Small fulfillment update
about 4 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.
-
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.
-
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
about 4 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.
-
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.
-
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!
You guessed it! More shipping updates! And a message to retailers!
about 4 years ago
– Mon, Sep 07, 2020 at 02:20:15 AM
Hello! Happy Labor Day Weekend! If you didn't realize it was Labor Day Weekend, you are not alone. My wife had to inform me. Also, I think it is just a US thing. Either way, I hope you have something exciting planned for the weekend. Just remember to be safe and wear a mask if you go out in public!
As always, I've got some shipping updates for you. They are pretty minor, but I want to make sure you are well-informed.
US: No new info here. We are still on track to start shipping Forgotten Circles orders September 9 or 10. I do, however, want to address one prevalent question from last week's update. If your order contains Forgotten Circles, we held back delivery on all items until Forgotten Circles arrived to send it all out at once. So if you haven't received your order yet, that is probably why. If you didn't order Forgotten Circles and still haven't received wave 1.5 product that you ordered (like the base game of Gloomhaven), then reach out to [email protected].
Canada: No new info here either. Everything from the previous paragraph applies here as well.
Australia/New Zealand: A small correction here: last week's update mistakenly suggested the Forgotten Circles container had reached the warehouse, when the timeline we'd been communicating was instead for it reaching the docks. Sorry if that caused any confusion. Pre-ship notifications were still sent out, and the container appears to be on target to hit the warehouse early next week, with fulfillment of Forgotten Circles to commence by the end of next week.
EU/Rest of the World: We still look on target to commence fulfillment by end of next week, provided a smooth delivery/receiving of our final container. The Fulfillment Europe team is ready to get your rewards to you!
UK: No updates here. It looks like the re-routed ship is still expected to dock over the weekend, so we'll just continue to monitor that situation. The Spiral Galaxy team remains at the ready to commence once it arrives.
China/Southeast Asia: No updates here, other than a reminder that the majority of orders have been shipped and may still continue making their way though regional HUBS for the next 3 weeks.
-
Are you tired of seeing the words "Forgotten Circles" yet? Well, too bad, because I'm coming at you with another Diviner deck update! In case you need a refresher, this is a deck produced by Drive-Thru Cards for people who want to update the Diviner cards from the first printing of Forgotten Circles to the cards that are in the printing that was sold through this Kickstarter.
So, the thing is Drive-Thru Cards had a printing issue that didn't manifest during the proofing process, but caused some bleed issues to make the dotted lines that separate abilities to be barely visible. Just so we're all absolutely clear, I'm talking about the cards produced by Drive-Thru Cards, not the cards that are in the actual game box we sold.
So if you purchased the updated Diviner cards through Drive-Thru Cards, and this lack of visibility of the dotted lines bothers you, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with: a) a photo of the issue b) your Drive-Thru Cards order number, and we will get a replacement sent out to you. While we are working on fixing the issue, the listing on Drive-Thru Cards has been taken down, and I will let you know when it is back up with a version that does not have this issue.
-
And now, a message from Price to backers of the retailer pledge level:
We're excited to have finally received your in-store Cephalofair marketing kits and will be getting ready to begin mailing kits to registered Retail Backers over the coming weeks.
Just a reminder, if you haven't completed your retailer registration survey that was sent to your Kickstarter email address yet or submitted business document requirements, you can reach out to [email protected], and we'll be more than happy to assist you further and get you access to the LIVE Frosthaven Retailer Pledge Manager.
We're very excited to work with your stores to promote pre-orders through the rest of the year and hope you find these materials valuable!
-
All right, I think that's about it. I feel like there is a lot of game play stuff I want to talk about that is, like, 90% developed, but I want to get it to 100% before I say anything, just to make sure I'm giving you accurate information that isn't going to change somewhere down the road.
We've got plenty of time to get to all of that in the weeks to come, though. And actually, speaking of time, I am hoping to get to you the updated schedule for the project next week. Until then, have a great weekend!
Continued fulfillment updates, plus puzzles!
about 4 years ago
– Mon, Aug 31, 2020 at 12:13:18 AM
Hello! It's Friday! Sometimes it is hard to tell because every day is the same, but you know it is Friday, because I am sending you an update! As will still be the case for this week and the next few weeks, I'm going to start with some updates on fulfillment for wave 1/1.5, broken down by region.
US: Wave 1/1.5 orders (not containing Forgotten Circles) have been completed, with the exception of some lingering damages/replacement orders. Forgotten Circles will be arriving at the warehouse over this weekend, so D6 will take next week to send pre-ship notifications to all remaining orders that contained Forgotten Circles and allow for address changes, and then we should be on target to commence fulfillment for all of that by September 10th.
Canada: Same as US. Wave 1/1.5 orders (not containing Forgotten Circles) have been completed, with the exception of some lingering damages/replacement orders. Forgotten Circles will be arriving at the warehouse over this weekend, so D6 will take next week to send pre-ship notifications to all remaining orders that contained Forgotten Circles and allow for address changes, and then we should be on target to commence fulfillment for all of that by September 10th.
Australia/New Zealand: Forgotten Circles is just now arriving at the warehouse so expect pre-shipping notifications next week from the Aetherworks team, with shipping to commence soon after that.
EU/Rest of the World: Unfortunately, we've seen a few more days' delay getting to port in Hamburg, but the team at Fulfillment Europe is ready to hit the ground running as soon as it arrives and they've taken full inventory. We're currently projecting to commence the week of September 7th. More updates next week!
UK: Okay, this is a fun one (read: not fun). Shipments began this last week, but, in a bizarre blunder, our final Vessel containing UK product arrived and then left port this last week without unloading our container. Yeah... so, the vessel is in the process of pulling a U-Turn and is expected to dock/unload again on Sept 6th. From there, it will be a few days for delivery to the warehouse, at which point any remaining orders will immediately be able to resume.
China/Southeast Asia: All orders should be shipped out by their respective hubs by next week, so don't fret if you haven't received a shipping notification just yet. Once a package is shipped, note that some regions may take up to 4 weeks for delivery based on location.
-
Development of Frosthaven is moving along, and I feel I have a much better handle what all needs to get done to wrap everything up, which means I expect to have an updated timetable for you in the next couple weeks.
Over last week, in addition to continuing work on the rule book and character development, I took some time to nail down the "puzzle book", turning pages of concept work into something more concrete, which was a lot of fun. It has been a while since I've had a chance to design puzzles.
So I am tempted to talk at length about what exactly this puzzle book is and how it works, but I think it would be better to just let you discover it on your own. I will say, though, that it is in some ways analogous to the "Envelope X" puzzle in Gloomhaven, but with all of the extensive feedback I got about that incorporated. So instead of just hiding a bunch of disparate clues everywhere and expecting you to connect the dots, this will be a much more directed experience, where you will receive feedback after each step.
And everything that results from going through this book has physical components included in the box, so we don't end up having to sell a separate small box as a last-minute addition to a sequel Kickstarter three years down the road. You know, like we did with *cough* "Envelope X". Lessons learned, right?
And with that, I think I will stop talking and go back to rule book editing. Until next week!
On schedule with fulfillment and a discussion of traits
over 4 years ago
– Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 12:11:50 AM
Hello! I hope your week has been great. I have some small fulfillment updates for you, but, since I haven't talked about any new systems in a Frosthaven for a little while, I wanted to get into the new trait system as well. First of all, though, the updates. In order to avoid rewriting what I wrote last week, it might be good to reference that if you don't remember.
US: No changes to the schedule here. We began shipping out wave 1.5 today, and the Forgotten Circles shipment is still expected to arrive at the fulfillment center in a week.
Canada: Also no change here. Waves 1/1.5 should be wrapped up by the end of today and the Forgotten Circles shipment will arrive in a week.
Australia/New Zealand: No change here either. We are waiting for the Forgotten Circles shipment to arrive August 25.
EU/Rest of the World: We are still keeping an eye on the shipment to our Germany based warehouse, and everything is on target. So no real change here either, as we are still expecting wave 1/1.5 and Forgotten Circles to arrive the first week of September. We'll let you know if there are any changes next week.
UK: Pre-shipping notifications are beginning to go out today, as expected, with August 25 being the beginning of shipping. We are prioritizing orders not containing Forgotten Circles, and then orders with Forgotten Circles will start going out when that shipment arrives at the beginning of September.
China/Southeast Asia: All orders have been picked and packed and sent to their respective hubs. If you have not received an email yet regarding your shipment, you will be shortly with several hubs continuing to receive/process over this weekend.
-
Before we get to talking about traits, though, I wanted to share with you some images of the challenge coins. These are still preliminary, as the metal and enamel aren't final yet. We're still playing around with the translucence of the enamel and the Frosthaven coin will be silver, but I think they're starting to look pretty cool!
-
And one other small update! Here is the link to the Diviner ability cards for the second printing of Forgotten Circles, which are now available for purchase. Again, sorry that took so long to get up there!
-
All right, so let's talk about traits. Traits are something I mentioned briefly in an old update regarding the event design competition, but I wanted to revisit them since they've gotten fleshed out a lot more.
The basic idea is that, in order to past-and-future-proof the events in Frosthaven, event outcomes will no longer be dependent on specific classes, as they were in Gloomhaven, but instead be dependent on traits, which will be assigned to all characters in Frosthaven, as well as all past and future characters.
There will be 10 traits in total, and each class will have a combination of 3 of them. In addition, a class' race will be a less influential 4th trait that may come up occasionally. It took a while to come up with a compact list of 10 that could still be logically assigned in such a way to each character so they only had 3 each. These traits also needed to be split fairly evenly among all classes and come up roughly equally in events in a logical way. We eventually arrived on the following:
- Strong
- Nimble
- Armored
- Educated
- Resourceful
- Wild
- Outcast
- Arcane
- Persuasive
- Intimidating
So, for instance, the starting classes in Frosthaven have the following traits assigned:
- Drifter: Strong, Resourceful, Outcast
- Blinkblade: Nimble, Educated, Resourceful
- Banner Spear: Armored, Resourceful, Persuasive
- Deathwalker: Outcast, Arcane, Persuasive
- Necromancer: Educated, Arcane, Intimidating
- Geminate: Nimble, Wild, Arcane
All traits are represented in the starting six. Resourceful and Arcane are a little more prevalent, but that will change as you progress through the campaign and get more characters. If you are curious, here are the traits for the starting six Gloomhaven characters, the Jaws of the Lion characters and the Diviner. All of these lists, along with traits for locked Gloomhaven classes, will be in a table in the Frosthaven glossary.
- Brute: Strong, Armored, Intimidating
- Tinkerer: Nimble, Educated, Resourceful
- Spellweaver: Educated, Resourceful, Arcane
- Scoundrel: Nimble, Resourceful, Persuasive
- Cragheart: Strong, Outcast, Arcane
- Mindthief: Nimble, Outcast, Persuasive
- Hatchet: Strong, Resourceful, Intimidating
- Demolitionist: Strong, Resourceful, Wild
- Voidwarden: Educated, Arcane, Persuasive
- Red Guard: Nimble, Armored, Outcast
- Diviner: Educated, Resourceful, Arcane
Of course, you could argue there are other traits that could be applied to these characters, but I tried to distill it down to the three main ones for balance purposes.
So, the next time a grumpy Valrath is about to drop a large, heavy vase, you better make sure you've got someone strong on your team before you try to help him!
And with that, I'll talk to you next week!
