Event resolution
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 03:50:06 AM
Hello! There's not much to update you on this week, but let's start with fulfillment for the EU and rest of the world, which is all we have left for wave 1.
EU/Rest of the World: Fulfillment Europe continued shipping out a large amount of packages this week, putting us at around 50% shipped. They are still doing their best to get through their multiple large projects, so we anticipate shipping to continue through next week, and there will be another update then.
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The only other major item to talk about is resolving last week's event. The comments seemed pretty evenly split on the two choices, so that shows us we are on the right track! Be sure to read the event from last week's update before reading below:
Outcome A:
Against the warnings of the superstitious dockworkers, you carefully pry open the crate. The interior is lacquered and totally clean, as though someone had soaped and scrubbed the inside with a fine brush. A small, cracked egg sits at the center. You're not sure what it would have hatched into, but it is clear this one didn't survive.
Add Outpost Card #103
Outcome B:
You do not know what occurred here, but it is clear what needs to be done. You toss a burning rag onto the deck from the safety of the dock and push the ship back out to sea. It burns as the winds carry it into the bay, eventually disintegrating below the waves.
The dockworkers thank you for handling the matter, and there's a general air of relief.
Gain 2 Morale. Add Outpost Card #104
What is on event cards 103 and 104? You will just have to find that out on your own!
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Development on the game continues to progress ever forward. At this point, I believe we've got all the scenarios mapped out, and we are sitting at a total of 140 (thought that number could still change a little bit depending on how things play out).
I've also made a lot of progress on items this week, and the crafting system is looking more fleshed out and quite exciting! I've had the base collection of items ready for a long time, but I've been making more high-end craftable items, and it is fun coming up with different ways different potions, items, and resources can be combined to create cool and powerful new stuff!
But that's about it from me. I hope you have a good weekend, and I'll see you next week!
A closer look at events
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Oct 05, 2020 at 02:21:33 AM
Hello! It has been a week (and quite a week at that!), so I am here once again to give you updates on what is going on. You know the drill.
What I have for you today is some small fulfillment updates for wave 1/1.5, and then we'll talk more about events. Let's get to the fulfillment first!
AU/NZ: Aetherworks gave us word that everything was successfully picked/packed/pulled this week and shipments are resolving through the Labour Day weekend. If you haven't received a final tracking/shipping notification by Tuesday following the Monday holiday, you can reach out to [email protected]. That's a wrap on Australian fulfillment, so thank you Aetherworks!
EU/Rest of the World: Fulfillment Europe is in full swing and has already completed a large portion of fulfillment. However, due to a backlog 3 otherlarge projects delayed from earlier this year due to COVID, they understandably have their hands full. Shipments will be continuing through next week, and we'll provide an update next Friday. Thank you for your patience, and thanks to Fulfillment Europe for their commitment to keeping things moving!
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Before we get to events, I did finally have an update on the Drive Thru Diviner Cards. We received the new proofs, they looked, good, and so the listing is once again live with all the color variation issues fixed!
If you have contacted us at [email protected] for a replacement deck, they are in the process of being produced in a special run and will be shipped at no charge. You will receive a tracking notification from Cephalofair in the coming weeks.
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All right, so what I'm going to do now is turn the update over to Satire Productions, who has been working diligently to make events in Frosthaven different and better than before:
Hey, I'm Alexander JL Theoharis, one of the folks from Satire Productions, who, along with Zac Cohn and Joe Homes, are working on the events for Frosthaven. If you've played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, you've already seen some of our style and stuff—we put together most of the events for that game.
In base Gloomhaven, events were a nugget of narrative between game play. They'd sometimes have a sprinkling of lore or grant a fun item or scenario, but largely they came down to a choice: Do Option A, or Do Option B. There were some fun twists on the mechanic in the form of cards that would cycle back into your deck, and a few cards that looked similar but had drastically different results.
Ultimately though, events in Gloomhaven were a bit of a coin toss—pick something and hope you guessed the "good" option.
In Frosthaven we're taking a different approach: we want each event to be a little taste of narrative or mechanical candy that surprises and delights. Here are five big changes we've made to events:
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Down with Repetition! Drawing new content is way more satisfying than seeing recycled content for the third time. Instead, the vast majority of cards in Frosthaven are one-and-done: regardless of which choice you make, the decision is permanent, and the card is removed from your game. (There are so few cycle cards we've even ditched the "remove this card" symbol from events—the default is now removing them!) That's not to say there aren't any cards that cycle back into your deck, but we made sure the handful of cycle-cards we're including stand the test of being drawn more than once. Many have novel mechanics to make drawing them more interesting, and some events have discoverable ways to alter or even remove them. From a design perspective, this means that we needed to write a lot more events—and we mean a lot—to make sure you have enough to get through the game with plenty to spare. There are more words on event cards in Frosthaven than are in most novels. Apologies to your postal carrier.
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The Trait System. In Gloomhaven, having a particular class in your party at the right time could let you get a better result in an event. Frosthaven puts that system on steroids with Traits: rather than checking against a single class, you're checking to see if your party has the attributes needed to make a difference. Every character class has three Traits assigned to it, but having a trait isn't always a good thing. Being Intimidating may be great when trying to shake down a lowlife who owes you money, but could be a problem when the Vermling village you're trying to save runs screaming at the sight of you. Traits alter the narrative to better reflect your party, which means your party has a bigger impact on your world's story.
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Seasonal Changes. Events in Frosthaven are separated by location (Outpost or Road) and season (Summer or Winter). The events you experience on the Road in Winter are different than those you'd experience in Summer. Summertime will give you a chance to explore and rebuild, and Winter will force you to hunker down and prepare for battle as Frosthaven's foes come knocking. Each of the five event decks have distinct "feel", and some opportunities will only be available when appropriate. Oh, did I say five decks? Whoops. I wonder what that fifth one is for…
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Meaty Choices. Gone are events asking you whether you want to engage with something interesting or ignore it. Event choices in Frosthaven are designed to get your group talking around the table and excited about making a decision. I won't spoil the fun here, but our hope is you'll be surprised by the depth of your impacts on the outpost of Frosthaven and your campaign. If half the people at your table are adamantly championing Option A, and half are pounding their fists on the table for Option B, we've done our jobs right—good luck on your future arguments.
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Lots of Surprises. We're pushing the envelope on what an event is. New lore, new mechanics, and a lot of delightful things I desperately want to tell you about but want you to discover on your own. Some things will make you flip a card and exclaim, "What?!" in the best possible way. Some things you won't notice unless you played a particular way, or played a second time. But overall, we're putting a lot of care into the narrative glue between scenarios and we can't wait to share it with you.
It wouldn't be a post about events if we didn't share one, so below you'll find an event card we think you'll like. If you're spoiler-averse, skip down to the next section, but otherwise, read on and let us know which choice your party would make—we'll reveal the outcome in the next update.
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Winter Outpost Card:
Creaking into harbor comes a derelict ship with shredded sails. It butts up against the shore then starts listing back into open water, leaving the dockworkers to scramble to catch it before it drifts off again. Yelling from the safety of the dock has met no reply, and the dockworkers are superstitious of "The Ghost Lurker," an ethereal monster that pillages ships and leaves them to drift into rocky cliffsides. You're called in to board and get to the bottom of this.
The ship itself is totally unoccupied. The beds are made. A rotting, untouched meal is set in the galley. One of the rowboats is missing, but a ship of this size would need both to safely evacuate the crew. The page in the Captain's log that would detail the last hours of the ship has been torn out, and instead there is a hastily-scrawled note in shaky block letters: "BURN IT." Most unusually, the ship's entire supply of lamp-oil has been spilled over the decks.
The cargo manifesto shows eight crates of unknown origin being brought to the Capitol, which only raises more questions. A look below decks shows just one crate on board, sealed with black tar on all sides. Trying to move the crate reveals that it has been bolted down to the hull.
Option A: Open the crate.
Option B: Set fire to the ship.
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Isaac here. I hope that was illuminating! Let us know what you think should happen in the comments, and next week we'll reveal both outcomes. Until then, have a good week and stay safe!
Class icons
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Sep 26, 2020 at 04:02:25 AM
Hello! I got tired of writing "shipping update" in the title, but guess what! We still have shipping updates! These should conclude next week, but for now, lets get to those real quick. If your region is not on the list, it means it's already complete (see last week's update).
US: We did it! US fulfillment of non-wave 2 product is complete! Thanks to D6 Fulfillment for making quick work of our largest fulfillment region!
AU/NZ: I know I said this was finished last week, but I do have a quick amendment. Aetherworks let us know they still have a small number of orders shipping next week, so please let us know at [email protected] if you have any concerns/questions in the meantime!
EU/Rest of the World: We saw fulfillment begin later than anticipated this week, so expect shipping notifications to carry over into next week for our EU+Rest of the World backers. Thank you for your continued patience!
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All right, so what I have for you this week is updated character icons! Based on your feedback in this previous update, Josh went back and did significant work on all the icons, simplifying the overall shapes and thickening lines to bring them closer in concept to the icons in the original Gloomhaven. Of course, a lot of those icons are super-simple, and basic shapes can only get us so far, so these icons are still, on average, more complex than the Gloomhaven ones. But I think it is a nice, happy medium between where they were and where most of the Gloomhaven icons are.
So, without further ado, here they are, with the starting six on top, and the other 11 locked classes underneath.
So, for instance, you can see this simplifying approach by looking at the previous version (right) of the Blinkblade icon along side the new one (left).
You'll probably be able to match most of the new locked icons to the old ones (though we did also throw in the icon for the 17th class as well), but I hope we can agree that these new ones are a nice improvement. We still welcome feedback, of course, but I think these icons are pretty close to being set.
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Other than that, I have a quick Diviner cards update, because this is the saga that never ends. Drive Thru Cards' graphic director was out all last week, but they have the new files and things look good digitally. We'll have a new proof arriving next week, and if that looks good, we will green light it again.
And a follow-up to last week's news of the Gloomhaven comic book. You can now pre-order Fallen Lion here. And note that Alexandr is working on an alternate cover for the issue that I am sure will be fantastic.
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Next week, we'll be diving deep into the event system with Satire, the event developers, but for now, that's all I've got. Have a good weekend!
Small fulfillment update
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 11:02:47 PM
Hello! I hope you are doing well! I don't have too much to go into this week, so we'll just move right along with your regular fulfillment update. Just a reminder here that all of these fulfillment updates pertain to wave 1, which is Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles products. We are a ways off from fulfilling Frosthaven, and you can read last week's update for more info on that timeline. And if you are confused about what is in what wave, read this update.
I would like to add one thing to last week's update, though, as there were a lot of questions in the comments about how the updated timeline will affect when the wave 2 pledge manager will close. We are still planning on closing it down around the end of the year, but may re-evaluate when that time get's closer. Either way, I will give you plenty of warning before it closes.
All right, onto fulfillment:
US: Fulfillment of wave 1.5 and Forgotten Circles began early this week and should conclude by the end of next week.
Canada: All non-wave 2 fulfillment is complete! A big thank you to D6 for their high quality service and support!
Australia/New Zealand: All non-wave 2 fulfillment is complete! Shout out to the Aetherworks team for doing a phenomenal job as always!
EU/Rest of the World: Fulfillment Europe began fulfillment prep and packaging this week on all non-wave-2 fulfillment, and we anticipate the majority of shipments to be done by the end of next week.
UK: All non-wave 2 fulfillment largely wrapped up this week, with a small percentage of orders carrying over to next Monday. Thank you to Spiral Galaxy for their professional work!
China/Southeast Asia: This has been complete for the past couple weeks, but I'll still make a reminder that some shipments could still be in transit. Many thanks VFI-Asia for their hard work getting everything out smoothly!
With that, I'm going to ring the bell on fulfillment updates everywhere except the US and EU, which should hopefully have their final updates next week.
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In case you missed them earlier this week, I did have two tangential updates I wanted to briefly mention.
The first is that online multiplayer was released for Gloomhaven Digital yesterday, so if you got that during the Kickstarter or some other time, you can now play it with pretty much whomever you want!
The second is that we announced on Wednesday that a Gloomhaven comic book is coming in December. I teased this a little bit last week, but you can read the official announcement here.
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And as we come to the end of the update, I really wish I had more to share at this point, but we'll have to wait a bit longer. I spent a lot of time this week updating the starting classes and making high-level abilities for them, which I am pretty happy with (and amused by). Something else we are working hard on, though, is updating the overall layout and design of the ability cards, so I decided I wanted to just show all that to you at the same time, once it is all ready (and my ridiculous level 9 cards have been play tested a bit).
So for now, I will just wish you a happy weekend and get back to that. Until next time!
Timeline update, plus final challenge coins and fulfillment info
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 10:57:16 PM
Hello! I hope you are doing well this week and are staying safe, as always! I have the regular shipping updates today, but before we get to those, I figured talking about a new timeline for getting you Frosthaven was more important. So let's do that.
I could go into great detail about the expectations I set for myself and I how I will most assuredly fall short of those expectations, but the bottom line is that I am a person that is constantly over-estimating my ability, and then I end up scrambling to fill in the gap between my own fantasy and actual reality. Believing in the impossible is, of course, what produced Gloomhaven in the first place, but it does have its downsides. Even when I made a significant effort to account for this tendency in the Frosthaven Kickstarter timeline, it turns out I didn't account for it enough.
Taking stock of what still needs to get done by me and coming to an accurate estimation of how much time each of those things will take, I've arrived at the conclusion that we will end up about two months behind schedule. We were originally planning on getting all files turned into the printer around the beginning of November, but now my estimates, which I have tried to make as realistic as I possibly can, have us turning in the files around the beginning of January instead.
From there, we'll go through a proofing process that should take about one month, and then we hit Chinese New Year in February. This is an additional problem because our initial estimates had us shipping everything out of China by the beginning of February, but now, it will hit right at the start of production, which will delay us an additional month.
So we won't be able to start production until the end of February, which means assembly of the games will begin at the start of April, and everything should be shipped out of China by the beginning of May. Keep in mind that we are producing around 100,000 games for Kickstarter fulfillment, which includes the retail pledges, so production and assembly will take a while. It will not be an easy game to assemble.
With everything shipped out in May, it all should arrive at the fulfillment centers by mid-late June, and fulfillment should be able to begin at the beginning of July. So, if you prefer all that in a nice, succinct list, here it is:
- January 1: Turn in files
- February 1: Finish proofing
- February 22: Start production
- April 1: Start assembly
- May 1: Everything shipped from China
- June 20: Final arrival to fulfillment centers
- July 1: Fulfillment begins
I can't promise you that there won't be additional delays, but I can promise you that we'll do everything in our power to stick to this new timeline.
I also just want to emphasize that this is entirely my fault. Everyone else on the team is doing an amazing job, but I just over-estimated how much I could personally get done, and I am sorry for that.
If you want some good news, though, the development team, Satire, has been working on a lot of fantastic additions and refinements to the town and event aspects of the game, which I think will really take the overall experience to the next level, which is very exciting. I can't wait to tell you more about that stuff in the months to come.
Also, while you wait for Frosthaven to arrive, we will have some other Gloomhaven-related avenues of entertainment coming out in the mean time, so that's something else to look forward to.
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With all that hammered out, let's move on to the wave 1 shipping updates.
US: The Forgotten Circles shipment arrived yesterday, so shipping will commence on Monday.
Canada: The Forgotten Circles shipment arrived Wednesday, so shipping began today and will continue through next week.
Australia/New Zealand: The Forgotten Circles shipment arrived today, so shipping will commence next week.
EU/Rest of the World: Our final container was estimated for delivery late this last week, but we are still waiting on customs clearance. That being said, we are close enough that Fulfillment Europe is comfortable moving forward with orders Tuesday of next week.
UK: The Forgotten Circles shipment is scheduled for delivery to the warehouse Monday. The Spiral Galaxy team is ready to recommence as soon as it arrives.
China/Southeast Asia: No update here other than a reminder it will still be a couple more weeks for farther regional areas still waiting on orders.
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And one more update this week about challenge coins! We have finalized the design and are heading into mass production. We went with an opaque enamel after reviewing several configurations and are super-happy with the final quality. Remember that these can still be added to your wave 2 pledge.
And that's all there is! I apologize once again for the delays, but I think Frosthaven is going to be better for it. You are going to get a game that will blow your mind, even if you already familiar with Gloomhaven.
Until next week!
