Keeps Weekly IV: Blunder Pressure

This is an archive from the Keeps Weekly, a newsletter that ran from April 22 to June 3, 2026. 

Salutations, good friends.

A bit of a short one this week. Much work is being done, but it is less flashy-interesting stuff and more boring-logistical stuff—except the new box. Here goes.

PROGRESS UPDATES

Taking your feedback from Issue II, Elaina has settled on a near final box design. And WOW, is it amazing:

Check out the Blog Highlight section to see her wonderful post about the process.

One of the many smaller and less fun things I've been working on is getting a wordmark for Keeps. The trademark application has been accepted by the USPTO and is pending assignment:

I am expecting to have to do a bit of fighting to hold on to it, but hopefully by the time it comes to that, Keeps will be in enough hands to have "acquired distinctiveness". But just in case, make sure you guys don't confuse our game with any lines of hair retention products.

CARD SPOTLIGHT

Negative ten coins??

Blunder is a thunderous card. Its value of ten coins is more than thrice that of any other coin card, yet that value is negative! It is the only Keep card that you have to play on yourself, and it is HOT!, so you have to play it as soon as you draw it. It's essentially a curse.

If you've ever played Exploding Kittens, you can't help but love those moments when you draw a kitten and know you have pushed-your-luck too far. What I love about Blunder is that it brings some of that facepalming suspense to Keeps, but in more strategic hues. You tempt fate just a bit any time you pull a card from the Fool pile.

The flip side of Blunder is that you can use up an entire turn to remove it from yourself, and place it face-up onto someone else's pile. This looming threat turns Blunder into something of a HOT! potato—hold on to it too long, and the game will end, too short and it might make its way back to you.

A friend of mine likes to say that "the true Fool turns Blunder into an asset". Yes, if used correctly, Blunder can actually be strategically critical—especially in a two player game, where it may come down to forcing Blunder onto your opponent. To see just how counterintuitively useful Blunder can be, take a look at this week's puzzles:

EASY         MEDIUM          HARD

BLOG HIGHLIGHT

If you like looking at concept art, you should REALLY check out On Box Design I, which is just full of interesting imagery, and details the process Elaina went through in finalizing the box art.

GIVEAWAY

A huge thanks to those of you with the resolve to post our good name somewhere. Getting a good online presence is proving to be a struggle, but progress is being made.

The post we liked the most was Lily's! Check out her top-tier advertising, which just coincidentally randomly by happenstance happens to also promote my science team. She said the "post is pretty tuff, and you should, like, follow my account too". A copy of Keeps is coming your way, Lily.

To win this week's giveaway, tell the Keeps Courier which of our blog posts you like the most so far, and why. Remember to use the subject "Giveaway 4".

IN CLOSING

Thanks for coming back for week four. This mailing list is our ticket to Kickstarter success on June 10th. If you know someone who has a pulse and is breathing, please forward this email to them! It helps more than you know.

Until next week,

David & Elaina