Time is running out to support Spero Toys’ Animal Warriors of the Kingdom Kickstarter! There’s one week to go, with it closing on Wednesday, April 17. So far, all unlock figures have been revealed, but the Birds, Ox, and Pachyderms still need to be unlocked!
Click here to back the Animal Warriors of the Kingdom Kickstarter! You can find Brian Brink’s tracking chart for it, too.
From Spero Toys:
Spero Toys’ Animal Warriors of the Kingdom (AWOK) Primal Series 2 Kickstarter campaign hit the floor running on March 6, 2024, flying past its original $99,000 fundraising goal in just five days. But that was just the beginning, as the campaign kept revealing new UNLOCK items, ultimately offering seven new anthropomorphic animal body types instead of the campaign’s original four, including special bundled rewards packages that could save collectors up to $424 should the campaign end up raising more than $470,000. Spero Toys has been hard at work promoting the Kickstarter campaign across all the toy-related information outlets that would have them, but with just seven days to go, they’re hoping to raise enough funds to add three birds, an ox, and three huge pachyderm figures to the just one-year-old indie toy line.
Two days after the campaign’s launch, a team of AWOK spokespeople kicked off the Gather the Tribe promo tour. It’s goal: hit as many toy collector YouTube channels and podcasts as possible and make sure their audiences hear about both the AWOK brand in general, and its bold Kickstarter campaign. Just after one year of being released to market, Spero Toys engaged in this Kickstarter to raise enough funds to support the rapid expansion of the toy line from its current two animal body types. While those have served the line well, Spero’s hoping they can raise enough to shockingly add seven new unique action figure “bucks” which will bring female characters, lizards, lions, oxes, rabbits, foxes, bulldogs, birds, rhinos, hippos, and a big old elephant named General Mamba to the kingdom. Spero’s owner-founder and creative director, Jason Bienvenu, with the help of Spero’s own Derrick Chandler, Adam Drake of the Highly Articulated YouTube channel, and Sergio Robledo-Maderazo aka Brick Something of the Brick Something YouTube channel, have been hard at work bringing the “AWOK talk” to 19 different livestreams and videos on YouTube, with current plans to hit at least another seven before the campaign’s end on April 17 at 7:58 AM Eastern.
“We’re happy with what we’ve accomplished so far, but we’re looking to make the big push for $470,000. We know there’s a usual spike in support towards the end of these crowdfunding campaigns, but we’re gonna do everything we can to make sure this spike is appropriately elephant-, rhino-, and hippo-sized,” proclaims Bienvenu. “When I envisioned the AWOK world of characters as a comic book 11 years ago, it was filled with all sorts of animal species, each spread across different houses, armies, and factions. This Kickstarter is us taking our shot to build this world on toy collectors’ shelves in just about two years of AWOK toy releases.”
In order to incentivize collectors to take a leap of faith and invest into the Animal Warriors of the Kingdom brand, the Kickstarter is offering some serious discounts. “Standard figures” like their reptiles, females, speedsters, and birds can be backed for $33 instead of the eventual estimated retail price of $37.99. The larger “deluxe figures” like the muscular lion Hannibal, the hulking gorilla Kah Lee, and the pirate bulldog Grimes can be backed for $45 instead of the estimated retail price of $49.99. Perhaps in their most shocking move, Spero is offering an EPIC All-In Package at $650, which has the potential to include each of the 20 new figures and 6 weapons sets offered by the campaign, should every item be unlocked by reaching the $470,000 goal. Such a haul would eventually cost about $1074 at retail. Spero thinks that giving its Kickstarter backers this huge $424 discount is only the right thing to do, since their support for this campaign is truly an investment and act of profound faith in Animal Warriors of the Kingdom.
The next seven days will be dramatic. Even though the campaign already hit its initial goal, the real question remains: How many of the seven remaining figures will be unlocked by campaign’s end? Will Spero be able to unlock one figure per day? It’ll ultimately be up to the Animal Warriors of the Kingdom fans, both new and old, to determine just how fast this imaginative toy line’s cast of characters will grow.
