Daniel Solis

That is Happy Birthday, Robot! On an actual game store shelf! Not just any game store either, but Endgame , which consistently sets a high bar for what a game store can be. Now here's the big news: All copies at Endgame sold out on the first day. The proprietor, Chris Hanrahan, was kind enough to send along some info about the buyers. - People buying it for there "as too young kids" so they could play it when they were older. - People buying it because this was a "first in class type of game, and they wanted a copy of it." (Meaning, they had never seen anything like it before, and wanted it in their collection. - One person very specifically interested in taking it to use and advise other people who home school their kids. It sounds like he worked for some type of collective who researches this type of thing, and then shares the information with other homeschool teachers. - People buying it as gifts for friends with kids. - People with kids old e...

As you know, Happy Birthday, Robot! uses special dice called Robot Dice. Creating custom dice is a pretty expensive process, from production to shipping, so that was well outside of our budget. We figured out a possible alternative, though. That's a sheet of vinyl stickers to create your own Robot Dice out of your standard dice. These stickers are vinyl and weatherproof, for those times when you're out in the middle of the woods and you just HAVE to play Happy Birthday, Robot! These stickers are going out to pre-orderers who ordered a signed and numbered edition of the game. Each book has enough stickers to make 14 Robot Dice, which is about as many as you'll statistically ever need. I have enough materials to make a few more sheets. If there's enough interest, I'm bringing some to GenCon, possibly for sale or as a con-exclusive bonus. If you want to try your own, here's a link to the PDF template for an OL32LP label sheet. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7247...

That's what 88 copies of HBR looks like, yup. So, I'm going to be personally signing and numbering and mailing several of these babies to some generous backers. I'll be emailing you shortly (like, in a few minutes) asking for your shipping address. (Those of you who ordered a book without my rambling scribbles, I'll need your shipping addresses, too.) Talk to ya soon!

Happy Birthday, Robot! is now available for sale at Evil Hat , Drive-Thru RPG , and RPGNow . Feel free to share those links with your friends and colleagues who've expressed interest in the game. If you've played the game already, share your thoughts and experiences! Post your stories on a blog, forum post or status update. (And ping me, too, I love to see what people end up creating!)

Now that we've reached 100 backers, it's time to lift the curtain on something we've had in the works. When this project first kicked off, Evil Hat Productions (www.evilhat.com) offered to sponsor whatever amount we fell short of our fundraising goal by. Thanks to your enthusiastic generosity, that just wasn't necessary. But Evil Hat has stayed interested since that point, looking at ways we can work together to make sure Happy Birthday Robot reaches as many fans -- and kids -- as it possibly can. Today, I can confirm that with Evil Hat's help, Happy Birthday Robot's first printing will run over 500 copies, making it possible for the game to have a broader reach -- getting into game stores, schools, and libraries as well as direct to fans on the web. Once the book is released, copies will be available for purchase through Evil Hat and through Evil Hat's distribution partners (Indie Press Revolution, Alliance, Esdevium, and others). As far as branding go...

Pre-orderers just got the revised preview PDF, but I couldn't help but share some preview pages: Only 7 days left to pre-order! :D

Click to embiggen. Getting closer to the final cover design. I just haven't settled on that back cover text. Am I selling the right things? Should I be highlighting other aspects of the game more prominently?