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:
Post Campaign Update #1: A few things on the way to the opening of the PM.
4 months ago
– Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 01:38:00 PM
Hiya everyone—thanks again for such an incredible campaign! We've recovered from the 'post-campaign daze' and are now ready to report on some updates!
2 New Illustrators We’ve brought on two new illustrators to "join the HYVE", helping Kevin on Coloring Edition. With each page featuring its own set of color-by-number elements, this quickly became a substantial amount of work. They’re already working on pages, and everything is looking very good so far!
Working on the PM Setup in BackerKit We’re currently building out the pledge manager in BackerKit. This campaign should be fairly streamlined, and while there’s still work to do, we’re not seeing any complications we can’t easily handle. Smooth sailing on this front at this point.
Non-Backers Were Surveyed This Morning By the end of the campaign, we had built up a sizable email list of folks who discovered HYVE, showed interest, but didn’t end up backing. We ran a poll on that list earlier today. While it’s not a scientifically perfect sample, the results are encouraging—there appears to be strong additional demand, if the game becomes available at retail. Among those still interested, over 75% said they would purchase HYVE at retail if given the option. This is encouraging to us, to order enough copies to sell online post-fulfillment.
If you received this email survey, it was in error and probably means that you were using an Apple relay or other anonymiser (or just have a separate email account for Kickstarter). You can just ignore the survey if that's the case!
Project Completion Matrix Below is a look at what’s still ahead. After taking a bit of time to recover from the campaign, I revisited the Legacy prototype for the first time in a while. With a bit more mental bandwidth at my disposal, I’ve come up with some new ideas to incorporate into the Legacy experience—particularly around making each run feel like you’re growing stronger over time. I’m looking forward to sharing more “design journal” updates down the road.
While we received our first round prototype of Legacy back months ago in preparation for the campaign, the design work I'm doing on the game won't have to commission any new art or 'reinvent the wheel' in regards to Legacy. Just invent some new iconography and change some layouts, and update the rulebook of course.
Production Files Sent for Add-Ons We’ve already sent production files for all the Add-Ons (the dice tray, puzzle, colored pencils, and cards, etc.) to our manufacturing partners in China. They’re currently reviewing everything and will get back to us with any suggestions or recommendations.
We'll be in touch soon, and presently expect to open the Pledge Manager right on time, in about 2 weeks from now.
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
Pledged "Unfrozen" Cards are beginning to be charged, woohoo!
4 months ago
– Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 02:12:23 PM
They fixed the bug on the Kickstarter side and cards are being charged! Right now it looks like about 1800 of the total backers have been charged. Still not sure why this happened, but it was handled as a platform bug by Kickstarter, so I'm just relived that it wasn't anything that we mucked up. =^)
Thanks again everyone for your patience on this matter and reporting the issue so early on, I wouldn't have caught it myself for a while probably unless y'all brought it to my attention.
Thanks again! We'll have more updates soon, Kevin and I have been working on the Add-Ons all morning. =)
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
Presently only late-backers have been charged. (Ticket open with Kickstarter.)
4 months ago
– Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 03:45:05 PM
I have a ticket open with Kickstarter as to why nobody has been charged (other than late backers) they were looking into it as of about 6 hours ago, but I have yet to hear anything back.
As soon as I hear something back I'll let you all know!
HYVE is Thriving!
4 months ago
– Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 07:11:10 PM
Thanks so much, everyone—what a campaign! We're creating something new and unique together. This campaign far exceeded our expectations, and we’re incredibly grateful it found such a passionate and dedicated audience.
What happens next:
Kickstarter Collects Payment
Kickstarter will begin charging cards on file right away. If a payment doesn’t go through on the first attempt, Kickstarter will notify you and give you up to two weeks to update your payment method.
HYVE in active development and art production for next 2 months
In the meantime, we’re not slowing down. Kevin Ruffenach already has his hands full on the art side, and we’ll be continuing development and playtesting—especially exploring some of the more ambitious ideas we’ve been working on. We’ll share updates along the way, but we’re also keeping a few surprises in reserve, we don't want to spoil everything!
BackerKit is our Pledge Manager
We’ll be setting up the pledge manager on BackerKit over the next few weeks. There, you’ll be able to confirm your shipping details, handle VAT and local taxes, and finalize your address. If you backed the Collector’s Edition, the post-launch Add-Ons (Dice Tray and extra Dice) will be included with your pledge there. This is also where we'll validate US Educators for free shipping and correct that Reward Tier that accidently had Coloring Edition (in Casual Edition) earlier. Stuff like that.
Special Thanks to New and Returning Backers
We also noticed that about 20% of our backers are either new to Kickstarter or haven’t backed a project in quite some time—if you need help at any point, just reach out. We’re really glad you took a chance on HYVE and on Aerobellum Games and we're happy to help you any way we can.
Also a special thanks to backers who have backed prior projects of ours! We are grateful for your continued support!
Production Already Underway
On the production side, we’re wrapping up the Add-Ons first and preparing them for print within the next few weeks. This gives us a solid early milestone while we continue refining the gameplay across all four Editions. When we get this round of prototypes we'll share some pictures! And we have to do a "QA" test in completing a 500-piece puzzle, good thing we love puzzles! =^D
Aerobellum Games Partnering with Dara Studios
Overall, we expect fulfillment to be smooth and streamlined. We’ve also recently deepened our partnership with Dara Studios, who will now be co-managing and advising on manufacturing, as well as supporting logistics for HYVE. We’re excited to see how this improves and optimizes the process moving forward.
We'll Be in Touch!
We’ll be posting periodic updates as we hit key milestones, with the first major one being the opening of the pledge manager. We'll have more detailed instructions at that time.
Anyway, that's it for now, again thank you for all of your incredible support! As always, let us know if you have any questions by leaving a comment and we'll get back to you as soon as we're able.
--Matthew, Aerobellum Games
The Dice Tray Update!
4 months ago
– Mon, Apr 06, 2026 at 07:56:28 AM
Hiya folks, this info was sent out in an email blast yesterday, but I just wanted to reiterate some points here for convenience.
The HYVE Dice Tray!
We’ve added a dice tray to the game! This idea actually came from a backer shortly after launch, and the moment it was suggested we knew we had to put it in the campaign, so after a bit of behind-the-scenes work over the past week, we’re excited to say it is now a reality!
The HYVE Dice Tray will come included in the Collector's Edition at no additional cost! However, Kickstarter doesn't allow creators to change basically anything on a pledge tier after anyone has backed it. So you'll see the dice roller show up in BackerKit once the pledge manager opens. We used BackerKit's pledge manager on our prior campaign Cat Nap, and this type of thing is a very easy fix for us. (The same goes for the extra set of HYVE dice that were added to Collector's Edition on a prior update, you won't see them listed on Kickstarter but you will see them listed on BackerKit. That's a promise!)
The dice tray sets up using a series of buttons and puts away flat so while it did increase our shipping costs, the increase is minor. This won't increase the cost of Collector's Edition shipping, and if you're buying it outside of Collector's Edition as an Add-On you can expect probably about a $2 charge (on average) for the shipping.
I think that's about it! Now the Collector's Edition feels very complete and well-rounded! This is the final full-week of the campaign and we're beyond excited that it's doing so well.
