Info on shipping dates and retailer pledges
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 05:53:19 PM

Hello! Just two things I want to go over with you before the wave 1 pledge manager ends on Friday. I told you I'd get back to you today with as much info we have about when various things are shipping out for wave 1 and 1.5, so lets get to that.

All dates listed below are for all wave 1/1. 5 products except Forgotten Circles, which will be covered at the end. So let's break it down by region:

US - As stated last week, we were able to get the boat out of China on time, and it is currently docking on the west coast. We will be getting wave 1 products to D6 Fulfillment on schedule and will fulfill in July. Unfortunately, that shipment doesn't have enough product to fulfill wave 1.5, so that will be coming later in August with a second shipment.

For the rest of the regions, we are still being impeded by the ports being super-packed due to COVID, and are still working on getting them shipped out. The good news for this is that we will be able to combine wave 1 and 1.5, getting wave 1.5 shipped out earlier than expected in some cases.

Canada - Wave 1 and wave 1.5 will ship out from China soon. They'll be on the water about a month and then go to D6 Fulfillment. We should be able to get both waves out together in early August.

EU and "Rest of the World" - Similar story to Canada. We are still waiting on the wave 1 and 1.5 combined shipment to leave China. It will be on the water for a month and a half before arriving at Fulfillment Europe. Both waves will get shipped out in August.

UK - Again a similar story. Waves 1 and 1.5 are going to Spiral Galaxy and should be shipped together in August.

Australia and New Zealand - We are also waiting to get these shipped out of China, but the time on the ocean is shorter. Wave 1 and 1.5 are going together to Aetherworks and should get shipped out in July.

China and Southeast Asia - VFI Asia is handling this fulfillment, and we don't need to go through a port for this. They should be picking up wave 1 and 1.5 soon to get them out in July.

Just a reminder, wave 1/1.5 products are:

• Gloomhaven
• Removable Stickers for Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles
• Gloomhaven Collectors Pins
• Gloomhaven Solo Scenarios
• Metal Coin Upgrades (if you are buying other wave 1/1.5 products)

For Forgotten Circles, what I can tell you at this point is that all copies (wave 1 and 1.5) will be manufactured and ready to ship from the factory by 7/11. Depending on the freight shipping times (one week for China and Southeast Asia, a few weeks for Australia and New Zealand, one month for US and Canada, a month and a half for UK, EU, and the rest of the world), we'll try to get them to the fulfillment centers and out to you all as soon as we can.

And another reminder - even though Forgotten Circles may ship at a different time than your other wave 1/1.5 products, we aren't increasing the shipping price from what was advertised during the Kickstarter campaign.

Retailer Pledges

And now, a message from Price regarding retailer pledges. If you are not a retailer, no need to read further:

We're so excited to be working directly with so many diverse stores across the globe!

We will be launching the Retailer Pledge Manager beginning early next week and are currently proofing your in-store marketing packets with our manufacturer, with plans to get those out ASAP this summer.

Just a reminder, if you haven't yet submitted your "Retailer Registration Survey" (Google Form) please make sure to do so ASAP as we still have a number of stores we haven't heard from or received business documentation from yet.

If you've already submitted the form and documents and are awaiting a response, we have a number of retailers that are still in the verification process, but you should be receiving a reply from our retail sales team within the next several days.

If you need the "Retailer Registration Survey" resent to you for any reason - please email us at [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of!

And of course, access to the Retailer Pledge Manager will be open through the majority of the year without need for payment, so there is no urgency to lock your final orders in now.

Final week of wave 1
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 01:15:33 AM

Hello! I am here with you update for the last week in the world of Frosthaven!

We are starting to narrow in on the specific timing of when the wave 1 and 1.5 products will be landing at the fulfillment centers, but there are a few outstanding variables. I am committed to getting you more specific information before we close down the wave 1 pledge manager, but we aren't going to have all the specifics until next week, so I will be posting a special update on Wednesday with all of that timing information.

Until then, I can tell you that the US shipment of Gloomhaven and other wave 1 products (except Forgotten Circles) is on schedule and on the water on the way to the fulfillment center.

Unfortunately, the shipments to the other fulfillment centers are being delayed at the Shanghai ports due to some COVID-related back-ups. It is nothing major - we'll have schedules by next week - but it does mean that we likely won't hit the July target for fulfillment in Canada, the UK, Europe, and the "rest of the world" countries. These issue are out of our control, but I apologize for the week or two delay.

Forgotten Circles is currently still in production, and it looks like the best solution is to have all copies of that go out with wave 1.5. I'll have more information on the timing of wave 1.5 next week. Also there were some requests to have the list of changes made to Forgotten Circles post on BGG before the wave 1 pledge manager closes, so I will try to get that up early next week as well.

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Remember that this is the last week that the wave 1 pledge manager will be open, so if you were planning on ordering something from wave 1 or pledged at the game play all-in level, which includes wave 1 products, then I would strongly encourage you to lock in your pledge manager soon!

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Other than that, things have been moving along on the design side. I've made a first draft of the level 1 cards for the 17th character, and made some progress on other characters as well. Not much to report other than that.

I'll leave you there then, and we'll have another update for you Wednesday!

Guest design process has begun!
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 06, 2020 at 11:32:43 PM

Hey all! Pretty small update this week. I think pretty much all pertinent info on the pledge manager that we have was included in last week's update. Remember that wave 1 will close in two weeks, so expect some more talking about it in the next couple updates as well.

Regarding Forgotten Circles, just to clarify, we're still on schedule to get Forgotten Circles out in August, which is expected to be after when everything else from wave 1 will be shipped out. Wave 1 will ship out on time, and Forgotten Circles will either ship out separately or with wave 1.5, depending on the timing.

Regarding the Forgotten Circles changes in the new printing, in addition to providing a log of all changes on BGG, we will also provide digital files for everything that was changed. We won't be offering any physical "upgrade packs". That is not something we want to focus on with everything else that is going on that needs to get done.

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The big news this week is that I have finally gotten all the assets together for the guest design process (and, really, the rest of my design process) to begin. This was a big undertaking, getting all information on monsters, characters, mechanics, the campaign, and the lore together in one central organized place.

Now that it is done, I think it will help smooth and expedite the rest of the process in bringing this massive game to life! Next I will be refocusing on doing more work on the characters. I still need to create ability cards for the 17th character, but, really, all the characters need my attention in one way or another, so I'll be spending some time to refine all of that.

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And finally, I just want to state clearly that black lives matter. Cephalofair Games is opposed to all police brutality and racism (systemic or otherwise).

To that end, I also want to highlight that my friend Danny has organized donations to Black Lives Matter through the sale of Board Game Brothas' Rap Godz. Various sources are donating a total of $100 for each copy of the game sold through their website until Sunday. That's a pretty good bang for your buck if you are looking for ways to help!

Backerkit FAQ, Forgotten Circles delays, and a charity change
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jun 02, 2020 at 12:26:42 AM

Hello! I hope you are having a wonderful day! I am just dropping in with your regularly scheduled update to let you know what has been going on over the last week.

First, let's talk about pledge manager stuff! Chris has been super-wonderful with helping all of you out with your questions and concerns, and I wanted to ease his job a bit by making a little FAQ here to cover the most prominent questions he gets about the pledge manager.

• When is the pledge manager closing? The wave 1 pledge manage is closing on June 19, and you will be charged at that time if you have confirmed your pledge.
• Do I have to pay now if I only want wave 2 items? No. If you do not want to pay for their shipping now and are only getting wave 2 items, then you can leave your survey unanswered and just wait for wave 2. I am sorry if this causes you to get frequent reminders from Backerkit to complete your survey that you have to ignore. That is just the way their system works.
• When will Steam keys for the digital game be released? The Steam keys will be sent out shortly after we close the pledge manager on June 19th. We have the key bank ready, but we have to wait until the charges go through.

Also, if you have another question or issue that needs resolving, by far the best way to reach out is to send an email to [email protected]. You could also contact us through Kickstarter or Backerkit, but direct email is the best way to go, and please don't send a separate message through all three channels. One email is sufficient! We will get back to you.

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One disappointing bit of news I need to share with you sooner rather than later is that we are running a bit behind on the production of Forgotten Circles for wave 1 and 1.5. It's looking like we won't be able to get it to fulfillment centers until early August at the earliest. We don't want this to hold up the fulfillment of other wave 1 products, so it shouldn't delay anything else, but I just wanted to let you know Forgotten Circles might be a bit late.

The main reason for this was because I wanted to fix some typos and make some other changes to the game before we reprinted it, which necessitated a full proofing process. A full list of changes for the second printing will be posted on Board Game Geek in the coming months, but the basic run-down is:

• Fixed typos and printing errors in the Diviner ability cards, events, revised teleport cards, and scenario book.
• A number of balancing changes to the Diviner ability cards.
• Split the scenario book into two books to minimize flipping back and forth between sections.

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Something else I'd like to mention is that I am changing the charity the profits from the challenge coins will be going to. My goal with these donations was to help the world as a whole get through this crisis, and, after long consideration, I have decided donating the money to UNICEF would be a better way to do that. I have no desire to turn this into a political discussion, so please respect that in the comments, but I just feel UNICEF has a better track record and fewer black clouds hanging over their reputation.

So with that said, the sales so far on the challenge coins will be sending well over $50,000 to UNICEF, which is a great thing.

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And finally, just a quick update on what I've been doing this last week. I am still working on getting all the assets together for the guest designers. This includes all monster stat and ability cards, full information on the story of the game, the world, and the structure of the scenarios, and layouts and counts for all map tiles and overlay tiles in the game. It has taken a little longer to finalize all these things than I wanted, but I should be finishing that over the weekend, and then we can get started on scenario creation!

I'll try not to mention the 17th character every week, because I can only talk in generalities, and I fear that may be boring, but I am really excited about it! I settled on a character class that would fit the best into the game and the overarching story that I wanted to tell, and I think it will end up working perfectly. Regretfully, I know a lot of people suggested that its mechanics have something to do with the accumulation of money in some way, and while that was a consideration, it just didn't quite work into the vision that I had.

And I also released the 6th scenario of the community-driven campaign yesterday. I just wanted to remind people that it is still going on and going strong! I think the story could be moving in a pretty interesting direction, but, of course, where it ends up is in the hands of the players. Please check it out and participate in the votes!

Many hurdles ahead
over 4 years ago – Mon, May 25, 2020 at 01:44:10 AM

Hello! I believe I have a (relatively) short update for you today.

Releasing the pledge manager on Monday was a little choppy, but we got through it in the end. It took most of the day to get the surveys sent out, which was the pace Backerkit recommended. It also took most of the day to sell out of wave 1 Gloomhaven items, so I hope those of you who really wanted to get something wave 1 were able to do so.

That said, now that we have a better idea of the quantities of wave 1.5 items we need, we are looking into expediting some things and getting everything wave 1 and wave 1.5 shipped at the same time. We're still working out the details, so I'll have more information in future weeks, but I just wanted to let you know we are still trying to do the best we can for all of you.

The other big news from the pledge manager launch: as of now, we've raised over $45,000 to send to the World Health Organization through challenge coin sales, which is fabulous! That is in addition to the $50,000 that was already donated, so I am super-proud of you all for that.

And finally in pledge manager news, I know there have been some complaints about the shipping prices and how two small items shipped together costs more than shipping them separately. Basically, we are using weight-based shipping, and the weight tiers we broke the costs into were perhaps not granular enough, so bumping up into the next weight class can end up with too high a cost.

It's unfortunately too late to retool those shipping tables, but what I have done instead is gone through and lowered the weighting value of a lot of the small items as much as I could, so if you are ordering multiple small items, there's a much higher chance you will fall into a lower weight class now. Keep in mind that no cards have been charged at this point, and the calculation is automatic, so no action on your part is required to apply these new shipping costs. Also, just to reiterate, this is only going to affect people that were ordering multiple smaller items (e.g. metal coins, envelope X, Forgotten Circles, wooden organizer, card sleeves, and pins) in addition to their pledge tier.

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So now that the launch of the pledge manager is behind us, what is next on the horizon? We've cleared that hurdle, but there are, of course, many more ahead. I have been working this week getting all the content in the game organized and presentable for the guest designers to start working with, and so we can have a clearer picture internally on what is left to be finished before we can move into production.

I've also spent a lot of time thinking about that 17th class, and I am pretty excited about what I've developed. It is super-cool and fits well into the overall lore of the game, and I wish I could tell you more, but you'll just have to discover it for yourself. Now that I've got the theme down, though, there's still a lot of work ahead for actually creating the character.

Sculptors are working on awesome minis for the locked classes, Alexandr is working on the art for all the summons in the game - hopefully I'll be able to share some non-spoiler sketches with you next week - and Andy just let me know he's finishing up the edits on the scenario text for the second half of the campaign.

So, yeah, stuff is definitely chugging along here. There's still a lot let to do, but I'm excited to see it through!