What's up, Abducktion Interns? 

It's been a busy holiday season at Evan & Josh's Very Special Games Company, but we finally have an Abducktion update that's more than just words! 

Click here if you prefer unboxing in video format.

The very first copy has landed at Josh's house. (No ducks were harmed in transport.) This is basically the manufacturer's test run to make sure we're 100% happy with everything.  

Check it out, future Abducktors. (And if you want a copy of the game and haven't pre-ordered yours yet, you can still do it, here.)

If you ordered the base game + expansion, it will come in a combo pack in this fancy sleeve. It's in remarkably good shape despite the fact Josh is a clumsy oaf, and we're very happy with how this turned all glossy and vibrant. 

When you take the boxes out of the sleeve, this is what you'll be looking at. Every time we look at the art, we're even more happy with how our designer translated our poorly described ideas into fun, wonderful images.

The base game box keeps everything nice and tidy in this tray. The expansion pack has one, too, but how many vacuum trays do y'all really want to look at? (ed note: Josh is occasionally very lazy, forgot to take a picture of the expansion pack, sorry.)

 

You'd be surprised how much 2mm matters when you're manufacturing a silicone spaceship that needs to hold upwards of 130 little plastic ducks, but here we are. The UFO is comfortable to reach into, with soft flaps that bend easily, but are thick enough to hold the ducks in when you shake things up. This prototype is in two pieces (you can see the seam along the edge) but your version will be a single, super fun and flexible piece that looks like this:

 

Speaking of ducks: 

The adorable blue, white, yellow, and pink ducks that come in the base game! 

The linen texture on the boards has a great feel and the ducks move around it nicely without it feeling slippery. Seems like we made a good call to go with higher quality linen on all the components, and not just the cards. 

Our designer, Alina, outdid herself with these illustrations — she did a great job making them look like the actual action you'll perform while moving around your ducks! The linen finish is a nice touch too — they'll last through game after game of intense duck maneuvering.

The foil card Stretch Goal was a fun one to hit and these turned out GREAT! The backs are foil all over and we decided to do the front in "spot" foil, with just the ducks and the score having the shiny effect. It keeps the formation instructions and supervisor notes easy to read, and makes the ducks and score stand out nicely.

The expansion pack comes with glitter ducks that were a lot of fun to work through with our manufacturer. We tried several different shades of green and five or six different kinds of glitter before landing on this combination.  We wanted the glitter to give a nice sparkle in the light, but not be ridiculous on your gaming table, and these glitter ducks deliver.

The research pods add a fun layer of strategy to the game in the expansion pack. Again, the linen looks great and these fit perfectly against the board.

Last, but not least, the expansion formation cards: 

Again, foil was a great add. Thanks for the support that got us there!

That's all for now, but we'll be sure to keep you updated on what we're expecting to be a smooth mass production process. 

We hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season!

Evan + Josh

P.S. You can order more copies (or get your first one!) before it's available anywhere else, here.