Enter the world of The Shivers family with this one-of-a-kind, 3D pop-up, haunted house adventure — brought to life on Kickstarter with over $576,000 raised and six additional stretch goals unlocked!
Featuring an easy-to-learn system with extensive replayability, this unique experience will provide hours of entertainment for 2-5 players ages 7 and up.
While exploring the haunted halls of Fogmoor Manor filled with magic, mystery, and wonder, players will look for clues, find helpful items, solve puzzles, and work together to vanquish fiendish foes.
You'll enjoy amazing adventures in this immersive storytelling world created with the spellbinding synergy of game design by Andy Logan, spooktacular illustrations by Bill Tiller, and the ingenious paper engineering of Renee Jablow.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Thank You name surveys, beta testing, and design modifications
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 03:16:28 AM
Now's the time to complete the "Thank You" name survey!
Most of you have filled out your special Kickstarter survey that requests how you'd like your name to appear in our game. We're making a special Thank You section in our Lore Booklet that lists your name as a token of our appreciation (or you can opt-out of course). But we'll be locking down the final name list in a couple weeks, so if you haven't filled out the survey, now's the time!
Instead of going in the box lid, your name will appear in the "Residents of Fogmoor Cove" section of our Lore Booklet!
Beta testing is in full swing!
We have two beta test game kits, one on the East Coast, and one here in sunny California. A lucky few of you who live locally to us have been super helpful in testing and giving your feedback. It's been a challenge to arrange a rigorous testing methodology during Covid, but we've been able to run a good amount of games using our prototype game components. If you live in the Ventura County area, let us know if you'd like to sign up for some play testing (just PM me directly).
One of our intrepid local playtesters in their natural habitat!
Design Modifications
All this testing over the last couple months showed us that our Episode Guides weren't quite as dialed in as they needed to be to ensure the Storyteller's job is fully supported. Our existing three-panel fold-out Guide just didn't have enough information to smoothly run each episode. So we're going back and modifying the layout to include a 4th fold-out panel. This will give us more room to summarize what happens in the episode, provide an overview of the arc of the entire 4-episode series, and describe in more depth the backstories of the various NPC characters that will be encountered. We'll have to roll this change out across all 16 episodes that have been developed, and that will take time, but we're confident it will result in a better experience.
our new 4-panel layout gives more room for useful content to support the Storyteller
Also: make sure to follow us on social media @TheShiversGame to see some of the latest artwork being developed. You might see some hints of our recently-developed town map of Fogmoor Cove.
That's it for this month, stay tuned for more updates in a few weeks. Stay safe out there! - The Shivers Team
The light at the end of the spooky tunnel...and what is up with paper prices?
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 03:07:57 AM
We're nearing completion! All episode artwork finished.
We have finalized all artwork for our 16 episodes! All that remains is the supporting artwork within our instructions and other manuals. Want to see the complexity that goes into creating just 1 episode? See our layout below for Episode A1: The Lost Kitten. SPOILER ALERT: don't read too closely, you might see some hints about how to solve this episode!
This layout shows the front/back of the episode guide, as well as all Story Cards and NPCs used in the episode.
Check out our playable demo on Tabletop Simulator!
This is an image of the playable demo that we created for internal mechanics testing. Pretty amazing to see the paper-craft work-of-art that is The Shivers, translated into digital 3D models! Let us know in the comments if this is something you'd like access to at some future point?
Our tutorial version, Episode 0: Flight of the Bumblebee! Some of you may have played this at various shows last year.
Manufacturing update: the paper surprise!
We've narrowed down to two very competent and renowned manufacturers for our game, but again the Covid crisis rears its ugly head to affect our production. Apparently about a year ago, major pulp manufacturers cut way back on production due to lack of global demand. Well now the economies are spinning back up, and the paper supply has not met this new demand curve. So we've seen 20-40% increase in materials costs for our game...yikes! We're hoping to wait out this spike and lock in when the prices have fallen back to sanity-levels.
Hope you all are staying safe and well out there.
- The Shivers Team
The Shivers pop-up mystery game: Story Cards, Schedule Update, and reminder about Pledge Manager
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 09:24:41 PM
First: some cool new artwork!
Hey Shivers fans:
Here's a sample of some of the amazing artwork that you'll be uncovering in The Shivers. Specifically, these are Story Card illustrations that appear in the Cluttered Kitchen for the Series A episodes. Four possible episode rotations are shown here, so you can see how versatile our Story Card system is:
This is the Story Card for the Cluttered Kitchen in series A, showing Bill's amazing artwork!
Schedule: we're a couple months behind
Blame the pandemic, blame a new team working virtually together for the first time, blame the additional content we need to create for our unlocked Stretch Goals, the reality is that we're a couple months behind schedule. The biggest factor is generating all the new episodes, artwork, new pop-up room, and additional characters from our added expansion pack.
Our current projection is that you'll receive your games this Fall, early October is our new target. We want your Halloween to be filled with spooky fun!
Reminder: Pledge Manager needs your attention!
It looks like 85% percent of you have filled out your needed information in our Pledge Manager, BackerKit. Thank you for your prompt attention, you all get A's. To those 15% of you who need some extra motivation, this is it! We will send out a final notice in the coming weeks when the PM is officially closed, so please act now. Contact us directly through Kickstarter if you don't seem to be receiving any emails from BackerKit about your pledge.
Thank you, please be safe and well-
- The Shivers Team
The Pledge Manager Launches! Also, another round of BGG voting could use your help...
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 03:50:39 PM
Pledge Manager will go fully live on Monday!
You've been waiting, you've been asking, well here it comes. BackerKit email surveys are going out starting today to a sample of one thousand backers to test our pledge manager site. If all goes well over the weekend, the remaining backers should receive their survey emails on Monday to manage their pledges. You'll be able to add add-ons, upgrade to a higher tier, put in your latest mailing address, calculate applicable shipping + taxes, etc.
This is what the Pledge Manager looks like when you click the link from BackerKit
Note: for those of you who joined our mailing list either before or during our Kickstarter campaign, and also pledge/purchase either Core or Deluxe games, you will receive a free Shivers pin! No need to add as an add-on unless you want extras.
Also, we've decided to upgrade the Core game pledge tier by including the 3 colored dice at that tier level. They will be included in your Core box, no need to add as an add-on. We're writing our game rules to use the three different dice, and it became a challenge to have an alternate game version that only uses one dice. So: Yay, free stuff!
Last round of final voting on Board Game Geek!
Our humble game is rounding out the bottom of their Top 20 Most Anticipated Games of 2021 list, but with your help we can boost up in the standings! Voting ends February 6th, so follow this link and cast your vote for The Shivers in the Overall, Horror, and Repeat Offender categories. Thank you!
Development updates
Exciting news this week, we've received our revised quotes from five potential manufacturing partners. Each brings their own special blend of talents to our project, from deep game experience, to pop-up craftsmanship, to robust project management. It will be a tough choice but one we should be deciding over the next few days. The great news is they're all excited to help make The Shivers a reality!
The rest of our team is running full-throttle with illustrations, prototypes, writing, editing, and testing to bring The Shivers to our fans later this year. Excelsior!
Stay safe out there, and curl up with a good tabletop game.
- The Shivers Team
Vote for The Shivers on BGG! And check out our final pop-up room...
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 11:45:16 PM
We've completed the final room, the Naughty Nursery!
As our final stretch goal was unlocked, we went to work on developing the 8th pop-up room, the Naughty Nursery. This room is part of an expansion pack included in the Deluxe version, or available on our soon-to-launch Pledge Manager and Pre-Order store. What kind of monkey-business, hi-jinks, and shenanigans happened in this room, hmmm?
Another incredible work of art by Bill Tiller and Renee Jablow
Board Game Geek "Most-Anticipated of 2021" vote
For those of you on BGG, The Shivers could use your help! Please go to BGG using this link, find entry #102 for The Shivers, and click that green thumbs-up button. This will help move us into the top 40 nominations, and should only take 2 minutes of your time. You have until this Sunday to support our nomination. Actual voting comes after. Thanks!
Update on Pledge Manager and Pre-Order store
Good news! We're in the middle of constructing our Pledge Manager and Pre-Order page, which should launch at the end of this month. You'll be able to change your address, manage your pledge, snag any add-ons, etc. Look out for emails from The Shivers and BackerKit!
We hope this new year brings some hope and joy (and games) to everyone.
