Keeps Weekly II: Do Me a Royal Favor

This is an archive from the Keeps Weekly, a newsletter that ran from April 22 to June 3 2025.

Hail and Well Met!

The Keeps family rapidly grows. Issue I of the Weekly was lengthy, introducing things and setting expectations. Since we don't have to do that anymore, we'll keep it quick and dense for you all. Starting now!

PROGRESS UPDATES

The Preview Editions we've been spreading have a giant QR code on the front. Good for outreach, bad for looks. So we've been homing in on box art we can be truly proud of (by we, I mean Elaina. Trust me, you don't want my art on the box). We've narrowed it down to three design families, and we need your help choosing one:

Obviously these aren't yet final, but direction will help. See the GIVEAWAY section for how you can both give your insight and win a Keeps deck.

We've been doing some good-old-fashioned brick-and-mortar promotion around Gainesville and Orlando. We left some copies in bars and coffee shops and the like, hoping people might grab one and play. Ideally, they will be beguiled by the Keeps allure and join our cause. And if you regular any trivia nights around town, and are good enough to get top three, you might find a preview copy in your hands soon. See if you can recognize these locations:

CARD SPOTLIGHT

They say fortune favors the bold. So what does a Royal Favor?

Looks like the Count does.

Royal Favor is a HOT! card. HOT! cards are special in that they must be played immediately upon entering your hand, but they use no actions to play. So you might use an action to draw Royal Favor, then when it enters your keep, you simply draw again as if nothing happened—only now you have an extra half coin. In this way, Royal Favor is simply a tiebreak card. No harm, no foul.

Yet like all cards in Keeps, Royal Favor can do much more. For starters, you could just play it on someone other than yourself. This forces them to draw, which is often advantageous to you. If you know Blunder (quite an unfortunate card to draw) is on their pile, or if their pile is empty and you need the round to end, Royal Favor is invaluable.

Being able to win ties or force a player to draw allows for plenty of neat strategizing. As always, to put yours to the limits, please check out these three Royal Favor themed puzzles:

EASY         MEDIUM          HARD

BLOG HIGHLIGHT

If you are curious about what the physical Keeps product is actually like beyond just the box art, be sure to check out this week's blog post On Boxes and Materials.

GIVEAWAY

Honorable mentions for last week’s giveaway include responses like “The Friar is genuinely OP” and “This game inspired me to be a better person in the 1350s which karmatically [sic] linked to my present self”. But the preview copy goes to Chloe, who said:

"I loved the artwork on the cards—especially the ones of the Fool. I just really like birds in general. Like REALLLYYYYY like birds. a lot. Also Mr. Buffkin's voice over on the introduction video was funny I guess”.

Am I biased because it was one of my students? Of course not. Remember: my judgement is perfect and infallible. And I am glad at least someone recognized my voice in the intro video instead of thinking it was AI. Chloe, we'll get your copy to you soon.

To win this week's giveaway, tell the Keeps Courier which of the box art options you like the most, and why. Remember to use the subject "Giveaway 2".

IN CLOSING

Thanks for coming back for week two. This mailing list is a ticket to Kickstarter success on June 10th. If you know someone who might like our little game, please forward this email to them! It helps more than you know.

Until next week,

David