Sell the Shinobi (Ninja) clientele all of the supplies they need in this Micro card game of set collection and sabotage.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
July Update: PnP Files, Pledge Manager, Development Updates
about 1 month ago
– Mon, Jul 06, 2026 at 12:13:36 PM
Hello everyone!
In this update: the pledge manager is going out via email over the next few days, the first wave of print and play files are ready, physical game production update, and game development updates.
I apologize for the delay; I decided to postpone this update until after the USA holiday weekend so if something goes wrong with the pledge manager, Backerkit support is available to help.
Pledge manager!
The pledge manager will go out this week as soon as it's approved by Backerkit! Around 10% of backers will receive their email surveys first, and the rest will be sent out the following day if all goes well*.
The pledge manager is used to collect taxes, addresses for shipping, to distribute digital files, and later will also be used to collect shipping costs. We are not charging shipping yet. Shipping will be charged closer to when the games deliver. We want to make sure we don’t overcharge for shipping your games to you, so we’re leaving open the possibility of shipping costs being lowered!
*If you use an email relay service for your Kickstarter email, such as AppleID relay, you may not receive your survey. If you don't receive your survey by the end of the week, please reach out to me and I'll be in touch to help fix it!
Print and play
Update: Currently in contact with Kickstarter to get their file distribution working correctly. It's a new feature, and I've discovered a bug. I'll update more on the situation through the comments on this update! Regardless of if the delivery through Kickstarter works, the files will also be available through Backerkit by the end of the week and delivered through the pledge manager!! (End Update)
The first wave of print and play files are available! They will be downloadable in Backerkit and here on Kickstarter. The additional files we unlocked during the campaign and the art book will take a bit more time to make sure everything is finished and high enough quality for my standards, so we’re releasing them in waves! See the image below for details.
Physical production:
Our sample of the game is on it's way!! If it requires no changes, the full mass production can start. I should have more details next month or if something particularly exciting happens!
Game development updates:
We also made some small graphic design and balance changes that had to be extensively tested over the last few weeks. The great news about that testing is that all of the changes feel so natural that the game feels like it should’ve been this way all along!
Here’s the graphics changes laid out: the new look differentiates the card resource and the cost, and connects the card cost with the bonus action (which you take after paying the cost). In addition, the scoring is streamlined visually by changing the location of where the spy resource and cost is on the card backs.
The new balance change: the 3 cards that score 4 points per set have an increased cost of 3 resources instead of 2 resources! This feels more balanced and natural, and is the only change to the gameplay.
Thank you for your patience and for supporting our game!! Please reach out if you have any questions.
-Leslie
We did it!!!
2 months ago
– Wed, Jun 03, 2026 at 08:08:59 PM
The Kickstarter campaign is officially complete! Shinobi Spy & Supply is 422% funded thanks to 345 amazing backers!!!
Thank you all so much for supporting our project, Micro May games, and indie tabletop games in general! We're so excited to be able to manufacture Shinobi Spy & Supply and get it into your hands.
I have a few things to update you all about next steps and end of campaign things.
Updates:
From this point, you can expect a monthly update from me on the progress of the project, and an additional update if something important happens!
Pledge Manager:
There's 2 important things to note here!
The Pledge Manager will open by late June/early July, and surveys will be sent to your emails. If you use an AppleID Relay email for your Kickstarter account, you may not receive the survey and it may have to be fixed manually. I'll be in touch about this before surveys go out.
I WON'T be charging for shipping immediately when the Pledge Manager opens, and will be using Backerkit's "Charge Shipping Later" feature.
The reason for charging shipping later is that I won't need to charge for shipping until the game is manufactured, and shipping costs are currently higher than average due to global events (as seen on the campaign page). I really don't want to overcharge for shipping if global shipping prices lower by the time I'm ready to ship the game. I also guarantee that I won't ever charge more for shipping than listed on the campaign.
I'll send out an update before the Pledge Manager opens with more details.
Digital Rewards (PNP, art book, 4 player mode):
The digital rewards will be available in July through Kickstarter's Digital File Sharing tool! This is a new tool that I haven't used yet, so hopefully everything works smoothly! The files will also be available through Backerkit once the pledge manager opens.
Thank You's!!
Thank you to all of you amazing backers who've helped us make this project a reality!!
We also owe a huge "thank you" to all of the incredible people who've helped made this game happen behind the scenes, by playtesting, rulebook reading, campaign feedback, graphic design input, Micro May spotlights, collaborations, game reviews, moral support and encouragement, and more.
It wouldn't have been possible without you all!
Cheers,
Leslie
Last stretch goal reached!! Surprise freebie, poll results, collabs!
3 months ago
– Tue, Jun 02, 2026 at 01:21:19 PM
In this Update: Stretch goals, free surprise printable, poll results, collabs, and Micro May Shoutouts!
All Stretch Goals Unlocked!!
Our final stretch goal is now unlocked!! Thank you all so much for supporting our game! The promo card pack will now have all 4 cards printed!! This includes the Orca, Kappa, Gull, and Lidth's Jay! All characters are available in the PNP as well.
None of these cards contain gameplay changes; they’re fun alternative art for the starting shopkeepers. They're also nice for the 4 player "chaos" mode.
Final campaign Surprise!
Our final campaign surprise is a digital sticker sheet. Print these out on sticker paper to make Shinobi stickers at home!
Art Print Poll Results!
The Koi won the 3rd art print poll! I'm so excited to see these printed at a larger scale than card-sized :)
One last shoutout for Micro May Collabs!
I want to give one last shoutout to Flock & Squabble, Courage & Cunning, and Cryptid Creek, our official collaborators for Micro May 2026! Check out their games for Leslie's art and fun exclusive promo cards!
Shinobi Spy & Supply also comes with promo cards featuring all of these games!!
(Note: late pledge isn't open for Cryptid creek yet, but it will be during the pledge manager)
Micro May Shoutout
In this update I'm also featuring one last Micro May project from another Minnesotan. I got to test this one at Protospiel Twin Cities last weekend, and had fun playing it!
REMIX will challenge you spell decisively while your opponent is also making plays in real time. Create legal words quickly to get rid of your deck before your opponents!
Thank you's
I'll save the big speech for after the campaign, but we're feeling very grateful here at Orca Island Games for the support you've given us to make Shinobi Spy & Supply a reality. Thank you all <3
-Leslie
Stretch Goal Unlocked! New Poll, Solo Video, Micro May, Art Blog
3 months ago
– Mon, May 25, 2026 at 12:25:51 PM
In this Update: we've reached the $5,000 stretch goal! What's next, poll results and new art print poll, Solo mode video, Micro May, and more Art Blog.
Stretch Goal Unlocked!
We've unlocked the $5,000 stretch goal and unlocked upgraded cardstock quality for the cards!! Thank you all so much, we're so excited to have made it this far!!
I'm in discussions with my manufacturer to discuss which nicer cardstock is the right option for us, but regardless we're very excited to have reached this milestone and make the games even better quality than before! Thank you!!
New stretch goal added!
We've decided to add one new stretch goal for the remainder of the campaign. If we reach $6,000, BOTH Print-And-Play-Only promo cards will be printed with the original Orca and Kappa (From Cryptid Creek) promos! This makes a total of 4 promo cards for the game!
This includes the Guest Artist promo card, the Black-Tailed Seagull by Shane Tholen of Flock N' Squabble, and the Lidth's Jay promo card (Illustrated by Leslie Kolke) from Courage & Cunning!
If we don't reach the stretch goal, both characters will still be printable by anyone at home!
Art Print Poll Results
The Shiba Inu won our last art print poll, by a hair! It will join the red fox in the Art Print pack add-on (also included in the "Everything Shinobi Spy & Supply tier).
Last Art Print Poll!
With the final week-ish of the campaign approaching, the last art print poll is up! Vote for your favorite character in the Cloth resource suit.
Solo Video Playthrough (Standard difficulty)
The solo video is live! Check it out to learn how to play and watch me beat up the standard difficulty AI Shopkeeper.
(To clarify, it's not generative AI, just an automated opponent)
Micro May Shoutouts
A Quick mini shoutout! Our Collaborator project, Cryptid Creek, is ending soon! Check it out for more of Leslie's art and exclusive promos!
Each of the 18 games in One Card Wonders follows the same basic principle — the rules and the game itself are contained within just one card. This way you don't have to look for a separate rules sheet when pulling out one of the games, because they're right there on the same card!
Most of the games require just a few simple components to play, like dice or coins, and some are even playable with the card alone. Each game's rules specify which components are needed to play it, and all are included in the box!
Epic, Funky, or Smart? Vote as Aliens and find the Human in this social deduction party game for up to 8 players.
We are aliens returning home after gathering many things, and possibly a human or two, from our first visit to Earth. We must vote on what we have found and discover who might be a human posing as one of us.
Launching this week!!
Micro May is finishing strong with another wave of great games! Follow these to be notified when they launch!
Counterpoint invites players to experience the world of classical chamber music through cooperative trick-taking. Take on the role of an adorable classical musician, play your part by collecting your own suit, and navigate through increasingly complex real-life classical chamber music compositions.
Bananarchy is a fast paced party card game for 3 - 8 people where players don't have to wait their turn to play!
Scramble to collect the most points in Bananas before the Banana Grove is empty. Outmaneuver your opponents with clever distractions, ripening agents, and all out monkey mayhem to be crowned the Monkey King!
Art Blog #5, Sika Deer
The name Sika deer is derived from “Shika,” (鹿) the Japanese word for deer. They are beautiful creatures, being one of the few deer species to retain their spots into adulthood (although populations differ, some having very faded or no spots). Because of their beauty, they’ve been introduced to many places around the world, and have become an invasive species in some of those places. Conversely, they’re endangered or extinct in some of their native range, although still prevalent in Japan.
The deer are best known in Japan for their presence in Nara, where they have been fed and protected by humans for centuries. In Shintoism, and in Nara in particular, the deer are thought of as "Messengers of the Gods," referring to the founding story of Kasugataisha Shrine, where a white deer arrived from Kashima Shrine as a divine messenger.
Today, when visiting Nara, you can buy “deer biscuits” to feed the deer, made of rice bran and wheat flour. The officials ask visitors to not pet them and be wary of male deer with antlers, as they are still wild animals.
Art Institute of Chicago's information on this print: (Link)
This print is Utagawa Kunisada’s “Memorial Portrait of Utagawa Hiroshige”, from 1858. Utagawa Hiroshige was an extremely prolific master of Ukiyo-e printmaking, specializing in landscapes. After being orphaned at age 12, he started training under Utagawa Toyohiro, of the Utagawa school of printmaking. He created 8,000 pieces over his lifetime. Despite having been paid little for many of his prints, he was extremely dedicated to his craft, having become a buddhist monk towards the end of his life to help complete his One Hundred Famous views of Edo series of prints. His style was partially influenced by Katsushika Hokusai, who also painted many landscapes. Both artists’ works were in turn very influential to the impressionists and post-impressionists of Europe, who collected their pieces and were inspired by them.
This portrait of Hiroshige was made by Utagawa Kunisada, in the year of Hiroshige’s death. The two were documented as being friends. Kunisada was a much more popular artist in their time, so to help Hiroshige promote his “The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō” series of prints (to this day some of his best-known works), Kunisada created his own The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō series, featuring Hiroshige’s landscapes with one of his (Kunisada’s) portraits in the foreground.
(Above: "The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido." Portrait of kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro III in the role of Tokuzo. From Kunisada's 1852 series helping to promote Hiroshige's work. Wikimedia Commons)
Hiroshige's memorial portrait is surrounded by an account of Hiroshige’s life written by another good friend, writer Tenmei Rojin. At the end is Hiroshige’s “farewell poem:” “Dropping my brush in Azuma [Edo], I go the long journey to the western country [paradise] to view there the wonderful scenery.”
I wasn’t expecting my research to lead to the story of close friendships between these artists from ~170 years ago, but it touched my heart to find through the memorial portrait how much Utagawa Hiroshige was cared about by his friends.
Stretch Goal Unlocked! + Micro May, New Collab, Weekly Surprise, Art Blog
3 months ago
– Mon, May 18, 2026 at 01:42:10 PM
In this Update: stretch goal unlocked, a fun surprise, Micro May Collabs, Micro May Artist Spotlight, and more Art Blog!
Stretch Goal Unlocked!!
We've unlocked the $4,000 stretch goal!! Thank you all so much for your support! Every pledge will now have access to a printable 3-4 player "Chaos" mode, complete with the mode's instructions and scoresheet!
Only one copy of Shinobi Spy & Supply is required to play, but we recommend players be somewhat familiar with how the game plays at 1-2 before playing at 3-4 players (I did say it's chaotic, haha).
Our next stretch goal will be upgraded card stock thickness, at $5,000! It's amazing we've made it this far, thank you for helping make this game a reality!!
New Surprise Upgrade!
It's a new week of the Kickstarter, and I have another surprise! The Print and Play (included in all tiers) will have a low-color black and white version in addition to the normal game!
If you want to save on ink or want to color in all of the characters yourself, you'll be able to! Available in 2 print formats: A4 & Letter size.
Flock and Squabble is a fast moving, family friendly card game where players slam their seagulls onto a table piled with rubbish. The player who swoops with the most seagulls, wins the pile!
The play table is the beach. There is a common pile of beach rubbish building up between you. You have a deck of seagulls with various values, and you have 5 of these in your hand: You will use these to 'bid' on the piles. On your turn, flip from the main deck and match symbols to make larger piles of rubbish. That's calm and quiet. But, as soon as you flip a purple seagull, all players slam their bids onto the pile they want. The fastest adds the purple seagull to their bid. The highest bid on a pile wins all that rubbish (and the health points therein). But be clever: You use up the seagulls you bid. You only have 16 cards. There are 10 purple seagulls. That's 10 'playoffs'. If you send too many seagulls too early, there won't be enough seagulls to snatch up the tasty morsels at the end.
Shinobi Spy & Supply is Collaborating with Flock N' Squabble! The PNP of our game has a guest artist card illustrated by Shane Tholen, and Flock N' Squabble has Leslie's guest artist card of an Australian Sea Lion!
Launching Tomorrow as part of Micro May! Follow/Presave today!
Announcing A New Collaboration with Courage & Cunning by Fountain Mouse Games!
I designed this collab character, named Jaylith! Jaylith is a Lidth's Jay, and will appear as a character in both games! (Print and PNP versions for Courage & Cunning, PNP only for Shinobi Spy & Supply)
Behind the Mechanics of Shinobi Spy & Supply with PNP Time!
Check out this newsletter article where I discuss how we created and developed Shinobi Spy & Supply!
Micro May Artist Spotlight Flipbook:
Check out this flipbook put together by the lovely Nicole Fende of Mayhem and Delight Games, featuring some of the art and artists of Micro May 2026!
Art Blog #4
The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) is the 3rd largest salamander in the world, reaching 5 feet (1.5 m) in length and 55 lbs (25 kg). It is one of only 6 giant salamander species in the world. In Japanese it’s called ōsanshōuo (オオサンショウウオ/大山椒魚), which literally means "giant salamander," or hanzaki (鯢魚 / はんざき), referencing it’s folkloric ability to regenerate itself, even after being cut in half.
Photo by the Smithsonian National Zoo, CC0 Public Domain (Check out that link, it has videos and more!)
It’s a fully aquatic salamander that lives in southwestern Japan, typically found in fast-flowing mountain streams. They migrate throughout their lives between tributaries and the main river. Although they lose their gills when they undergo metamorphosis like most salamanders, they remain fully aquatic and raise their heads above the water to breathe air. They also absorb oxygen through their skin, and are well adapted to do so by having many skin folds to increase surface area.
"Hanagami Danjo no jo Arakage fighting a giant salamander," by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In folklore they are often depicted as giant monsters who can regenerate themselves and swallow people whole. They do have amazing regenerative capabilities, being able to regrow limbs if necessary. Unlike in folklore, however, they're slow moving and not dangerous in the least.
Much is being done to help with their conservation, but they still face threats of pollution (due to breathing through their skin), and habitat fragmentation and loss.
Okitsu, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)", by Katsushika Hokusai, In the Art Institute of Chicago's collection, CC0 Public Domain
This print is Okitsu, from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojusan tsugi), by Katsushika Hokusai in 1805-6. Shinobi Spy & Supply's giant salamander character is wearing one of these traveler's outfits.
Hokusai’s Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō road is not as well known as Utagawa Hiroshige’s series by the same name. Hiroshige’s series focuses on the landscapes that travelers saw on their journey, while Hokusai’s focus is on scenes between people at different places. The shift in focus makes Hokusai’s prints of the Tōkaidō feel, to me, more like the memories of a trip and the people that you take it with, rather than postcards that you buy when you’re there. Both are valuable, and I love how distinct the points of view are!
These travelers are at Okitsu-juku (興津宿), a town of roughly 1,668 people and the 17th station on the Tōkaidō road, established in 1601. It’s located in Shizuoka, in what is now part of the Shimizu Ward (Shimizu-ku), a harbor town known for Japanese mandarin oranges, green tea, love of football (soccer), and its fisheries.
That's all for this update! Thank you all for your support, we couldn't have made it this far without you. You've made Shinobi Spy & Supply a reality :)
