Announcing a New Pledge Tier AND Stretch Goals
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:09:07 AM

We've just passed 87% funded and have over 1,000 backers now!!! Welcome to all the new people, and thanks for sticking around to all the people from day one to right now. I'm excited at the direction everything's going. I believe we can do it and fund. Keep up liking and retweeting for the social goals and we'll not only fund -- all physical reward backers will get a bronze Order of the Oven Mitt lapel pin!

Today on the Live stream, I announced the stretch goals and a NEW reward level. You can watch the Live Stream for 48 hours after the broadcast, so if you want to see me playing Flavour Roulette and talking about food photography with Kate Baldwin, check it out quickly!

New Pledge Tier: Seattle Baking Workshop

Want to learn how to make edible games in person? Now you can, with this hands-on workshop in Seattle!

You and someone you like will spend three fun hours learning about how to bake, make and play edible games with me in Seattle.

The workshops are likely to be held before the end of 2018. Exact dates for workshops will be determined based on demand and post-campaign surveys.

It might be late in the game to announce this reward, but it's something I've been asked about numerous times. So better late than never, right!

Stretch Goals: eBook and Baker’s Dozen

We’re heading to the finish line, so what’s on the other side? Here are the stretch goals!

eBook Version

All Digital Version backers and above will get a version of the game suitable for iPads, Kindles and other standard ePub formats. All the same content as the PDF, but easily viewable on your tablet device in your kitchen.

Baker’s Dozen

What’s better than a dozen unique edible games? A baker’s dozen of games! That makes it 13 games that you’ll get in the completed cookbook. The 13th game is a game about hidden surprises in a layer cake. I’ve playtested it already and just need to work out the recipe modifications. The kids version is great for turning birthday party cakes into games, whereas the adult version is great for those with adventurous tastes.

Icing on the Cake

Let’s hope we rush past these stretch goals and keep going. If that happens, I don’t want to increase the scope of the book or add things I can’t fulfil. Any extra money will be spent on getting you a better final product: thicker paper, fancy things like gold embossing or other bling for the book itself. Extra money will also allow us to create more “how to” photography for the recipes so you’ll know exactly what to expect every step of the way.

A Note About the Ordering

I came very close to making the Baker's Dozen the first stretch goal -- I really want to add another game to the cookbook! But after looking closely at the budget, I realised that the eBook would cost significantly less to implement. That puts the stretch goal within closer reach, so I decided it should be the first one.

That said - I hope we can have both! If you're eager for a 13th game, please bump up your pledge and/or spread the word to your friends so we can hit $100k before the campaign ends on July 20!

Pins, Live Stream & Bake Backers & Brownies
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Jul 09, 2018 at 09:23:09 PM

80% funded!!! Over $64,000 AND 949 backers. Not to mention TEN days to go!! That's super exciting. I'm believe in us! We can get there AND beyond.

It’s normal for things to slow down as they did last week, but definitely a bit scary. Thankfully, things are picking up again and you’re all showing me so much love. The internet can be a terrifying place, but with backers like you I feel like you’ve been giving me a giant hug to protect me from it. Thank you!

Social Goals - 3D Pin unlocked

Remember to keep liking, tweeting and sharing posts about edible games. Thanks to your hard work so far, every backer will now get a template file of a 3D printable Order of the Oven Mitt pin. If you keep going, all hardcover edition backers and above will get a bronze pin to wear once they pass the Initiation Trial for The Order of the Oven Mitt.

For more information about how to contribute, look at the Social Goals section in the main campaign page.

Live Stream this Week on Wednesday/Thursday

I’m going to be doing a Live Stream on Wednesday 11th July at 6pm Pacific Daylight Time, Wednesday 9pm US East Coast time, Thursday 11am Australian Eastern time, Thursday 2am UK time (sorry!). 

You can subscribe for it here. You can also ask questions beforehand which helps me prepare great answers. If you can’t watch live, you can still watch it afterwards for up to 48 hours after the stream has finished.

I’ll be playing a version of Flavour Roulette where you’ll see me torturing myself by blind tasting gross morsels and you’ll get a chance to guess what I’m eating. Doesn’t that sound fun?!

Did I also say there’ll be some big announcements? Well, there will be! So come watch and join in so I’m not just sitting eating by myself in front of my computer as per usual.

Bake Backers

All of the games in the Edible Games Cookbook can be made by people who have absolutely no baking skills. But I know some of my backers are what I call “Bake Backers”, that’s those of you who love baking, want more of it and love a good food challenge.

In the Edible Games Cookbook all games can be made into elaborate showstoppers. Some games are just a little more suitable, like Patisserie Code, Flavour Roulette, The Order of the Oven Mitt, Cookie Cruncher, Gingerbread Friends. One of the games is about competing for ingredients as you bake, that’s aptly called The Baking Game. Read about all of the games on my website.

I posted an image of some of my favourite cookbooks on Twitter, wrote a thread about why they’re my favourites and asked for other people to share their favourites. I got some great responses and I think I’m going to have to work out how to expand my bookshelf so I can fit even more books on it!

Jenn’s Choc Raspberry Brownies

A few people have asked me for my “world famous” raspberry chocolate brownie recipe. Before I get into the recipe itself, I want to tell you something about the importance of this recipe for me.

I’ve been making these brownies for a long, long time. I’ve baked an entire batch and dropped them off on the doorsteps of some new parents’ house. I made them with my father and then finished the leftovers with my family at his wake. I made them the first time I properly met my life partner. Basically, I’ve made them in many different countries and for people from a large number of countries. They’re my way of showing my love for others.

They have both chocolate and raspberry in them, my two favourite ingredients in the world (followed by cucumber as my 3rd favourite). One of the best things about these brownies is that they never freeze solidly, so you can eat them straight from the freezer. Perfect for making in advance for summer or just whenever you feel like you need a bit of chocolate love in your life.

The inspiration for this recipe was from Nigella Lawson’s How To Be a Domestic Goddess. That book changed how I perceive baking. Before it I felt that cooking and baking were somehow less important than being good at technical and academic pursuits. That book made me realise that baking is a skill that not everyone has and should be highly valued.

Enough of the backstory, let’s get on with the recipe.

Ingredients:

My recipe is in metric and I’ve tried to translate into cups & imperial measurements, but unfortunately I don’t have time during this Kickstarter campaign to double check the exact values myself. Don’t worry, for the main cookbook I’ll be doing tests in all different measurement systems! For now, hopefully you’ve got a scale or my internet conversions will just work.

• 375g (13 oz, 1 ⅔ cups) soft unsalted butter
• 375g (13 oz) dark chocolate (I prefer Callebaut Callets somewhere in the range of 53%-60% cocoa, but any good dark chocolate with only a few ingredients will be good.)
• 6 large eggs
• 1 Australian tablespoon (20ml, 4 teaspoons) vanilla extract
• 500g (1lb1oz, 2 ½ cups) caster (superfine baker’s) sugar
• 225g (8oz, 2 cups) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 punnets/packages or 250-350g (8-12oz) raspberries, either fresh or frozen (variable amount since if buying fresh it depends what country you’re in as to how much a punnet/package weighs.)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180℃ (350℉).

Prepare your baking pan. I use a large glass baking dish, since it’s easier to clean. Make sure you butter the pan so that the corners won’t stick.

Put the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan on low-medium heat. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally until almost all of the butter has melted (the rest will melt as you leave it to rest). In the meantime, get out a medium bowl or jug with a mouth that allows for easy pouring. Add the eggs, sugar and vanilla and beat to combine. In a large bowl, add the flour and salt.

Hopefully at this point your chocolate mixture will be fully melted and have cooled a moment. Pour the eggs and sugar mix to the chocolate mixture and stir with a wooden spoon. Depending on which is larger out of your saucepan or the bowl, combine the chocolate-egg mixture with the flour. You should only need a wooden spoon to mix it together. Once it’s smooth, pour it into a large greased pan. Sprinkle the raspberries on top of the mixture so that you can spread them out evenly. Use your wooden spoon to mix gently so that the raspberries are covered in chocolate. If you mix too much the raspberries will start to disintegrate.

Bake for about 20-30 minutes. Watch it closely towards the end. There’s a fine line between deliciously gooey brownies and more (boring) cake-like brownies. When it’s ready, the edges should be dry and be a bit paler. The middle should wobble a tiny bit, but not massively.

I always eat a spoonful of them while they're still burn-your-tongue hot the oven. I then use a plain butter knife to cut lines in the brownies before leaving them to cool. You don’t have to do that, it’s just easier than cutting them later on once they're cold enough to properly handle. Once they’re a little cool, put them in the fridge to solidify a bit more - when left out at room temperature they’ll still be so goopy it’ll be hard to create even cuts in the brownie.

After a few hours, or overnight, bring the brownies out and cut them up properly and get them out of the pan. I recommend putting them into containers and freezing them. They never freeze quite solidly, so you can eat them straight from the freezer.

New, Improved Social Media Goals
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 02:56:12 PM

Happy (belated) Canada Day and Happy Independence Day for all my Canadian and US backers! I hope you're all enjoying time off with your friends and family over food and games.

We're now 68% of the way there!!! That's $54,470 and 785 backers!

It's getting so close I can almost taste the delicious cake that I'll bake if we fund! And yes, I promise I'll take photos of it to share with you.

BUT..... Getting funded isn't guaranteed at this point. There's still a lot of work to be done before we pass that finish line. So let's kick it up a notch and get to the part where there's not only cake, but a lot more icing on that cake.

I need your help to fund!

I launched my social media goals last week so that you all could get rewards for helping spread the word about edible games on Kickstarter. It yielded some golden moments like the following:

In many respects, these goals are a little bit like a game. And like all game design, you sometimes need iterations on it to improve the game. I realised that with the last version of the social media goals, it was hard for people to feel like they were working together. Also, people who were helping out a lot by retweeting or sharing posts weren’t getting any recognition for that.

So I’ve reworked the social media goals entirely. Now everyone is working towards a common goal. Likes, retweets and shares on Facebook and Twitter all earn points.

Based on my new calculations, we’re already pretty close to the first reward of a 3D printable Order of the Oven Mitt pin for all backers!! Just a little more tweeting, liking or doing a challenge will get us over the edge. Every little bit counts.

Get started by going to this website and doing three tasks to get 56 points for everyone! 

Check back on the main campaign page to see our daily progress.

Without further ado, here are the new instructions!

   

Close Look at Taste Bud is Blind
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Jul 01, 2018 at 11:25:29 PM

We’re now at 66% funded! That’s amazing and I’m hoping to pass that funding threshold soon with your help. Don’t forget to try out some of the social media goals listed near the bottom of the main campaign page. I'll have more about this in another update soon.

Edible games are great for families, bakers, board gamers, people who love hosting events and more. Every game in the Edible Games Cookbook is presented with a base set of recipes and rules. From there, I give suggestions on how to modify both the recipes and the rules to be easier or harder or different or more suitable for you and your players.

Some of the games in the Edible Games Cookbook are aimed at children and can be modified to suit adults, like Veggie Land. Other games in the book are aimed at a wider audience, but are easily modifiable to suit children, like Taste Bud is Blind.

In Taste Bud is Blind, your goal is to mix and match flavours to make the tastiest combination. Take a base ingredient, add up to 6 other ingredients, then feed it to the nominated “Taste Bud” for this round. The catch: you get points based on your rank AND the number of ingredients you use. Watch out: if you’re the worst, you’ll get no points at all!

 Take turns being the “Taste Bud” and eating the strange concoctions with your eyes closed. Vegans and devoted meat-eaters can play side-by-side — everyone has control of what goes in their own mouth.

For some children, working out points and doing the maths is a great challenge.

Younger children might not want to pay attention to the points system and that’s totally fine. The goal then just becomes about trying to make the tastiest morsel for the “Taste Bud” in each round. Kids learn about which flavours go together well and they also get braver about trying out new things with their eyes closed.

Taste Bud is Blind was created on Train Jam 2018. “What is Train Jam?”, I hear you ask. Well, it’s an entire Amtrak train of game developers making games together. Everyone gets onboard a custom train in Chicago and has until it arrives in San Francisco two days later to make a game based on the theme. I had a great team of Melanie Stegman, Reuben Brenner-Adams, Micah Faw and Tyler Gregg. Our goal was to create an edible game out of the supplies I brought onboard and those we could buy on the train!

 Last week I was lucky enough to be on the Xbox Mixer stream showing off Taste Bud is Blind. Obviously my edible games are not the normal sort of game they show on the stream, which is usually all about Xbox One games. I know some of the ID@Xbox team from working on Thimbleweed Park and they thought it would be fun to show something a bit different.

You can watch the video of the stream here and see how it turned out. Apparently I’m terrible at playing my own game, but I did have a LOT of fun!

I’m looking forward to trying out an adults only version with alcoholic drinks. I want to come up with some new and crazy rum cocktails.

What ingredients would you like to use in your version of Taste Bud is Blind? What flavours do you think would go well together and which will taste terrible? Tell me in the comments section!

Halfway There & Launching Social Goals
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 10:57:40 PM

Rejoice! We’ve reached 50% funded in under a week! Given that the Edible Games Cookbook is not your standard tabletop game Kickstarter, I’m pretty darn excited and happy about that.

Thank you sooo much backers and bakers for your faith in me. I won’t let you down.

Look at what lovely people are saying about edible games:

• Shut Up & Sit Down gave me a ringing endorsement. They played The Patisserie Code with me in March and we had a blast. They really got into the French spy theme!
• Cardboard Vault wrote a glowing review and baked an awesome Aussie version of The Order of the Oven Mitt!
• A Pawn’s Palaver podcast spoke to me about my background and also my future plans.
• San Jose Mercury News. That’s a non-games newspaper, people! I’ve always wanted everyone to play, not just gamers. So yay for getting the word out there! 
• RollForCrit included me in their roundup of great Kickstarters this week.
• Rolling Dice & Taking Names Gaming Podcast even gave me a plug. 
• Trend Hunter is also starting to track the project.
  

Want to Watch People Play An Edible Game?

I’m showing Taste Bud is Blind on the main Xbox Mixer stream on Thursday 28th June at 11am Pacific Daylight Time. Games you can eat is probably a first for the Xbox channel and I’m excited to share them. It’s going to be a blast! Join us live as we create weird food concoctions and feed them to each other!

NEW Social Media Goals!

Are you as excited for the Edible Games Cookbook as I am? Do you want to share your excitement with your friends? Do you like free things?

If your hand is up right now, then I’ve got some great news for you!

Halfway there is great, but we still have another 50% to go! So let’s put the FUN in funding by completing these challenges.

  

Sharing the Kickstarter Love

Looking for more projects to back on Kickstarter? Here are some new favourite games of mine that both have a foodie theme:

• Maybe It’s Poison: A card game about memory and tea. This is NOT an edible game, and for good reason: you don’t want to actually kill your friends, do you? For the sake of the official record & for any friends reading who might come over and play the game at my house: I do solemnly swear that I will not modify this game to contain real poison.
• Quickstarter - Oh Crop: This isn’t technically an edible game when you play it, but after each playthrough you plant a card and then you might get parsley, chives or sweet basil. Yum! I love herbs.

Note: Nobody from these campaigns has asked me to put these links here. I’m just doing this because the projects look cool & I like sharing cool stuff.