Thank you! Here's what's next.
11 months ago – Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 08:07:44 PM

When we launched the Picky Eaters campaign on July 11, we had no idea what to expect. We had barely slept thanks to a very-delayed flight, a week at Dice Tower East in Orlando, and adrenaline. We were excited, nervous, and extremely anxious.

One month later, on August 10, we have ended our Picky Eaters campaign with a bang: you — 1,573 backers — helped us raise $75,163, 1503% of our $5000 funding goal.

Wow.

To Alex Hoskins, our amazing artist, thank you for being up for the challenge of bringing our idea to life. To our reviewers, thank you for taking a chance on a debut company and previewing our little game. To our family and friends, thank you for being understanding, patient, and loving as we brought Picky Eaters to life.

And to our backers, our deepest gratitude. We are absolutely floored and overwhelmed by your support!

What's next for backers 

We are using BackerKit as our pledge manager. For those of you who have never used a pledge manager before, it's a way for us to communicate with backers and streamline the shipping process.

Here's how it will work:

First, you will receive an email from BackerKit in a few weeks to confirm your pledge and add any additional items you would like. To confirm your pledge, simply reply to the email. At this time, you will also be able to add additional items or request a different edition of Picky Eaters from the one you pledged, should you have changed your mind. At this time, you are good to go, and we will be hard at work mass-producing your games and getting them ready to ship.

Later on, when we are ready to ship your games:

You will receive an email from EasyShip Collect about 2-3 weeks before we're ready to ship. 

You were charged an estimated shipping cost during our campaign. Due to the current volatility of shipping costs, there may be a remaining balance for your shipping costs. You will take care of that with EasyShip Collect. Final shipping costs will be based on actual shipping costs incurred. This will allow us to present the most accurate and up-to-date prices to pass savings on to you, our valued backers.

In the EasyShip Collect email, you will be able to:

• Choose from three different carriers: Cheapest, Fastest, Hybrid.
• Pay for taxes and duties (if due) on the spot to avoid delays.
• Have the ability to add shipping insurance to the package.

We cannot provide an accurate estimate of sales tax / VAT total since charges vary by location and the total price of the order plus shipping costs. These rates will be determined accurately by our shipping manager. The full sales tax /VAT will be charged on Easyship Collect before final shipping confirmation.

Didn't get a chance to back us during our Kickstarter campaign? Fret not!

We are using BackerKit as our pledge manager. For those of you who have never used a pledge manager before, it's a way for us to communicate with backers, streamline the shipping process, and — importantly — offer people who might have missed out on the Kickstarter campaign the opportunity to still back us!

To those who want to back us post-Kickstarter campaign, hello and thank you! We are so excited to have your support and interest! It's not too late to back us, and we would love to have you here!

•  If it's after the campaign and you don't see a link that will take you over to BackerKit: Please hold tight. It takes some time for Kickstarter to finish collecting information from our backers and for BackerKit's pledge manager system to kick in. We will be updating our FAQs and social media once everything is in place, so follow us in those places for up-to-date info.
•  If it's after the campaign and you see a link from BackerKit on our main Kickstarter page: Simply click and follow the steps to back our campaign!

*A note that pricing will be different from our initial Kickstarter campaign, as we wanted to offer our thanks to our Kickstarter backers for supporting us from the beginning. The Kickstarter Edition of Picky Eaters will now be $35,  the Deluxe Edition of Picky Eaters (the game, six neoprene player mats, and the player mat storage box) will now be $85, and the 6 copies of the Kickstarter Edition of Picky Eaters will now be $185.

What's next for us

With the success of our first Kickstarter campaign, we are working to move Le Fou forward and keep producing games and entertainment that are accessible, beautiful, and above all, fun.

Our primary focus in the coming months will be to get Picky Eaters to you so you can enjoy the game. Here's our timeline as it stands:

We are also in the process of two projects.

First, and relatedly, is the Picky Eaters expansion campaign, which will include not one, not two, but three Picky Eaters expansions, as well as some other Picky Eaters-related goodies. We absolutely love the Picky Eaters universe (can you blame us?), and we are so excited to expand upon it. We are incredibly proud of these expansions and we think they will truly enhance the game and take it to a whole new level.

Second, and unrelatedly, we are developing a two-player strategic game. We can't talk much about it yet, but we are super excited and cannot wait to show you what we're working on! We can say that it has been so much fun to develop and playtest, and as a couple who primarily plays games with each other, we are ecstatic about the gameplay. Stay tuned! 

A final note

Finally, we want you to know that our priority is to be as communicative and transparent as possible throughout this process. Picky Eaters is our first game and Le Fou is an 8-month-old company, and we are learning the ropes along the way, navigating the complex world of crowdfunding. If you ever have any questions, concerns, or comments, please do feel free to reach out to us. You can reach us via email, our social media (Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook), and, of course, Kickstarter. We love to hear from you!

If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience! We are incredibly excited to get Picky Eaters to you and to launch Le Fou!

With gratitude,

Avi and Tanya

So much news! Freebie for Deluxe backers, Twitch livestream, Tabletopia, and only 3 days left!
11 months ago – Mon, Aug 07, 2023 at 04:47:00 AM

Hello Picky Eaters!

Let's start with a big thank you to the over 1280 of you (and counting!) who have backed Picky Eaters. In the time since we wrote our last update, we've more than doubled our backers. To Picky Eaters backers, old and new, we are so grateful for your support!

There's a lot of news to share here from Picky Eaters HQ so we'll dive right in!

News from Le Fou:

•  We are now on Tabletopia! If you've been wanting to play Picky Eaters, you're in luck! You can now play Picky Eaters digitally on Tabletopia. We've already got a leaderboard established; will you be on it?

•  Tanya will be joining Heather from @boardgamingmama on Twitch this Tuesday, August 8 at 8 pm EST for a livestream chat/game of Picky Eaters! We met Heather at Dice Tower East last month when we demoed Picky Eaters. She is a joy to hang out with and super supportive, so bring a snack and watch us play Picky Eaters on Tuesday evening! 

• Last week, we announced on our Instagram and Twitter that the Picky Eaters Deluxe Pledge will now include a FREE storage box to keep your player mats all in one convenient, Picky Eaters-themed package. That's right, FREE for all Deluxe Pledge backers! (The 6-mat add-on bundle will also come with this storage box!)

As avid board gamers with a lot of playmats ourselves, we know how frustrating it can be to store them neatly. We received many questions from you about a storage solution for the Picky Eaters player mats, and it was a no-brainer to include a storage box for our Deluxe Edition backers. We got in touch with Panda, our manufacturer, and our wonderful artist, Alex, who mocked up a box right away. How cool is this set?

So if you wanted to get a Deluxe Pledge of Picky Eaters but opted for a Kickstarter Edition pledge because you didn't want your player mats flopping around and/or are now tempted by our storage box to get the Deluxe Pledge, upgrade to our Deluxe Pledge now! The FREE box is only available for Deluxe Pledge backers (or when buying bundles of 6 mats as an add-on) and will keep all of your double-stitched, neoprene player mats snug and protected from all your fellow picky eaters! These prices will only be available during our Kickstarter campaign, so don't wait for the pledge manager to upgrade!

Just 3 days left!

There are only 3 short days left to back Picky Eaters. You're receiving this update because you've already generously supported Picky Eaters. We would love to go out with a bang! If you know someone who would love Picky Eaters, share our Kickstarter with them!

If your favorite picky eater needs convincing this game is for them, here's a TikTok from one of our reviewers, Rozie from @cozyboardgames, that captures the joy, strategy, and yes, deliciousness of Picky Eaters!

Want more Picky Eaters content? Check out our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and our website, where you can also sign up for our newsletter. We have lots of things in the works here at Le Fou: We're in the midst of working on not one, not two, but three Picky Eaters expansions, as well as developing a new game that we are super excited to share more details about soon. You don't want to miss out!

As always, let us know if you have any questions or thoughts. For those of you traveling back from Gen Con, safe travels! Have a wonderful week, and happy picky eating!

Tanya and Avi

Project we love:

Obojima Tales From the Tall Grass

We here at Le Fou are big fans of Studio Ghibli and Legend of Zelda. So when we heard about this 250-page D&D campaign combining those worlds, we were intrigued! Obojima Tales from From the Tall Grass immerses players with lush illustrations, journals, and a potion and ingredient deck (hmmm, wonder what our Picky Eater guests would think of these?). Check out their Kickstarter campaign, going on right now!

Picky Eaters is nearly 500% funded!
12 months ago – Fri, Jul 21, 2023 at 10:08:44 AM

Happy Friday, picky eaters!

Hope you all had a lovely week full of delicious food adventures!

It's been 10 days since we launched and we are nearly 500% funded! We're excited to bring this update to the nearly 500 of you who have backed Picky Eaters so far.

First and foremost, thank you to all of you who have backed Picky Eaters. This project has been a labor of love (and lots of snacks, of course) and we are grateful for your support as we launch Le Fou. We are in the midst of developing our second game and creating expansions for the Picky Eaters universe, so your support not only means that we can bring Picky Eaters to you, but lots of fun content to come!

A few notes to share:

• We kicked off this campaign without a pledge manager. However, we decided to partner with BackerKit as our pledge manager. We're excited to work with them moving forward with Picky Eaters. Most importantly, we hope this makes the campaign process smoother and easier for you, our backers!
• Kickstarter named us a Project We Love!

• As of this email, we are SO CLOSE to 500 backers. We're at 488 backers right now -- help push us to 500 backers by the end of today, Friday, July 21!
• If you'd like to win a deluxe pledge of Picky Eaters (and who wouldn't?!), our friend Ryan Seedorf over at @themeeple_among_people on Instagram is hosting a WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY on his page. Enter by tomorrow (Saturday, July 22) for a chance to win! See Ryan's Instagram post for details on how to enter. Good luck!

• We've received some questions about our neoprene mats. They are strictly cosmetic, but we think they add a lot to the game experience for two reasons. First, they offer a fantastic table presence. During playtesting and demoing, we have gotten a lot of comments about how the playmats not only immerse players into the Picky Eaters world but also offer a visually clear way to organize players' recipes. Second, the neoprene mats are high-quality. Every neoprene mat is sturdily stitched along its borders and features beautiful art by Alex Hoskins.

Check out Quest Tower, a puzzle escape room, from our friends at EscapeWelt!

Yep, you read that right: puzzle escape room, three words that definitely pique our interest, and may be something you're into as well! We recently came across Quest Tower, a puzzly escape room that comes in a box. Each tier promises a more intricate experience, so you can exercise your brain in lots of twisty, fun ways. Plus, have you seen how cool Quest Tower looks? We backed this project and plan to showcase our Quest Tower on our coffee table!

If you're curious, check out the Quest Tower Kickstarter right now!

Know a picky eater who would love Picky Eaters? Tell them about our Kickstarter! 

We're thrilled at the response we've gotten and want to keep sharing the joy and fun of Picky Eaters with the world. So if you know someone who is a picky eater, loves strategy and competition, and/or would love Picky Eaters, share our Kickstarter with them, or share this update with them!

What makes Picky Eaters so delicious:

Want more Picky Eaters content? Check out our Instagram, Twitter,  Facebook, and our website, where you can also sign up for our newsletter.

As always, let us know if you have any questions or thoughts. Have a wonderful weekend, and happy picky eating!

Tanya and Avi

Picky Eaters has funded — thank you!
12 months ago – Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 04:31:10 AM

Hi!

We have big news for our first Kickstarter update — at 2:15 am EST, we funded!

Thank you for supporting Picky Eaters! We are truly so grateful for your belief in our little game, and cannot wait to share Picky Eaters with you early next year!

Let's keep this momentum going! Know a picky eater (or are you a picky eater)? Have friends or know a family who loves fast, strategic card games? Tell them about the Picky Eaters Kickstarter campaign, or forward this email along to them!

As always, check out our website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!

Happy picky eating,

Tanya and Avi