Cat Nap: A tile laying game about out-snuggling your rival!

Production Videos!
3 months ago – Thu, May 28, 2026 at 10:31:30 AM

Hello everyone!

We’re happy to share that Cat Nap production is officially underway!

After all the extra work that went into finalizing the box, components, and especially the insert, it is very exciting to see the game finally moving through the factory process. This stage has taken longer than we originally hoped, but we wanted to make sure the final product felt polished, sturdy, and worthy of the support you’ve all given us.  =]

Once production is complete, the next major step will be reviewing production samples with our team, and then the games will begin moving into the international fulfillment network.

Thank you again for your patience and support!

Factory footage below!

As always, let us know if you've got any further questions!  

--Matthew, Aerobellum Games

Tomorrow BackerKit will Charge for Shipping/VAT/etc.
4 months ago – Sun, May 03, 2026 at 08:40:54 AM

Hiya everyone, quick micro update for you all!

Tomorrow is the day BackerKit will be charging cards for shipping and any add-ons. If you haven’t filled out your pledge survey yet, please reach out and we’ll get you sorted.  If you miss this deadline and are reading this much later, we can still get you sorted, just reach out to us!

On the production side, we’re ready to go. We’ve already paid for the production run and approved our third round of prototypes, including the finalized box insert. The factory will begin mass production as soon as they return from their holiday. While we have Labor Day here in the U.S., China observes a full “Labor Week,” during which factories shut down—otherwise we’d already be underway.

We’ll share photos and video from the production line as soon as we have them.

Appreciate your patience as always!

--Matthew, Aerobellum Games

April Updates!
4 months ago – Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 10:02:34 AM

Updates!

Locking Pledges in 48 hours

Hello everyone, we're going to be locking the PM here in a 2 days for those of you that have completed the survey, so if you have any last minute changes to make please hop in the pledge manager over at BackerKit and do so soon!  We still have 53 people that have backed the game but haven't filled out the survey yet.  I'll be reaching out to all of these folks via KS direct messages again, and probably do another email blast from my personal Gmail account because it's fairly clear that they aren't getting the messages sent from BackerKit!

Charging Cards on the 4th of May

After pledges are locked we'll be charging cards on the 4th of May.  

Cat Nap Founder's Edition Assembly Video

It does exist!  The mythical 3rd prototype is what we see in the video below.  The box is raised slightly (and they are stacking the rulebook on top, which I told them not to do in mass production but between the 'bottom' layer punchboard and all the other smaller punchboards placed on top of them.  All that remains is that they physically send these via air-delivery over the ocean to us here in Texas for final approval, and then we have nothing between us and a mass-production date.

Deepening Our Partnership with Dara Studios

Looking back on Cat Nap, one thing still surprises me—we spoke with a lot of factories, had multiple professional people involved, and yet we kept running into the same issue: box size. It was constantly shifting, expanding, and being reworked in every direction.

The solution, in hindsight, was incredibly simple: design around a box insert from the start.

That’s on us—we should have caught that earlier. Definitely a newbie mistake. To make sure we don’t run into that kind of issue again, we’ve deepened our partnership with Dara Studios. They’ll now be co-managing our factory relationships and providing experienced guidance on production and manufacturing decisions moving forward.

Going forward, we’re making sure that package design is 100% locked in before moving on to additional steps.

Production Timing & Next Steps

We’re very excited to be working with one of the top game manufacturers—but that comes with tradeoffs. As a smaller publisher, when we make late-stage changes (like introducing a box insert), it can push us to the back of the production queue. And that queue for our factory has been very busy in the past 2 months, very, very busy. 

That’s where Dara Studios comes in as a 2nd layer of "coverage" or protection for the timeline of the campaign. Their experience and relationships across multiple factories help us navigate these situations more effectively—both in securing prototypes and locking in production timelines.  (They have much more clout to throw around than us as well, which definitely helps!)

In short, this added layer of support should help us avoid delays like this in the future and keep things moving more smoothly from here on out.

Now, we know that doesn’t do much to help in the short term—but we do hope you’ll feel that the final product reflects the extra care that’s gone into it. Cat Nap ultimately received three major upgrades after launch: a refined rulebook by a top-tier graphic designer, a score tracker to reduce mental overhead during play, and a custom box insert.

These improvements did increase production costs and contributed to delays, and for that, we sincerely apologize—but we believe they’ll make for a much better final experience in your hands. We hope the majority of you will appreciate the much more developed and expensive game that you'll be receiving as fair exchange for the delays on this project.  =]

And after that?

We are planning on getting the PNP/digital content for the game done once we have a locked in production date.  This will happen in throughout May. That'll give our crafty folks a little sneak peak of the game, I think it'll take the better part of a couple weeks to put together, most of the work will be in the rulebook and testing of various solo puzzles. So, by the time that you receive your boxed copy of the game, the campaign will be completely fulfilled.  

Thank You Again!

We truly appreciate your patience and continued support throughout this process. Bringing a game from concept to your table is never a straight line, and Cat Nap has certainly been a learning experience for us in more ways than one.

Your enthusiasm, feedback, and support are what make all of this possible. It allows us not only to create games, but to improve how we operate moving forward.

We’re committed to getting Cat Nap across the finish line in the best way possible, and we’re excited for the day it finally lands on your table.

As always, thank you for a part of Cat Nap!

—Matthew, Aerobellum Games

Production Schedule! Backerkit Update! One last upgrade for all backers!
5 months ago – Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 02:59:31 PM

Production Update

We are finally heading into a 3rd (and final) round of prototypes!

Over the past two months, the primary focus behind the scenes has been solving one very specific problem: how the game “puts away.”

After receiving our 2nd round prototype, we realized we weren’t satisfied with how the components stored once the game had been opened. The tiles were loose, the box didn’t close cleanly, and overall it didn’t match the experience we want for Cat Nap.

So we made the decision: to include a box insert.  

What followed has essentially been a 2-month-long game of Tetris with the factory. The challenge was to design a custom plastic insert that could neatly organize everything… without increasing the box size, which would have downstream effects on our shipping costs, carton marks that would have to be redone, UPC codes haven't be recreated, case weights having to be adjusted, and having to redo the box art to fit the new aspect ratios. That constraint made this a surprisingly complex engineering problem, but we now believe we’ve finally solved it.

Because of that work, our 3rd prototype went into production yesterday.  That's typically a 3-week process from creation to us receiving it, and upon us receiving and approving it we can schedule mass production.  

Another Free Upgrade! 

As a result of this process, every copy of Cat Nap will now include a custom plastic insert to neatly store all the components.

Importantly, we achieved this without increasing the box size. The compact nature of Cat Nap is something we really wanted to preserve. “Big game, small package” has always been part of its identity.  The factory wanted to solve this problem in a very easy and expedient way of "just make the box size way bigger", but we pushed back on that.

This upgrade does come at a real cost to us. It adds both material and labor costs, as the factory now needs to place components into the insert during production rather than them shipping in a bag as they come out of the machine. But after seeing the second prototype, we knew this was the right call.

Getting Cat Nap to you quickly is our highest priority, but not at the expense of the quality of the game.

Timeline Context

What we’re learning is that this industry often feels like a relay race. You move quickly on your end, then hit moments where you’re waiting on partners. Then suddenly everything moves again. But the “baton” rarely stays in our hands for long. We complete a set of tasks, pass it along, and the process continues.  And in the background, we're always refining our team and processes, learning what we would do differently next time and who we would partner with for another project.  

What We’ve Learned

The past six months have been a massive growth experience for us.

Six months ago:

1. We had no distribution partnerships to help with fulfillment
2. We had no established factory relationships
3. We had never used a pledge manager before
4. We knew very little about manufacturing processes

Today:

1. We now have a global distribution partner
2. Factories are actively reaching out to work with us, and we're much better at speaking their language than we used to be
3. We’re extremely comfortable working within BackerKit
4. We have a much deeper understanding of materials, components, and production

We still have plenty to learn, but we’ve come a long way in a short time!   

BackerKit Update

At this point, we have fewer than 90 backers who haven’t completed their survey.

We’ve reached out multiple times (including from personal email accounts) and are continuing to chip away at that list. That said, this is not holding anything up. We just want to keep everyone informed on where things stand.

In Summation

Getting Cat Nap to you as soon as possible remains our top priority, but we want it to arrive exactly how we envision it!  Apologies for the wait, but we're happy to say that things are moving again.  =)

Thanks for reading!  Always let me know if you have any questions or comments below!  

Matthew, Aerobellum Games

Backerkit Survey Reminder!
6 months ago – Wed, Mar 04, 2026 at 11:23:56 AM

Hello Cat Nap Backers!

We wanted to send out a quick update and say thank you again for the incredible support you’ve shown this project. There are quite a few good things happening behind the scenes right now, and we’re very excited about the direction everything is heading.

That said, most of those details are still a bit too early for us to share publicly. Rather than continue delaying an update while we wait for everything to be finalized, we wanted to check in with you all now about something important: completing your survey in the pledge manager.

Pledge Manager Reminder

We still have over 150 backers who haven’t completed their pledge manager surveys yet. If that might be you, please take a moment to log in and double-check your survey status.

If you have any questions while filling out your survey, feel free to email us at [email protected] and we’ll get you squared away.

The survey emails will be coming from BackerKit, so if you don’t see yours right away, be sure to check your spam or promotions folders. 

Important BackerKit Note

One small quirk we discovered with BackerKit: if you access the pledge manager through the "front door" of their preorder shop (essentially the late-pledge storefront), it may treat you as a new customer, even if you’re already a backer and using the same email address.

Because of this, the best way to access your survey is through the original BackerKit email link that was sent to you. Doing so ensures the system properly recognizes you as a backer and helps us avoid confusion later when the pledge manager is locked.

When Will Cards Be Charged?

BackerKit does not charge your card immediately when you complete the survey. Cards will only be charged once we lock the pledge manager, which is still at least a few weeks away. Our goal right now is to get as many backers as possible to complete their surveys before that happens.

Once we have a finalized lock date, we’ll share it in a future update.

More News Soon

We expect to have another update fairly soon with some good news, so keep an eye out for that!

--Matthew, Aerobellum Games