January 2024

Hello fellow Killer Bunnies J2J fans!

Since my last email, there was big news on the Killer Bunnies front, as announced on the Facebook page. For those of you who aren't on the page, CTA has set up a new Killer Bunnies store! Tons of merch (Jonathan was super busy getting all that put together), with access to all boosters, and also my pieces! I was very grateful to Jonathan and Jeff for working with me and being willing to host the storefront for my pieces. 

Before I get into the progress of the last month, I of course want to thank all of you who pre-ordered the newest pieces already. If you haven't seen my pieces on the store yet, you can make your pre-order here: 

https://www.hale-bent.com/killer-bunnies/jupiter-models/markers

As a lifelong Killer Bunnies fan, this has been such a fun project for me. When you pre-order my pieces, it makes it possible for me to bring this vision to life. You already know I'm very passionate about it, and your support allows me to make it even bigger and grander than I would have otherwise done on my own. So thank you for your support, you make all the difference!

Now on to the update!

SHIPS

I've made lots of good progress on these guys. Each of the main 8 colors have one design. The 7 Specialty ships are different, with each having a unique look, making it take longer to design those ones. But all the Beyea Alien ships are the same design, so it balances out in the end. I have at least a rough draft of every single ship at this point (table of progress at the end of the email). I have focused this month on perfecting the sizing for each ship. I had to do a lot of trial-and-error printing to find the perfect balance between playability and visibility. In other words, the smaller the ships are, the better they fit together on the board, but the larger they are, the more visible they become. I think I have finally settled on a good balance. I have at least the Blue ships that are about ready, so here's a sneak peek:

CONNECTIONS

I mentioned it briefly in my previous update, but I've started tackling the biggest engineering challenge of this Tier by pinning down the details of the connection between the ships and the stands. But first you have to know what that means, because the original game didn't distinguish between stands.... 

If I were designing for the original game, I could have just made the stands built-in to each ship. One piece each, print, done. But for the new version, one of the other Alpha Betas had the awesome idea to have the stands match the color of whatever power level your ship is. This has at least two effects: (1) it makes it intuitive to see the power dynamic of the ships on the board; and (2) it makes the ships more visually unique. What I mean by (2) is that your ships each have a name so you can know exactly which ones are yours. However, that name is not what is particularly obvious when you're scanning the board: that would be the color of the ship. There are about 3 of each ship color, so as players are planning strategies, there can be other ships that look the same visually and get confused to be yours. There are 8 different power levels, so it's more likely than not that the ships will be different levels, making it more likely for them to be visually distinct.

What that means for me is that I need to design stands that connect and disconnect to the ships. The connection point is where it gets interesting. My fullest, complete vision of the game includes magnets—having one at the top of each stand and one inside each ship—as well as weights inside each stand for extra stability. This makes gameplay very smooth as you simply have to touch the stands to the ships to connect and then pull to disconnect. However, a whole setup for magnets and weights inside every single stand and ship is not cheap. Even though it's my goal for this ultimate game of all time, it's not easily scalable when it comes to production, so I want to have a version that isn't quite so expensive. I designed a second-best version of the connection that is a screw instead. Without the magnet and weight, this makes production a TON easier, which means I can make that version less expensive. I find the screw makes it just a tad more cumbersome because it takes longer to connect and disconnect each stand, but if you just want to play with 3D ships and don't need the gameplay to be absolutely perfect, then that will work just fine. 

DELUXE VS. ULTRA-DELUXE

This difference between the ultimate vision that I have for the game and the version that's easier to produce is what I'm calling Deluxe and Ultra-Deluxe. This is what each will entail:

Deluxe

• Custom 3D models of each ship, color coded to match their cards

• Colored power-level stands

Ultra-Deluxe

• Everything from deluxe, plus...

• Weighted stands

  • Keeps the ships extra stable. (More details in the next email.)

• Magnets

  • Perfects gameplay by simplifying the process for adding and removing stands from the ships.

• Added colors

  • Some of the ships are best with a bit more of a splash of color. (More details in the next email.)

DELOREAN FIGHTER SQUADRONS

Now THESE guys are interesting! There are 6 Squadrons in the game, each of which has 3 DeLorean Fighters on it. I've modeled a large version of the DeLorean Fighter itself because I thought it would make for a fun desk toy. I've made good progress on sizing it down to be printable on the much smaller scale needed for the game, but there's still more to do. I thought I'd mention it here so I can show you the desk toy I made.

NOTE: what you see in the image will NOT come in any package. It's just for fun. A version that's ten times smaller (but 18 of them) will come in the Ships packages. I'll show that version to you in a month or two.

PROGRESS

I'll leave you with a list of all the pieces I'm designing and my progress on each one. Just in case you forgot what all the statuses mean, here is the key:

Design status

• ROUGH DRAFT: the model is still in its first design.

• REFINED: the model is past its first design but still has at least some tweaks left.

• FINISHED: the model design is done.

  • note: if there is no design status, all the work (including printing work) has been completed for this marker.

Print status

• PRINTED: the model's most recent design has been printed at least once.

• POLISHED: the printing settings for the individual model have been tuned at least some.

• FINAL PRINT: the model's FINISHED design has been printed in full color with all its settings tuned.

  • note: if there is no print status, the model's most recent design has not yet been printed.

I'll see you next month! Thanks for following.

~Hale-Bent