Intro

Welcome to the June Roundup! Here to summarise updates from the last month, what’s coming up next month, and sneak peeks for features and events on the horizon!

Suggestions

There is a #suggestions forum in Discord, and for our non-Discord members or members who wish to leave anonymous suggestions, we have a Suggestions Google Form (also linked on the dA and Website Homepages). Please leave constructive feedback where possible; if you have a complaint, please present it objectively and if you have an idea for a solution to your issue, please include that too. The group is run by volunteers, and we do our best, but we cannot always respond immediately so please be patient and understanding. 

Please do not make suggestions to mods directly via DM or note, and do not note @Boucle-Unicorn group, or any of our mule accounts,with suggestions or feedback. Please use one of the official suggestion avenues so that we can compile all the ideas and feedback in one place.

Reminders

• Foal Design Submissions:
  • You MUST submit your Correspondence link via the Google form after submitting your design to the group, as per the new system. Designs will not be in the queue if they are only submitted to the group but not to the Google form.
  • You DO NOT need to resubmit a foal design to the queue after edits are made. Just reply on the correspondence that edits are done and it will be seen to the next time a design admin passes by
  • Redeems First, Submit Design Second –  Please wait until redeems are completed before submitting a foal to the design queue, it stalls the process and takes time away from ready foal designs </3
  • Please use the new form when submitting your foal designs, and include anything you opted out of in the new form field. This includes retired genes, and randomly rolled BAs and manes that you did not use 
• Corrupted Foal Designs – Please do not edit the pose of the foal lines, Corrupted Designs must show some original lines, and follow the shape of the original pose where possible (not applicable to parts of the body that are corrupted to the point where they are missing whole sections, eg hippocampi etc)
• BU-MP Effort Bonus – Effort bonus should be applied via the google form 
• BU-MP Show Entries – Don’t forget to include links directly to proof of entry, the BUMP team cannot go hunting for it if you link a whole journal
• BU-RP Entries: When submitting entries to BU-RP events please be sure to read the rules carefully and check deadlines. If you have questions/suggestions please feel free to ask via the Boucle Discord #questions channel or note BU-RP
• Gremlin Show Prize – winners, check your comments, second and third place winners must choose their companion prizes!

Updates

• New Foal Design System – We have trialled a new system, made tweaks based on beta feedback, and here’s how things are different and improved:
  • Updated design description form – breedings will be formatted in this way going forward to assist with copy+paste. Additional fields such as “Opted out” and “Previous Design Link” must be included for applicable designs.
  • After submitting your design to the group, you need to get the CORRESPONDENCE LINK and submit it to the new GOOGLE FORM – mods will be using the results in the sheet to track the backlog, not the dA logs, so you must submit to the google form to enter the queue.
  • If a submission expires, a mod will request them back to the group folders, but the design is official as soon as it’s in the registry and marked as Completed in the Backlog.
  • There is a Publicly visible Foal Design Backlog Sheet 
  • For full information, please see the updated “Submitting your foal design” section on the “Designing Foals” page.
• New Design Line Edits Allowances – If a design has a 3D mutation with hard items like straps/collars/ribbons etc that would disperse the fur you are now allowed to edit the lines to show that
  • Use the Bald Lines as a reference for how far into the hair a mutation can push
  • Currently this is only for minor edits, eg, you cannot hide a Boucle’s hair with 3D mutations – this will be further expanded upon / outlined in the upcoming design guide
• Breeding Note Updates – Breeding note formats have changed going forward! This is so you can easily copy-paste the breeding note directly into your design description and fill in the gaps!
• Literature Limit Changes – Due to the heavy workload on BU-MP, we have regrettably had to make the decision to put a limit on how we will process large literature pieces.
  • This change has now come into effect, after a month and a half’s grace period. Any literature submitted from the 1st July must be split into chapters. 
  • Any long literature still waiting to be counted, but posted TO DEVIANTART before 1st July, will be counted with the old system.
    • Uploading placeholders for longer literatures so they can be counted later is not permitted, if found out you will be asked to change to the new way or we will outright deny counting the piece.
  • Any new literature piece longer than 3000 words must be divided into chapters. A chapter can be no more than 3000 words. 
  • XP will be counted per chapter, similar to as if each chapter had been its own deviation.
  • Please include the literature form in your description for all literature pieces
• Import Submissions – Imports no longer wait for “second check” and acceptance to the Boucle-Unicorn group, they are official as soon as they are uploaded to BU-IMP.
  • If you spot any typos in your imports, please note @BU-IMP or post in #typo-reports in the Discord.
• Plaque Backlog – Plaques being uploaded ASAP after being requested.
  • BUMP will be more backlogged than usual during the initial submission influx, so we ask your patience when it comes to getting your XP confirmed and rewards given <3
• New Public Breeding Roller – for your entertainment, you can now use our Public Breeding Roller to test out parent combinations and see potential foals from a pairing! The Public Roller DOES NOT give you official foals, it’s just for fun. Enjoy! <3

What’s on Now

The following events are running this month:

• Festival of Might – the FoM runs every month from 1st-20th, this month’s theme is Tropical Paradise and will feature an enchanted tiki lounge for your Palais, a last unicorn standing competition for your Batailles, and a sun and sand relay event for all boucle types! 
• July Palette – this month’s colour palette is available on the homepage!
• July Breedings – open 1st-14th, maximum of 5 breedings each, all foals will be rolled for optional Summer Horns and a selection of previous years’ Event Coats!

July Breeding Season 2023

Your foal will be optionally rolled for one of the following Event Coats:

• Dragonfruit
• Wayfinder
• Summernight
• Banan
• Apple
• Persica
• Tiedye

And one of these randomly rolled stones:

Horizon Features

This section includes sneak-peeks at what we’ve got planned a few months down the line! Stuff that’s on the horizon!

• The ABC – The Adopt a Boucle Centre – we are merging the BoucleShops into the group, and turning it into an official geno adoption centre. Members will be able to adopt genos, and donate genos for a small amount of UG or XP boosts. This will especially benefit newbies who would like a foal-size alternative to the Newbie Import system! Aiming to come out in July!
• Import Note Generator – Progress is being made on a tool to help you with import rarities, and even to pre-format your import notes! An alpha-stage version is on target to public by the end of July
• XP Earning Calculator – Also on the docket for development is an XP Calculator, to help you work out how many points your artwork and literature can earn!
• Explorations – More ARPG elements are already in development, you can expect Explorations to land later this year as a way to earn Unicornian Gold, Pralines, exclusive companions, and on the rare occasion, DIY imports!
• Certificates – Also in development for the Boucle Academy, Certificates will give your Boucles different breeding/exploration bonuses once completed. 
• Palette Prompts – Replacing the monthly palette prompt, the Palette Prompts will run every three months for more colourful challenges and bigger prizes! 
• Group NPCs – After some fab suggestions in the May Discussion, we will be expanding the Group NPCs. We already have some NPCs from an old Boucleween Event, so we will be bringing these to life plus some others to make rarer event genes more available; their slots will be available to members in the future as prizes for various events.
• Website Overhaul – We aim to have all the information scattered across dA and the old website to be collected in one beautiful resource, as well as clarify a lot of FAQs and make information finding easier for all of us <3 More old mutations and colours are being added each month!
• Surprises! – We have many exciting ideas for new things down the line, but we shan’t be revealing them all. While we will be giving you more teasers when we are able, members will still have some exciting surprises to look forward to!

Backlog Summary

We are training new mods in all areas, so we thank you for your patience, as backlogs may move more slowly or some items may be held up for training purposes <3 You’re doing great, modlings!!

Approximate processing times for the following teams are as follows:

• Registration: Less than a week
• Transfers: Less than a week
• Reward Redeems: Less than a week (any pending are with trainees)
• Foal Designs: Less than a week. Up to date backlog can be seen here.
• Import Designs: Less than a week. Up to date backlog can be seen here. 
• Breedings: 3 weeks, we’ll try and get June squared away asap <3
• BU-MP Counts: Under a month
• BU-MP Plaques: Under a week
• BU-RP Pralines: Under a month
• BU-RP Events: Gremlin Show Prizes all distributed!