October 2015 Austin Bat Box Subscription Box Review & Coupon

Keep Austin Batty for October! The Austin Bat Box is a monthly indie and artisan subscription box from Austin TX! Every month you’ll receive 4-5 items that coordinate with that month’s theme. Items range from food and beverages, handmade artisan items,  art, music, fashion items, decor, jewelry, games, beauty products, and a whole bunch of weird stuff – because let’s face it, it’s Austin! I honestly thought the name stemmed from the keep Austin weird campaign, but it turns out that it’s named after their local bat colony.  Also weird.

The inside of the box lid reminds you that everything is made in the US. To be precise: Austin!

The October theme was Keep Austin Batty!

All the information is on the card – and most importantly the makers’ websites!

There is usually a monthly “swag bag”! It features swag and goodies from a variety of businesses (some from the box, some not) and you can show your Austin pride and support local Austin businesses. However, this month the swag was individual – because each company had some swag!

Everything in the October 2015 Austin Bat Box!

Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy Sticker & Bumper Sticker: Founded in 1986!! This place has basically seen it all. I love their throwback logo. Obviously if you’re any sort of Austinite you know what this place is already. Their website had me with “George Takei and Felicia Day.” This is great local gear! Newbies can pass as natives, and just about anyone can get a kick of this awesome logo, which isn’t really a throwback because as far as I can tell they’ve never changed it!

Steve Jackson Games Cthulhu Dice Game: Well, I have to say I never considered playing a game based on a tentacled cosmic entity. This is from a local game maker who is really famous for the Munchkin tabletop card game (see below).

Serving Cthulhu is fun . . . except for all those other cultists out to get you. So get them first!

Cthulhu Dice lets you drive your rivals mad . . . very, very quickly. Players take turns rolling the big, beautiful, custom 12-sided die, embossed with tentacles, Elder Signs, and more. Destroy your opponents’ sanity! Better yet, steal it. But watch out for Cthulhu – when he comes up, he takes sanity from everyone! 18 glass Sanity marbles are included. Lose all your marbles and you’re mad. The last sane cultist wins . . . unless everyone goes mad together. Then Cthulhu wins!

Cthulhu Dice plays in 5 to 10 minutes, and is fun for 2 to 6 players.

All the reviews I have seen are that it’s a quick, fun game perfect for keeping in your bag when you’re waiting around with some time to kill. Much more fun to spend it with friends than everyone being on the phone. These items also came in a great purple velveteen pouch for safekeeping. And also I have a 12-sided Cthulhu die!!!

The Munchkin cards are samples from the Munchkin deck:

Go down into the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run.

Munchkin is the dungeon experience . . . with none of that stupid roleplaying stuff. Millions of copies sold worldwide!

There are tons of versions to match your own particular fandom.

The backs of the Munchkin cards. This looks really cool, I’m totally going to buy one.

And the back of the Cthulu game pack. All hail!

Angel’s Devilish Creations: Silver Bat Coffin Nails: Angel is an Austin-based artist and the business card is a mini version of one of her most popular prints! They came slipped into a paper coffin sealed with a nice orange bat (see the video on our YouTube channel for that!). I was a little worried how I would cut these out – but they’re stickers! This is awesome! I am guessing they work best if you seal them in with topcoat.

Soy Delites Candles Spotlight Sampler Pack: This box smelled so good when I opened it. These candles are handpoured in Austin and I received the Hill Country Xmas Spot Lite and the Pumpkin Spot Lite, and also a set of matches! Matches usually only come in candle subscription boxes, so this was a great bonus!  Each has about a 12 hour burn time.

Music!

Bonus Music: Those Damn Villains Sampler: This is a well-produced soft metal band (is that a thing? that’s what I would call it!). Excellent music for October.

Tombstone Union is the band of the month! This CD “vs The Copper Mantis” is a full-length album and it came with a tarot card by MidMourning Art along with fold-out CD art. This is another metal band and I loooove the female vocalist!  I bet they play awesome shows. This was another great item. All the music in this box was excellent.

Baked By Amy’s Bat-Tastic Cookie! Obviously crafted exclusively for this box! This is a giant cookie obviously decorated exclusively for this box by a local bakery. This was a tasty cookie and a really fun item to find in this box.

I thought this was another great box! There was a lot of really great local stuff from music to a cookie to local artists and artisans (and I’ve never thought of a game maker as a local artist before, but it definitely fit the bill!). The theme was excellent and highlighted some of the darker/batty side of Austin, and I do love that everything that possibly can be is bat-themed. This box is perfect for anyone who wants to support local Austin businesses, whether you’re a local, a transplant, or just a SXSW alum, or need a cool local place to claim as your own.

Visit The Austin Bat Box to subscribe or find out more! Save 15% on your first purchase – even discounted prepaid subscriptions! Use coupon code HELLO15. (And I looooove the message you get when you enter the code! Thanks guys!!)