Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

Items and a change for the wooden inserts
over 2 years ago – Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 04:06:20 AM

Hello! Right off the bat, we need to address the Broken Token issue. If you are unaware of the situation, this is probably a good place to start. In light of the accusations and Cephalofair Games' commitment to making this hobby a safe space for everyone, we are ending all our licensing agreements with Broken Token, which includes the wooden organizer sold as part of this Kickstarter.

Although we will no longer be proceeding with Broken Token produced organizers, we are dedicated to upholding our obligation to you by vetting responsible solutions and paths forward, i.e. alternative partners, producers, refunds, etc. This will require some more time on our part, and we ask for your patience as we pursue what those options are and promise to keep you closely informed over the coming weeks. In particular we ask that any refund requests specifically related to the organizer wait until we do have a concrete solution in place so that you can make the most informed decision possible.

With all that said, I do want to emphasize that these Kickstarter comments are not the place to litigate the inciting incident and, as always, be respectful.

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So now let's move on to the regularly scheduled update. I'm planning on having another timeline update/check-in in two weeks, but for now, I realized that I haven't ever spent an update talking about items, and I figure that could be interesting.

Yes, you are probably aware of the crafting system, where you collect resource loot in scenarios and then use those resources in town to make new items and build buildings. Resources earned while playing the game are added to an individual character's supply on their character sheet, and from there they can be used at the craftsman to make whatever items are available. Much like Gloomhaven, you'll have a stack of available item cards, but instead of a gold cost, they'll show what items or resources are needed to craft it. And this stack will grow as the craftsman is upgraded and when more item blueprints are discovered throughout your adventures.

One thing to note is that you can transfer resources in your personal supply to the Frosthaven supply (tracked on the campaign sheet) at any time, but resources there cannot be used at the craftsman. (It's Frosthaven's now, after all.) This is to stop retiring characters from dumping extra resources into the Frosthaven supply and then immediately using them to completely outfit their new incoming character.

We are a little more lax about this with the alchemist, however, where you can turn herb resources into various potions. This process is more collaborative and discovery-based, where a lot of the time you will be combining herbs and not knowing what the result will be until afterwards. We found it a little too restrictive requiring players to only use their own herbs, which are harder to come by (especially so because once a potion is made, it can be given to anyone in the party), so potions can be made using Frosthaven's herbs as well.

Moving beyond crafting, though, there is also a separate selection of items that are purchased with gold, which is something else you'll be collecting on your adventures. At the start of the game, purchasing items with gold can only be done in a limited capacity (when you create your character and during specific events). These are items from the world outside of Frosthaven, and many of them will be recognizable to Gloomhaven players. And, look, you didn't hear this from me, but once you start building new buildings in Frosthaven, you may discover a way to more freely trade with that outside world.

And, of course, on your travels you may discover new items with a gold value. You can always sell these for half price, as in Gloomhaven, but even then, buying them back is limited.

So with that basic understanding of the item system, I'd like to now talk more about the development process for the items. As it turns out, in Gloomhaven there was some room for improvement when it came to item balance. The stamina potion is a famous example, but there are others. The general sticking point is that you encounter a lot of powerful, universally useful items pretty early in your Gloomhaven journeys, and as you progress and discover more niche items that only benefit you in specific circumstances, you are less inclined to ever even try these items out, which overall didn't do much to help the sense of progression we were aiming for.

Well, like with everything else in Frosthaven, we're putting more time into it this time around and improving as much as we can. A lot of consideration was put into when you will encounter the item in the campaign, how powerful it is, and how much it costs to get it. So, in general, there will be a better sense of progression throughout the campaign as your items slowly grow in power. It's not quite that simple, though, because of the vast array of choices you have with the order in which you encounter scenarios, and also your play style and the great diversity of items in the game. So you still have the chance of encountering something quite powerful early in your campaign, and you may also still find simple items that you acquired early to be useful far into your journey.

Wherever possible, we did try to emphasize the diversity of the items, such that direct upgrades in power are rare. You will see some recipes in the craftsman that just directly improve existing items by adding more resources to it, and three-herb potions are, to some extent, upgraded versions of two-herb potions, but the vast majority of items are going to give you new and exciting ways to interact with scenarios.

Oh, and another thing! In Frosthaven, we have also been working for a good long time on another class of item that I think is pretty cool. In Gloomhaven, items either gave you a passive effect for the entire scenario, an effect usable once per long rest, or an effect usable once per scenario. But now we also have flippable items! These provide an effect on one side of them, and, when used, the item will flip over to a different effect on the back. Use that effect, and it will flip back over to the front side. This gives you more flexibility on when and how often you use the item.

I'd like to give you a concrete example, but all the ones in the game are spoilers, so, to instead give a vague example: one item many have you consume a specific element for a nice effect on one side, but then the other side will have you consume a different element for a different effect, so you'll need to have a consistent source of both elements if you want to use the item frequently.

So then, one final question you may have is whether there is any cross-compatibility with items from the Gloomhaven box, given that some purchased items may be similar to them. We did try to stay open to this as much as possible, identifying items from Gloomhaven that we felt were interesting but less essential (as anything more essential will already be in Frosthaven). They also needed to be easily understandable and functional from the perspective of the Frosthaven rule set. Their syntax doesn't necessarily need to match a Frosthaven item with a similar effect, but the function should still be obvious without having to consult an FAQ.

There ended up being about 30 items from Gloomhaven, plus a handful from Forgotten Circles that we decided were cross-compatible, so that if you own those games, you'll be able to unlock their use over time while playing. Like the other items, some are more powerful than others, so you'll see a progression of unlocks there as well.

And, yeah, I think that about covers items. All in all, there are 247 different items in the game, so I'm sure you'll be able to find some that you love. I'll see you again in two weeks with more news on inserts and timelines! Stay safe!

Proceeding along
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 08, 2021 at 05:19:18 AM

Hello! We're going to do a relatively small update today as I write to you from Huntington Lake in California. Technically, I am on a family vacation right now, which was planned back when I was confident that Frosthaven would be well-finished by now. Instead, I'll be spending the majority of my day today editing PDFs. At some point, though, I've gotta start on dinner, because it's my turn to cook a meal for 12 people.

And I'm not telling you this for sympathy or anything. Just letting you know what's going on and making clear that getting this project finished is my highest priority. And I'm still having a great time, getting to see everyone I haven't been able to see in two years.

So, yeah, I want to start by thanking Price for covering for me last time. He had a lot to share, and I hope you all enjoyed it. I did just want to clarify further that all of those miniature samples from the factory were not produced through the same process we'll be mass-producing them with and clearly didn't have the time or pressure in the mold necessary to make sure everything showed up like it should. The feature loss you saw won't be a problem in the miniatures you actually receive.

Also, Price wanted me to mention that we will be at Gen Con (Sept. 16-19) and Origins (Sept. 30-Oct. 3) in the coming months with new demos of Frosthaven, production proofs of Frosthaven on display, and lots of other cool stuff. We'll be in booth 737 at Gen Con and booth 453 at Origins, and we'd love for you to come and say "Hi" (preferably wearing a mask)!

And with that said, there's not a whole lot to report this week. Things are moving along on schedule. We've received the layouts on the Scenario Book and Section book from the graphic designers and, as I said at the start, we're now going through another in-depth round of edits on those, which should get them pretty close to final.

In the mean time, Josh is continuing to work on finalizing more card decks and other files like the scenario flow chart, so I'm still feeling pretty good about our current timeline.

Finally, I just want to let you know that I saw a bear last night. We were driving down the road at night, turned a corner, and there was this giant, shaggy thing right there, bounding away from the car down the road. This whole California trip has been a nice change of scenery.

By next time, though, I'll be back in Indiana, still working on this monster, so I'll catch you then. Have a great weekend!

We're going to need a bigger box...
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 04:43:14 PM

Hello!

Today’s update is a little unusual, but only in that Isaac has stepped away from the helm, if only for a moment, to celebrate his 10th Anniversary with his lovely wife Kristyn. Happy anniversary to you two!

Instead, today’s update is being brought to you by Price, VP of Cephalofair Games from the Cephalofair West Coast Office (my house).

So, as we’ve alluded a few times, this project is immense, it’s big, it’s dense, and it’s HEAVY. We’re bringing an additional 10lbs/4.5kgs of fun in Frosthaven (compared to Gloomhaven) and so today I thought it might be fun to help better convey just how much more content our backers and retail partners will be receiving once Frosthaven inevitably arrives on your doorstep.

So without further ado, here is a side-by-side deconstruction of our latest “White Box” sample of Frosthaven next to its predecessor:

So here it is! What do you all think?

Observant eyes, and those familiar with Gloomhaven, will notice a sizeable increase particularly in the following component areas:

Punchboards: 18 → 28

We have significantly more map tiles, enemies, and overlays in Frosthaven, almost all containing entirely new artwork (see Update 77) and immersive, thematic, environments created by the incredibly talented David Demaret whose work you may know from the scenario maps inGloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.

Card Decks: 12 → 17

So not only do we have more (non-character) unique decks of cards in Frosthaven, but almost all of them have more cards too. Gloomhaven brought with it just over 1700 cards. Frosthaven is, currently, touting ~2400 cards. Isaac will ask me “Is it problematic to add 1-2 more cards to a certain deck” and I get a chuckle - that breaking point, if it existed, is miles behind us at this point. No going back now!

Item Cards: 133 → 404

With over 3x as many items in Frosthaven, you’ll have many more options when it comes to outfitting your mercenary party.

Monster/Boss Groups: 47 →  58

With a larger cast of new and returning foes - mercenaries now have a total of 344 unique monster ability cards they will be battling against across their campaign. An increase from Gloomhaven’s 232 monster/boss ability cards.

Scenarios: 95 → 138

As Isaac has already been sharing, we have broken scenarios up by way of a supplementary section book to help keep that “fog of war” alive between scenario “rooms'' to allow more intrigue, surprises, and fun for all members of the party - including the player(s) responsible for setting up the game sessions. For those who have been following along, Frosthaven also just has way more scenarios at 138 compared to Gloomhaven’s 95.

Unlockable Envelopes: 3 → 17

No. Comment.

Ok. Ok. So that’s the big stuff out of the way. Let’s talk about some small stuff...

MINIATURES.

We finally have semi-final miniatures that are currently being reviewed by myself, and Chris (Lewis), one of our primary sculptors on the project. Chris has a large background in miniatures, having worked on several large Reaper Bones projects and is helping us identify some of the final adjustments in these next-level sculpts. Speaking of which - for those of you fond of miniature based projects and 3D printing, Chris has a brand new project launching next Tuesday the 27th, I’m sure he’d appreciate you checking it out HERE! (There will be some really slick model files I wish I had the time to learn how to print haha).

Disclosure: The following miniatures may contain some less than desirable blemishes that Chris, myself, and our manufacturer are well aware of and we are already taking steps to adjust the casting process as needed. This can come in the form of process refinements, or adjustments to the type of plastic we are using. Our manufacturer has already given us their reassurance that these can and will be addressed - but we wanted to let you in on this part of the process. It should be noted that none of our previous samples have had these issues, so we have confidence too that this will get resolved. We’re in the endgame now!

That out of the way, here is your (semi-final) Frosthaven starting cast:

And here are a few side-by-sides to show you how they stack up to their Gloomhaven counterparts:

We had a few objectives when starting out on the Frosthaven cast of mercenaries. First, we wanted to maintain the new detail quality standard we feel we set with our Jaws of the Lion miniatures. Secondly, we wanted to make sure each mercenary felt dynamic and told some sort of story with their pose and movement. Lastly, we wanted to provide some default basing detail to each miniature to further drive home the theme and provide miniature painters more surfaces to slap some paint on!

So yeah - that’s how it’s coming along! Isaac has, and will continue, keeping you in the loop on where we stand with digital proofing and the last bits of our editing and layout - but it’s really exciting to see it all coming together and starting to feel real now that we have more of a final product in hand. If you happen to be at GenCon, Origins, or PAX: Unplugged this year - you MIGHT just get a sneak peek at the full artwork version Frosthaven in all of its glory. So stay tuned!

In the meantime - if you’re looking for something to fill the Frosthaven sized hole in your heart and Kallax game shelf - I can’t recommend enough checking out our Frosthaven Store Locator to see if you have a participating Local Game Store near you. Pop in, say "Hi!" - and who knows, you just might find a board game that can temporarily fill that frozen void.

We really are fortunate enough to be working with over 600 brick and mortar retailers internationally, most of which are big-time KS backers, and ALL of whom help drive our industry and tabletop community forward. Game stores such as I’m Board! Games & Family Fun (WI, US), Black Knight Games (ON, CA),Fanboy 3 (ENG, UK), Mind Games (VIC, AU), & Meeples Cafe (SGR, MY) - just to name a few.

And FINALLY, we have some NEW merch and restocks happening today in the Cephalofair Webstore including puzzles, stickers, & Jaws of the Lion pints! We know many of you are still waiting on International shipping to become available. Between navigating changing EU/UK laws, warehouse limitations, and shipping issues/backups, we’ve been needing to make a few pivots to our rollout. There are still one or two logistical hurdles to make sure things run as smoothly as possible but Chris (Kessler) and I are working diligently and making strides - thank you for your patience.

Alright - I was asked to provide a "filler" update and that’s the best I’ve got. Enjoy a great weekend everyone (and the aquarium Isaac & Kristyn). We’ll catch you all again in two weeks with another frosty cold update.

Stay happy, healthy, & safe everyone!

-Price & Team

Timeline Update
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 11, 2021 at 02:10:43 AM

Hello! I hope you are having a wonderful day and will continue to do so after you read this update. I promised you more info on the timeline today, so that is what I will deliver, but full disclosure: it's not great. Review processes are taking longer than expected and freight shipping is still oppressive. So let's get into it!

Previously, I had anticipated having all files submitted for proofing by this point, but that turned out to be overly optimistic. While we are in the process of proofing punch board files, there are a lot of files still outstanding. And at this point, I feel it would be most constructive to put things in perspective with the two files I think will take the longest to complete: the scenario book and the section book.

There are a lot of components in this game and a lot of progress I could report to you about, but that would be pretty tedious, and ultimately not very informative because the bottom line is that, with the progress made, I have no doubt we'll be able to get all the rest of the files in in a timely manner before these two documents are complete. So if we're going to talk about when we can start printing that final component and start assembling fully complete games to ship out to you, talking about the scenario and section books makes the most sense.

So, for further context, as I've stated before, there are 138 scenarios. Each scenario's front page goes in the scenario book, and then any additional sections needed, like new rooms or the conclusion text, are going in the section book, along with over 200 other non-scenario sections. The current page count of the scenario book is 184 (even the introduction to some scenarios requires more than one page, but this number will probably shrink a bit by the final product) and the section book page count is 197. So that's around 400 pages of maps and text that we want to get right. We've spent a lot of time making sure the gameplay of those scenarios is right, and we are now months into the process of making sure the layout and instructions are right, as well, but it is not a simple task.

Where we are right now is that a rough draft of both documents has been laid out, with a rough version of the story and rules text. The main campaign story text is fully edited and finalized, and the side scenario text is edited, but I haven't yet implemented those edits. My main concern at the moment, however, is the rules text for all scenarios, which I am in the middle of doing a deep editing pass on. I expect to be done early next week, at which point all the text will go back to the graphic designers to make a new draft of the laid out documents with a more finalized presentation.

But I expect implementing all these edits, to both the text and the layouts, could take another couple weeks. Once we get them back, ideally around the end of the month, we'll need to do another in-depth review of everything, this time looking at the actual layouts instead of text documents to make sure all the text matches up with the maps, and cross-referencing all the section numbers to make sure everything points you to where it should. This is far, far more complicated than editing a 400-page novel.

So, anyway, I expect that final review process to take another couple weeks at least, and all the while, we'll be finishing up the other files as well. At the end of the day, this puts us at least a month and a half past our last projected timeline, and, really, let's just call it two months to account for my optimism.

And I do want to take a moment to apologize for getting the timeline so wrong in the past. It is hard to see the scale of things sometimes until you get real up close, and now that we are in the thick of putting together the actual book documents, it is becoming far more clear what a large undertaking the books are. And, again, it is very important to us to get it right instead of rushing out something that is full of mistakes.

So, if we are two months behind the previous schedule, while we don't have new projections yet from the factory on what that time line will look like, we can extrapolate from the previous timeline and estimate that we may have finish copies to ship out of the factory as early as October.

But then we run into the other wrinkle: freight shipping.

I know I keep giving you vague warnings about this, but freight shipping is real bad. I don't want to commit to telling you exactly how bad it is because we don't know how things will change by October. But by all projections, what I can tell you is that doing a swift fulfillment where all 80,000 of you get your games at the same time is not in the cards. We're looking at only being able to get a limited number of containers out of China each week, which means that fulfillment could be a very prolonged process. Exactly what that looks like and the processes involved will have to wait for a future update when we are closer to seeing what we're actually dealing with.

For now, we'll just have to settle for more vague warnings from Isaac and the fact that, at this point, I can't give you concrete answer on when you will receive your game. With the way freight shipping is going, I wouldn't expect it until early next year, unfortunately. If that doesn't work for you, I totally understand, and, as always, you are welcome to request a refund by messaging [email protected].

A bummer, I know. No one's more frustrated by this whole situation than me (except maybe Price), but all we can do is keep working as hard as we can to make the game great, so when it finally does arrive, it totally blows your mind.

And since I don't want to end on such a down note, I do want to share some sweet new character attack modifier cards with some subtle changes. You've already seen the character sheets, but here is one of the Banner Spear's cards:

The main draw here (in addition to the wording being clearer than any Gloomhaven card) is that, even on complex cards like this, we've added a "+0" on the left just to make things even more clear, which can help when dealing with stuff like advantage and disadvantage.

So then we decided to go even further, and, in order to make things more consistent, we always give priority to any special effect of the card to go in the middle instead of the number:

In Gloomhaven, the push would be on the left and the +2 in the middle, but since you resolve the +2 before the push, this just made more sense on all fronts.

Of course, if there is no special effect, the number still goes in the middle, and the rolling symbol will remain on the right:

So, yeah, just something small and interesting to end on. If you need more good news, Chris has also set up our new replacement part space, and we're preparing to get a shipment of spare Frosthaven parts to him in the first container that goes out, so if you do end up needing replacement parts, we'll be able to get it out to you without delay!

So that's all I have for you today. I'll see you next time, and have a great weekend!

Broken Token organizer update
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 12:45:16 AM

Hello! Another two weeks have passed, and I am once again here to regale you with tales of Frosthaven! We're continuing to make progress on getting all the files ready, but I thought I'd take the opportunity today to let Greg Spence from Broken Token give you an update on where they're at with the Frosthaven wooden organizer.

So here's Greg! If you didn't order the organizer, there's some more update info below.

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Greetings, Frosthaven Organizer Backers!

I want to thank you for your support of this project and give you an update on the progress and state of our Frosthaven Organizer. Our original Gloomhaven Organizer has been such a big success that we were thrilled to get a chance to create an officially licensed counterpart for Frosthaven, and our goal is to make this one even better than our Gloomhaven Organizer. As we work in tandem with Cephalofair, sprinting toward the finish line, we’re marking off milestones along the way and getting ready for the final steps of the process.

First, let’s talk about design. Product design for the Frosthaven Organizer is going really well. Our design team has put in weeks of time planning how to best organize all the amazing content that’s coming with Frosthaven. It’s similar in a lot of ways to our Gloomhaven Organizer, so for those who are familiar with that product, this one will feel like meeting up with an old friend who has grown a little bigger and wiser, in the best of ways.

We’ve created several rounds of mock-ups and prototypes, and in turn tweaked and adjusted every little detail to make sure we’ll be ready for launch. It’s a beast to tackle, and we’re nearly to the finish line. The last things left to do are test fittings and final adjustments once we receive a white box copy from the Cephalofair team. It’s a great feeling to be so close to completion and seeing our design come to life. Of course we’ve been in consistent contact with Cephalofair throughout the entire process. It’s really important to have good partners for a project like this, which is a big part of why we jumped at the opportunity to work with them and support this project.

Once design is wrapped, the final step (and our next topic) is manufacturing. Like nearly every aspect of this past year, there have been challenges, and hurdles we weren’t expecting. While the design and testing of the organizer is totally under our control, what isn’t under our control is the supply of materials. Slowdowns due to COVID-19 hit the lumber industry at the same time as the demand for wood increased, and the result is an unprecedented international wood shortage, creating a lack of supply to meet the demand, and causing a tripling of wood prices for the material that’s available.

Because of this, we are considering all options available to us, with the ultimate goal to bring you the highest quality organizer and still meet our fulfillment deadlines.  Prior to the issues with the wood supply, our plans were to manufacture all units at our San Diego facility, using wood that we obtain from our distributors. Because of the severe shortage in birch plywood, we are now looking at augmenting our manufacturing capabilities with an outsourced manufacturer in order to gain access to their wood supply.

We want to be completely transparent about this decision and discuss any potential risks or concerns. Using an outsourced manufacturer carries the concern of quality, and making sure that they produce a product that is as-good, or better, than we would create ourselves.  We have been working with this company over the past 6 weeks, having them cut samples of the organizer and sending us physical prototypes to evaluate. We have been very pleased with everything we’ve seen, and any concerns we’ve had about quality have been answered.  We also pledge to back the quality of our products no matter what.  If a customer ever receives a product that is not up to our standards, we will make it right.

Additionally, the organizers produced by our partner will be made from a 3-ply poplar plywood that is very similar to the birch we use ourselves, but it is a slightly different wood species. To many people, the differences may not be noticeable at all. Poplar plywood is renowned for its durability as well as its bending strength. Like Baltic birch, it offers pale coloration. It has a tight, beautiful grain, and a consistent appearance with minor pin knots visible. It’s paintable and stainable, as well, for those who like to take their organizers to the next level.

The advantages to augmenting our manufacturing with this partner is that we will gain access to faster shipping times to other parts of the world, and shorten the amount of time it will take for us to manufacture all units needed to complete the Kickstarter.  This will help us ensure that we will not add any fulfillment delays when it comes to receiving your pledge rewards.

We want to stress that we are not making these decisions lightly, and that no decisions have been made with the goal of cutting corners or quality. If we had to wait for enough Baltic birch to be available, well, we honestly don’t know when we’d be able to secure enough wood to complete the full production run. We want you to feel confident that the final product will be the level of quality you expect from The Broken Token, and that every decision we make along the way is made with our customers in mind.

Given the changes over the past year, the reality is when we have fulfilled all the Kickstarter units of the Frosthaven Organizer, we’re going to have to increase the MSRP to account for the additional costs. So if you got in on the Kickstarter, you’re getting the lowest price for this organizer, and you’ll be getting it as quickly as possible.

So that’s the update for now. We hope this information about the small difference in the final product will cause minimal to no concern on your end. We always strive to maintain a fully open and transparent line of communication with our customers, and any time there's a change in expectations vs. reality, we want to make sure we're clearly communicating with our backers. I’m happy to answer any additional questions you may have down in the comments. As always, we'll stand behind the quality of our product.

We know Frosthaven is going to provide hours of fun and excitement for you and your gaming group. And we’re confident that we’ll deliver a quality organizer that will save you setup time and maximize your enjoyment of the game.

Thanks again for going on this journey with us. Safe travels.

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The only other news I'd like to mention today is just that the global shipping situation is still very bad, and it looks like it could remain bad well into when we're expecting to ship Frosthaven. And remember in a previous update when I was talking about how huge of a project this is and how many containers we'll need to fulfill it? Well, I think at this point, we can expect that getting all of those containers is going to take much longer than we had initially planned for.

I think we'd still run into trouble even if things started to improve now, and things don't look like they're going to improve any time soon. It's just not a great situation, and I don't have any more specifics on timing for you right now, but I just want to keep you in the loop so that you're not surprised when we do start seeing delays in shipping down the road. It's going to be a bumpy ride, so buckle up.

All right, so in two weeks, once June has ended, we'll revisit the production timeline to see where we're at, but for now, have a great weekend and stay safe!