Lead your colony from surviving to thriving in the grand return of the roll-and-color original, now in super-deluxe physical form.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Retailer Shipping Updated, Waiting on Factory
4 days ago
– Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 07:38:15 AM
Receipt of Digital Proofs, Awaiting Prototypes
We just received the digital proofs for all 16 SKUs in the campaign just a few days ago, and I’ve spent the past few days reviewing them and made some minor corrections to some backs of Meadow and Legacy Edition. Luckily I was able to turn around the few changes that I had within 24 hours.
The factory has had all of our digital files for about a month, but sourcing all the specific Pantone colors for the colored pencils has taken longer than expected. Good news is that they haven't told me to change any of the desired pantones that we were sourcing for all Editions of HYVE (and the bonus 24-pack colored pencils), so that's nice. =)
At this point, we’re still waiting on the factory and their production schedule. We must have a round of prototypes in order to approve mass production, and we’ll be ready to move into mass production as soon as they can fit us in. Since we’re producing a minimum of roughly 20,000 Editions (not including Add-Ons), this is a substantial print run, and the factory will need a large enough opening in its schedule to accommodate it.
Retail-Tier Shipping & Locking the PM here soon
In the meantime, we’ve finalized and updated the retailer shipping pricing. With that now in place, we plan to lock the BackerKit pledge manager and charge cards one week from today, on August 21. Please make sure your pledge, shipping information, and payment method are up to date before then.
We still have 8% of the folks that backed the campaign that haven't filled out their BK survey. Remember, we can't get you your rewards until you fill out the survey!
We hope to have a firmer production update from the factory in the coming weeks, and we’ll share it as soon as we do.
Remember, we'll be locking/charging cards in a week! So if you haven't got into the PM to fill out your survey or are a retailer that has been waiting on accurate shipping pricing, now is the time!
Thank you again for your patience and support! =]
HYVE Pre-Production Update. Meadow Edition getting 2-player Support! And announcing "Heirloom", our next game!
about 1 month ago
– Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 07:40:37 AM
Hi everyone!
We have several important updates to share as HYVE continues moving toward production.
Meadow Edition Now Supports 2 Players!
We’re always looking for ways to improve the game, even after the campaign has ended. As part of that process, Meadow Edition—formerly called Casual Edition—will now include an official 2-player variant!
We first developed a “Bee drafting” system early in the game’s design, but it felt a little too competitive for the standard version of HYVE. Meadow Edition turned out to be the perfect home for it, since there is much less pressure surrounding resources and survival.
The result is a more challenging and interactive way to play Meadow Edition with another player while still preserving its relaxed feel. Meadow Edition is also being physically upgraded to include everything needed for 2-player play!
We’ve had a lot of fun with this new drafting variant, and we hope you enjoy it too!
(Pledges are still unlocked in BackerKit, so Meadow Edition can still be added to your pledge.)
Prototypes Are Nearly Underway
All the prototype files have now been sent to the factory. Their engineering team has already identified a few adjustments that need to be made to the Bee Pin to improve its structural integrity, so we’ll be sending those revisions back this week.
The factory is also sourcing the specific Pantone colors for the colored pencils. In cases where an exact color is unavailable, we may need to review and approve the closest available alternative.
This is a normal part of the prototyping process. Once files reach the factory, their engineers review each component for manufacturability and durability. Any necessary changes are passed to their project representative (translated into English), then to Logan and me, and finally to Kevin for the required artwork or graphic-design revisions. Once those updates are completed, they travel back through the same process for another review.
With several teams working across different schedules and time zones, even small revisions can take a little time to move through the full approval chain. We are responding to everything as quickly as possible, always within 12–24 hours whenever something reaches us.
Once all of the e-proofs—the factory’s digital representations of the prototypes—are finalized and approved, we will enter the prototype production queue. We currently expect the physical prototypes to arrive approximately three to four weeks after that point.
We will then carefully inspect every edition and add-on to make sure everything looks and functions as intended before approving the project for mass production.
Retailer Pricing Is Still Being Finalized
We are still waiting to finalize retailer pricing. I had hoped to have that information ready for this update, but we do not yet have confirmed costs for either the prototype run or the final mass-production run. Providing it now would be possible but just premature.
Once the factory prototype is confirmed, I will contact all participating retailers directly with the updated information and next steps.
Pledge Manager at 90%
Just 10% to go, if you have yet to fill out your survey in Backerkit, please do so! We'll announce when the PM locks likely on the next update.
We're gearing up to launch our next game this fall (likely launching in October). It's a cute tile laying game about growing and harvesting tomatoes. The artist is from and lives in Sicily, so the game is also about his family restaurant and Sicilian cuisine.
If you'd like to know more check out the link. We're planning a lot of fun stuff for the campaign and are excited to show it to you in the weeks and months ahead, if you're part of our mailing list. (We won't have any further updates on this campaign regarding Heirloom, but as we just launched our preview page today I was excited to share it.) =)
More news to come soon, thanks again for all your support!
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
HYVE June Updates!
2 months ago
– Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 10:08:58 AM
Apple ID "Private Relay"
First thing to note, is if you've got an Apple ID email with a private relay, please PM me and send me your actual email address! The private relay system seems to never deliver emails from BackerKit. I'll change it in BackerKit to your actual email so that you get their updates regarding HYVE.
More Upgrades!
More upgrades! We are ready to show the additional sheets that we made for Coloring Edition! As the theme of Coloring Edition is preparing for Winter, each of the three "segments" of the game take place over 3 seasons. Staring in Spring and ending in Autumn. We are including 3 of these sheets before each segment.
And Multiplayer, Meadow (Casual), and Legacy are all getting a "Achievements" sheet that some of you will recognize from the original PNP edition of the game. Here you can track all of your games, any achievements that you unlocked, if you won or lost and your score (amongst other things), sorta gives you a fun journaling way of tracking your plays.
Big thanks to Mofei Wang (one of the 2 additional illustrators we brought on board) for putting these together for us.
Survey Completion Status
The Pledge Manager now 87% completed by our backers. So if you're in that 13% of people that haven't yet filled out your survey, please fill out your survey!
Keep in mind that the survey was directly sent out from BackerKit, and this is not the live-campaign survey that was sent out during the campaign (via a PM directly from my KS account to yours). BK will keep emailing you until you fill it out. And if you haven't seen it yet it is very likely that it is ending up in your SPAM or "Promotional" tab if you're using Gmail.
Retailer Shipping Pricing in Next Update
For our retailers! We are still a little ways from pulling together shipping information for you, but we expect to get that organized in time for our next update. This delay is intentional as we want to just ensure that the shipping price is as accurate to what Aerobellum Games will be paying as possible. We'll PM and/or email you directly when we have that information!
Total Status of Project
We're nearing a 100% "Prototype Ready" stage, just a few more steps!
At this point, the main remaining task is incorporating the recent Legacy system updates into the new Legacy rulebook. Once that is complete, we’ll be ready to order prototype copies of all editions of HYVE, along with all the add-ons.
That prototype run will give us a much clearer picture of where everything stands. Our hope is that everything checks out on the first round, which would allow us to move directly from prototype approval into scheduling mass production.
That said, we do want to keep everyone informed about how this part of the process works. If we discover any discrepancies, production issues, or component concerns that require a second prototype run, each additional prototyping iteration generally adds about 30–45 days to the overall timeline.
We’re doing everything we can on the front end to catch issues now and get everything sorted in a single prototype run. The sooner we can move into production, the better it is not only for you but for us as well.
We'll send out another update in about a month from now, maybe a little sooner or a little later depending on when we have enough news to share.
Thanks again for your support!
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
PM now Fully Open! Collector's Edition Mega-Upgrade and more Updates!
3 months ago
– Tue, May 19, 2026 at 07:11:53 AM
Hiya everyone! Quick update regarding the HYVE Pledge Manager!
For our retailers: still no updates just yet, but we’ll be reaching out directly as we move further downstream into production and have more finalized logistics and freight details to share with you. Logistics pricing for sending that many quantity of units will take real "leg work" from our logistics partners so we're waiting until we're sure it'll be the most accurate price possible.
Pledge Manager is now Open!
For everyone else, the Pledge Manager is now fully OPEN!
You should have received an email from BackerKit regarding your HYVE pledge within the past few minutes. If you’re new to Kickstarter campaigns, it’s vital that you complete this BackerKit survey and finalize shipping and any applicable taxes so that we’re able to ship your rewards once fulfillment begins.
Shipping for $999 is a place holder, don't worry!
If you happen to see a shipping charge of $999, don’t panic! That’s simply placeholder pricing that appears when your specific country hasn’t yet been configured in the system. Sometimes backers move countries after the campaign, or occasionally a region may have been missed during setup. If you see this, just reach out to us and we’ll get your country’s shipping configured properly.
HYVE Progress Update
Progress continues to rapidly progress behind the scenes! We’re currently wrapping up additional commissioned illustrations for the Coloring Edition, along with some extra bonus goodies and surprises we’ve been preparing for all of you. Not tracking these tasks super granularly, only really the milestones when we know when something has passed a notable milestone (the rulebooks are a doozy) and then when it is finalized (AKA "Done").
Legacy Mode got a Big Upgrade!
Legacy Mode got a pretty major overhaul! Huge thanks to Kevin for putting up with my last-minute changes! =]
Owen (one of Aerobellum Games’ lead developers) and I put our heads together and came up with what we believe is a far more compelling and rewarding upgrade system for Legacy. We’re really excited about where it landed and think it’ll make progression throughout the mode feel much more meaningful and interesting.
The Old legacy system had the same upgrades on the left side of the Legacy Sheet, and each would have to be redeemed in order to have any effect, but it never felt like you were getting more powerful as the game progressed. The new system gives you MUCH more in the ways of upgrades, options and abilities. Not only can you unlock 10+ new passive upgrades (4 unique ones being available per Legacy), you can also upgrade your "Bread Levels" persistently throughout a Legacy, as well as the "Courier Action" becoming much more developed as well, giving you the options to reclaim resources from the "Honey Shopkeeper" character (middle column) as well as being able to contribute to Honey supplies during a game. (Most other Honey "income" being earned either during Setup or between runs due to various metrics (all of which have also been overhauled and dramatically improved as well)).
We also overhauled the name of each Scenario "top number/icon combo" to reference the Legacy you're in, not our "back-end" data management naming convention that we used to escalate balance and difficulty throughout the 11 Legacies contained in the box.
These will be referenced in the rules, but the abilities on the left are "Beseech" (double your first Royal Jelly contributed per Scenario), and "Excisor" (allows you to X-out a single nectar during scoring (that might be a troublesome spot)).
I was sorta surprised that we were able to come up with as many "passive" abilities as we did, so you're in store for a big treat when you get the game!
This is a vast world of improvement from the prior system, so I'm stoked for all of you to get it in your hands!
Collector’s Edition received a BIG upgrade!
Dara Studios (our jack-of-all-trades, master-of-some business partner) suggested consolidating all of the Collector’s Edition add-ons into a single unified box. We agreed that if we were going to do that, it had to be absolutely “bee-utiful” and match the overall presentation style of HYVE.
So we put together these renders for the upgraded Collector’s Edition box set! Adding this super "deluxified" box wasn’t cheap and is going to cost us a few extra thousand dollars on our end (not including tooling costs!), but we think the final presentation is worth it. Our backer's happiness is truly our highest priority!
Collector's Edition now has a "Collector's Edition" exclusive box! Keep in mind this is a concept render, so coloration may differ somewhat depending on materials and available pantones, and print techniques.
And here's the internal breakdown of the box. HUGE thanks to our factory that was able to put this together!
The image above shows the general assembly layout of the Collector’s Edition. The yellow sheet acts as a pack-list, beneath that sits the hexagonal dice tray, then the large puzzle, followed by spare sheets, and finally the bottom layer contains the additional dice, colored pencils, pin, and the rest of the goodies. All of Collector's Edition in one slick package.
And remember: you can upgrade your pledge to the Collector’s Edition within the Pledge Manager! This is a Kickstarter EXCLUSIVE, and won't be mass-market available!
Some Exceptions for Subsidized Shipping
We do need to apologize here a bit. We didn’t fully realize just how extreme some international shipping rates currently are — South America in particular has been especially difficult, with countries like Brazil and Bolivia standing out the most.
Our original plan was to subsidize roughly 30% of shipping costs across the board, but in some regions the shipping prices are so high that this would have effectively meant shipping the product for free, or quite literally paying you to take it. Because of that, some regions unfortunately need to be charged much closer to actual shipping cost, though we still subsidized what we reasonably could. These were edge cases only affecting a few orders, but still warrant mentioning.
Clarification on Different Types of BackerKit Surveys
Everyone who backed during the live Kickstarter campaign (excluding Late Pledges) received a message from my account after pledging. Those links mentioning “a survey” and “BackerKit” were actually tied to BackerKit’s live-campaign advertising survey system, which helps improve ad-targeting between BackerKit and Aerobellum Games while the campaign was active. Not everyone in the world is interested in roll-and-color bee-themed games, so finding all of y'all took some work! And BackerKit was an enormous help in doing so! =)
Now that the campaign is over and we are no longer actively running ads, that survey is no longer relevant.
The "survey" we’re referring to in these updates is the actual Pledge Manager survey email sent directly by BackerKit. These emails can be very easy to miss, so please check your SPAM folder and “Promotions” tab if you haven’t seen yours yet. =)
More News Soon to Come!
Coloring Edition is currently bringing up the rear a bit in terms of art asset completion, so we’ll have a more dedicated update on that edition in a future post once we have more to show off!
There are also some other exciting yet unannounced upgrades that we've got in the works but I'm doing my best to "bite my tongue" and not give away the details before I can be 100% confident that it'll make it into the final product. Only being 90% certain something can make it into the game isn't enough, we have to be completely sure! =)
More news coming soon! As always, if you have any problems in the PM please message my partner Logan ==> [email protected] or send me a DM here on Kickstarter!
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
Pledge Manager has been (partially) opened!
3 months ago
– Mon, May 11, 2026 at 07:49:19 AM
Hiya everyone! We have launched the pledge manager in sort of a "trial" mode (BackerKit refers to it as a "smoke test") where 5% of the surveys have gone out (at random) just to head off any bigger issues or misconfigurations that may arise before opening it up to everyone.
Free Shipping for US Educators
If you are in the US and are eligible for our “Free Shipping to US Educators” then please reach out to [email protected] with any supporting documentation (if your state requires it) and we’ll get your shipping credited.
Fix to Misconfigured Tier for Casual Edition
If you backed the original “Casual Edition” pledge tier (that accidentally contained Coloring Edition then you’ve bee migrated over to Casual Edition) that only pertained to 8 people. "Casual Edition" is also being rebranded to "Meadow Edition".
Dice Tray and Individual Dice Added to Collector's Edition
The dice tray and extra dice have been added to the Collector’s Edition, these were added to that pledge tier mid-campaign and Kickstarter doesn’t allow us to change or upgrade any tier once anyone has backed it.
US Resale Certificates & Shipping for Retailers
If you are a US retailer also please send us your tax-exemption certificate to [email protected] to get sorted on that front as well and get you credited in the PM. We intentionally haven't set up the shipping profiles yet for retailers however, but will do that closer to the shipping date so we can provide more accurate numbers for both of us. We'll reach out to you individually as we get closer to that time.
Check out Cat Nap and consider adding it to your pledge!
Cat Nap! Our previous campaign "Cat Nap" is available on BackerKit as an Add-On for this campaign. We are offering 2 versions: "Founders Edition" ($49) which is the all-in version of the game, these are limited quantities and won't be printed again so get them while you can! As well as "Deluxe Edition" ($39.99) that contains everything that Founder's does except for the Scratching Posts expansion, the 2 extra blank tiles, and the 2 sheets of stickers.
