Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

A New Height
3 months ago – Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 12:24:27 PM

Greetings! I thought I wasn't going to posting any more updates to this project, but then something amazing happened. The Cosmere RPG project from Brotherwise Games shot past $13 million this morning, making it the new highest-funded tabletop gaming project on Kickstarter!

It was an honor to have held that title ourselves for as long as we did with this project, and it is an honor to now pass that title along to a project that has achieved even loftier heights in their final hours!

Congratulations and have fun worldhopping!

Frosthaven Community-Driven Campaign
4 months ago – Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 01:48:59 PM

Hello! It's been a while! I just wanted to drop in for a quick update to tell you that the final part of this Kickstarter is being fulfilled!

That's right. Oh so many years ago, I promised you a community-driven campaign for Frosthaven once the game had been released and plenty of time had passed for people to complete the game. Not that you need to have completed the game to participate in the new campaign, and no judgement if you haven't (my home group certainly hasn't... I've been busy).

For those unfamiliar, the community-driven campaigns I run will have a new scenario every two weeks that you can play and then go to BoardGameGeek.com to vote on what happens next. (Note: you do need a BGG account to participate in the voting.) The community has control of the story, and nothing has been prepared beforehand. I'm sure it will be a wild ride, and it starts now!

Here is a link to the first BGG post. And, for your convenience, here are links to the first scenario PDFs, both normal and printer-friendly.

This is the only update I'll be writing on Kickstarter for this, so if you want to play/follow along, I highly recommend you subscribe to this BGG geeklist, which will give you notifications ever time something new is posted.

And that's it! Have a great day, and I hope you enjoy the community campaign!

Frosthaven play surface books (and more) on Backerkit
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 11:53:35 AM

Hello! I am back with another Frosthaven update to give you some important news! In case you weren't aware, I wanted to let you know Cephalofair Games is currently live on Backerkit with the Gloomhaven Grand Festival. We're offering loads of different cool stuff like new games and miniatures, but I thought you might be particularly interested in one of our offered add-ons: the Frosthaven playsurface book. 

This is something that I promised we would offer at some point, and it has finally come to fruition: a way to play all 138 scenarios from Frosthaven directly on the books themselves (just like Jaws of the Lion) to minimize setup and components. This is four spiral-bound books of roughly 100 pages each, and each is sized to fit snugly in the Frosthaven box, so they are quite large. By employing four books, we've actually improved on the Jaws of the Lion design because each book only ever contributes one page to the scenario, so you never have to cross over a spiral bound during play.

We are very nearly finished with the design of these and are about ready to send them to the printer, along with the second printing of Frosthaven, with the intention of delivering to backers in the October-November time frame, so you won't even have to wait too long to get them. And if you want to know more about how these playsurface books work, I just wrote a Backerkit update about it!

The easiest way to pick the books up is to back the project at the $1 (slay a bug) level, and then select the playsurface books as an add-on.

OR! You could pledge for $15 and get our newest title, Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs! 

This is a (comparatively) tiny, 100-card Gloomhaven game that features streamlined versions of the starting 6 characters fighting their way through a brand-new 20-scenario campaign. It is a solo game that can be played in 20 minutes, so it really is the most convenient way to get a quick Gloomhaven fix no matter where you are. Here's the trailer we created for it, which I can't really prepare you for, so you should just watch it. 

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the plethora of miniatures we have available for all Gloomhaven and Frosthaven titles. If you want to spice up your copy of Frosthaven, this is another way to do it. Just be prepared: it is a lot of miniatures to replace all the monsters, bosses, and summons in the game! 

And there is lots of other cool stuff on offer over on Backerkit, like Gloomhaven: Second Edition and the Gloomhaven RPG, but I'll leave you to explore that on your own...

Oh no, wait. Sorry, I lied. I did want to point out one more thing to you: we released two new custom Frosthaven scenarios for the Backerkit campaign as well! We filmed a couple in-person Frosthaven playthroughs with Penny Arcade and Pixel Circus, and I created custom scenarios for them that were released along with the videos.

Here is the Penny Arcade scenario (which I am particularly proud of), and the video of the playthrough: 

 And here is the Pixel Circus scenario and accompanying video: 

 There are so many more videos and information about all sorts of cool stuff on the Backerkit page, so please go check it out at your leisure. (Though I'll also note we are nearing the end of the campaign!)

Okay, yeah, I hope to see you over on Backerkit, but either way, have a great weekend!

Roll Credits
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 09, 2023 at 05:26:18 PM

Hello! This is Isaac stepping in for the final golden update at the end of the rainbow, but before we get to all that, I want to throw it over to Chris to bring in a final sum-up of fulfillment. He just got back from UKGE, where he had a great time getting to meet backers and showing off some new cards and character art for the recently announced Gloomhaven: Second Edition! Here's Chris:

Thanks for your patience as our support team worked through all the support tickets we received. We’re still working on a few pending tickets, but have worked through the majority of them and are seeing faster response times as we continue to get closer to being fully caught up!

We’re just about done with every fulfillment region. For specific updates, please check your region below.

North America/Canada/Mexico: KS Fulfillment and 2022 Preorders 100% complete!

Europe/Rest of the world: KS Fulfillment and 2022 Preorders 100% complete! Support has been notified of some orders that have been returned due to them being unclaimed or having an address error. If your tracking number shows that your package was returned to Germany, please contact support at the email below.

United Kingdom: KS Fulfillment and 2022 Preorders 100% complete!

Australia/New Zealand: KS Fulfillment and 2022 Preorders 100% complete!

Asia: KS Fulfillment excluding FoldedSpace Map Archive, LaserOx organizers and Frosthaven Pin Sets 100% complete. These 4 items and 2022 Preorders have all been shipped to their regional hubs for delivery. If you haven’t received an email with tracking information by the end of next week, please contact support at the email below.

If you haven’t received your order or tracking for your order, please contact [email protected]. In order to help speed up the process, please provide either your Kickstarter backer number or BackerKit email address in the body of the email. Please do not send a Kickstarter message, as this is not a reliable enough communication tool, nor does it give us enough information to service your pledge or questions. Thank you!

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Thank you Chris! Chris and the customer support team have done an amazing job tackling the monumental amount of support requests that have come in, and they have been able to cut response times down considerably. We will of course continue to be on top of any support requests that come in and will be diligent in getting those last few items to backers in Asia, but doing those things doesn't require updating the rest of you anymore, so I've decided it is finally time to close the book on this Kickstarter project and proclaim this update the last official update!

First off, I need to thank Price for the unbelievable amount of hard work he has put in on the back end handling manufacturing and shipping for the largest fulfillment project our industry has ever seen. Plus he wrote almost all of the updates for the past year to keep you informed on all the goings on. A truly Herculean effort.

Thinking back now, it has been over three years since this project launched, back at the beginning of the pandemic, and we certainly have gone through lots of ups and downs in that time! Sometimes we got things wrong, and sometimes we didn't communicate as well as we could have, but I'd like to think we got a lot of things right and tried to keep the lines of communication as open as we could, with updates at least every other week for the past three years.

I mean, this is update #136! That's a lot of updates! I hope you had a good time following this project, and of course, most of all, I hope you are enjoying your copy of Frosthaven. I think, in the end, the vision really did come together and we were able to create something truly incredible. Moreover, it was a creation that wouldn't have been possible without you. More than just the financial support, your contributions throughout this project, both in the design contests and in the comments, helped shape Frosthaven into what it has become, which is something that I and everyone here at Cephalofair Games is immensely proud of.

Thanks for coming on this journey with us! The last three years have been crazy for everyone, but I am grateful for this project and being able to spend that time creating and shipping this game out to you. I hope you will join us on our next adventure, which is launching on BackerKit in 11 days, but either way, thank you for your faith in this project, and may Frosthaven bring you much joy!

We're back from GAMA & Fulfillment Updates
over 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 12:40:12 PM

Happy Fulfillment Friday!

I hope everyone is doing well this Friday and heading into a weekend with some plans of rest, relaxation, and maybe - hopefully - some frosty Mercenary work!

As stated in the last fulfillment updates - General Fulfillment is completed for the following regions: United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

We have some brief updates on other regions below, but first we wanted to share what we’ve been up to this week as the Cephalofair Team is just returning home from GAMA Expo where we had the privilege of showing off Frosthaven to hundreds of retailers from across the country, and world.

-What is GAMA and GAMA EXPO?-

GAMA Expo isn’t probably a well known, or first to mind, convention for most hobbyists as it’s not a public or consumer facing show. But that doesn’t make it any less important! See GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) is the tabletop industry’s primary trade association and non-profit organization. It’s also the parent organization behind Origins Game Fair since 1977.

With memberships for Publishers, Creators, Wholesalers, Retailers, Media, and Producers/Manufacturers, the goal of the organization these days is to help all of us collaborate better and, more importantly, keep expanding the hobby together for everyone. Why? Because board gaming is awesome and the whole world needs to know it!

GAMA’s vision is simple: “A game on every table, a table for everyone.” and their mission statement elaborates further:

“The essential nexus for new and experienced game industry professionals, GAMA serves to promote its members' common interest - increasing the adoption of and engagement with hobby games. GAMA fosters networking, sharing of best practices and innovations, and the pooling of resources toward common goals. GAMA achieves this through hosting trade and consumer shows, industry events, providing an information and resource hub, marketing activities, and interfacing with other trade organizations in adjoining industries.“

Personally, this is one of my favorite shows of the year for planning and business development as it gives us an opportunity to meet with so many of our peers, partners, and associates that help make our games successful and company stronger as a whole.

This year we had the honor of hosting Cephalofair’s FIRST Retailer Panel for upwards of 75+ brick and mortar stores across the country and world. Coordinated by Cephalofair’s Marketing Manager Ross Thompson. Ross and I had the opportunity to share the story and hurdles behind getting Frosthaven from Crowdfunding to their store shelves - as well as promote and tease our upcoming crowdfunding projects announced and unannounced. This was a lot of fun, and personally meant a lot to me to see and hear that every retailer in attendance not only carried Cephalofair and Gloomhaven products, but the vast majority were backers of this project as well.

I have very fond memories as a kid visiting the hobby store in my mall and ogling the big box fantasy miniature sets (Warhammer Fantasy) and roleplaying sets and accessories (Dungeons & Dragons) despite not having the required allowance or social group to engage in those hobbies. It means the world to not only be in this line of work now, but to have played a direct role in helping Cephalofair put one of the absolute largest (and heaviest!) gaming products on those same store shelves. A tremendous THANK YOU to all of our retail backers for having faith in Cephalofair and helping the world of Gloomhaven continue to grow!

Also a big thank you to Cephalofair’s Sales Manager, Chris Kessler, who did a fantastic job running the Cephalofair booth - engaging with retailers old and new wishing to place Frosthaven restock orders and letting them know about our upcoming projects and retailer pledge levels. And also to Cephalofair’s Director of Art & Design, BJ Hensley, for holding down the creative fort back in “the office” (we all work remotely here at Cephalofair, heh) making sure tons of new and exciting high quality art, graphics, sculpts, and writing continued coming through from our talented creative contractors, allowing three-fifths of our team to go out and promote them in advance! (Really…..you all don’t even KNOW what you’re in for yet *insert maniacal laugh*)

So yeah. We’re all tired, but feeling INCREDIBLY elated about the success & reception we received on Frosthaven at GAMA and the new projects we’re working on behind the scenes.

Thanks for letting me share! 🙂

And now back to your regularly scheduled…

-FULFILLMENT UPDATE-

Europe & Rest of the World:

While we’d expected to call a formal completion in today’s update, our German fulfillment partner, Fulfillment Europe, has unfortunately been dealing with some serious staff shortages due to unforeseen sickness & departures. That in combined with a couple of national holidays, they are doing their very best but have very understandably fallen behind and are doing their best to wrap up the last stretch of pledges in their warehouse. Currently, the expected completion date is May 11th. We apologize for this slow down but thank those remaining backers for their patience & understanding, and Fulfillment Europe for their continued attention, communication, and perseverance.

Asia & South Pacific:

Fulfillment in Asia & the South Pacific is largely completed at this time, though packages are still very likely making their way through courier services to several more distant regions. Additionally, it was brought to our attention that many of the Frosthaven Map Archives may have been overlooked in the fulfillment process, so our partner VFI - Asia is helping us rectify this ASAP for those still in need of that product. Thank you to those who reached out and notified us - we’ll get it to you as fast as we can!

Oceanic:

The long awaited Laserox Inserts have finally arrived! The Aetherworks have and are working quickly to get these last couple accessories to you ASAP. Thank you for your patience and we hope you’ve been enjoying your campaign in the meantime, and that these addons only elevate your gaming experience from here forward! Expect a formal “completion” announcement by our next update.

-FULFILLMENT END-

Just a friendly reminder, our team is still hard at work answering and resolving fulfillment tickets at [email protected]. This is the best way to reach us if you have a problem or question about your pledge, order, or shipment. Kickstarter Messages are not a valid way of contacting us, so please email us (if you haven’t already) at the address above.

And that’s it for this week. Have a fantastic weekend and be good to yourselves, and each other. We’ll catch you again in two weeks as this project continues winding down!