder Bob because Bilder turns everything on its head. This game is packed full of laughs and creativity that will be sure to bring everyone to the table time and time again.”

~Christina and Robb – Blue Peg, Pink Peg

“We had such a laugh when we were playing it. It was hilarious, we were cracking up, nearly in tears”

~Brian – Cloak and Meeple

So there you have, straight from the horses’ mouths. Now, if you haven’t already, you should really check out our page

READ MORE about deer lord
bilder print and play pdf preview

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Meet the Stars of the Sirenade Festival

Meet the Stars of the Sirenade Festival

*thump thump thump…*

“…is this mic on? Oh, good.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemerms! I don’t know about you, but for me it’s been a loooong slumber! Are you ready for the greatest music festival of the seven seas???”

*the crowd cheers in anticipation*

“As you all know, the Sirenade festival has been a merfolk tradition for centuries! Some of our ancestors dared to defy us by crawling out of the ocean and starting a new life on land. Pretty soon, they had forgotten about their origins! But every hundred years, we give them a show that will make them remember… At least until they crash!”

*the crowd roars excitedly*

“And tonight is the night for our centennial event. The four siren clans will send out their biggest, their baddest, their toughest, their meanest school of sirens. Only one clan will be able to crash a human ship, and crown themselves as supreme rulers of the ocean!

The show is about to get underwater, but before we get to tonight’s main event, let’s meet the heroes that were carefully selected to represent each clam, in their search for ultimate victory!”

“Deemed by many to possess the most beautiful voice of her generation, she sings the most soothing songs to be heard across the entire waterwaves. But as her name suggests, she is also arguably the most relentless!

Here comes the godmother of ballads. Champion of three consecutive Sirenade races. She drags the works of Baithoven and Moshark to dazzling new depths!”

“Please welcome… Madrowna!“

Mermaid_ballad

*the crowd squeaks and flaps its fins in unison*

“Good eeeeveniiiing! I am soooo happy to perfoooorm a sonaaaaata by Debluesea for yooooou toniiiight…”

“Our second contender for the crown single-leggedly invented a new musical genre: Plunge Rock. He has broken all records with his band Piranha. His will be a tough shell to crack!”

“Here comes the one… The only… Kurt Cobbler!”


*several fish in the front row go belly-up*

“Are you okay, guppies…? Hey man! Give those ladies some water to breathe!

It’s gonna be a gnarly show tonight! Don’t forget: Plunge is a lifestyle, bro! We’re gonna show those sailors the meaning of hard rocks, up close and personal! Party on, dudes!”

“The next representative requires little introduction. He has been a legend of the seas for many centuries. Producing famous albums by Claminem and Whale-I-Am that went mother of pearl in under a week…

All the way from the coral reefs of Jamaica, performing for you alongside his ensemble The Whalers, he is the Freshwater Prince..”

Bob Marlin!

Mermaid_rap

*several octopuses completely lose their ink*

“Braddaaaaas and sistaaaas! You want to lure some sailors, yah? Da secret is, you gotta catch dem on dee off beat! Ya kno’, I been doin’ dis a loooong time, man. Ain’t nuttin’ but a matta o’ time before da squids take over dis competishan!”

“And last but not least… The role model that all guppies aspire to! Scoring hit after hit from the Pacific to the Indian… No sailor can resist her call!

Making the water boil and hitting 1 million followers on Bubblegram just last week… Here with her band The Sponge Girls…“

It’s Geri Halibut!“

Mermaid_pop
*A thousand clamshells flash as she poses for the crowd*

“Hey y’all! Ballads are like, sooo outdated?! And did you see the slimy tentacles on that squid? Ewww! Hard rock, huh? Whatever! Pop songs are like, the bomb!

It’s time for the new generation to like, you know, set the rules and stuff! Let’s sparkle and shine… You with me, girls?!”

“Who will win the race of the century? Who has best practiced their scales? What else does the line-up for the Sirenade festival have in store? Sign up quickly to stay notified of all the news surrounding the Sirenade festival! And let us know who YOU will be rooting for!”

Complete game of the “Sound of Sirens” in your mailbox?

  1. PDF files with cards to print -cut- play
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  3. Completely free

Choose your game(s)

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how to create creative games

Here at Monkeyshine, we go bananas for creative games.

Because here’s the thing: if you leave enough room for imagination, people will come up with ways to tackle challenges you would have never thought of yourself. Pictionary is the most well-known example of such a creative game, but there are plenty of titles that use a similar game mechanic and take it to the next level.

Continue reading “how to create creative games”