Pledge manager goes live on Monday, plus other info and event design results
almost 4 years ago – Sun, May 17, 2020 at 03:13:28 AM

Hello! I hope your week has been great! Today I want to give you the results of the event designing competition, but first, let's talk about the pledge manager.

Time of Launch

We will be launching the pledge manager through Backerkit on Monday (May 18) at 10am EDT. The wave 1 pledge manager will then be open until Friday, June 19.

The wave 2 pledge manager will be opened soon after the close of wave 1 and will remain open until around the end of the year.

Wave 1 vs Wave 2

The wave 1 pledge manager that will open on Monday is primarily for wave 1 add-ons, which are colored red in the "Add-Ons" section on the main page. If you wish to purchase any wave 1 add-ons and/or are pledged at the $285 game play all-in bundle tier, now is the time to resolve your pledge.

Even if you are not interested in wave 1 items, you can still resolve your pledge at this time, but just note that anyone whose does resolve their pledge during wave 1 will be charged any additional costs when wave 1 closes on June 19.

Also note that you can participate in wave 2 regardless of whether you participated in wave 1. More info about wave 2 will come as we get closer to it launching at the end of June. 

Extra Costs

Shipping and taxes are not included in your Kickstarter pledge, which means that you will have to pay for shipping, and possibly taxes, depending on where you live, when you resolve your pledge. Information on these charges can be found in the "Shipping" and "Taxes & VAT" sections of the main page (about 2/3 of the way down the page - sorry CTRL-F doesn't work).

All of these charges will be calculated automatically, and you will be charged for them when wave 1 closes if you participated in wave 1, or when wave 2 closes, if you waited until wave 2 to resolve your pledge. When you are charged, if you live in the EU and were charged VAT, we will also issue you an invoice at that time.

Limited Quantities

Due to the timing of wave 1 and the number of copies of Gloomhaven we have on-hand, we are limiting the quantities of most wave 1 items to around 10,000, which means that once those are spoken for in the pledge manager, they will no longer be available to add to your pledge.

If you pledged for the game play all-in bundle tier, all items in that tier have already been allocated to you, so there is no urgency there (though you still need to resolve your pledge at some point during wave 1). Because of these pre-allocations, there are actually only about 2,000 copies of Gloomhaven, Forgotten Circles, the removable sticker sets for each, and the Gloomhaven solo scenarios still available.

We were a bit overwhelm with the exact magnitude of this Kickstarter, and because we wanted to get these products to you as soon as we could, we had to make some estimates a while ago on what we would need. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience. If you added extra money to your pledge and aren't able to get the add-on you wanted with that money, we are always happy to refund any portion of your pledge for any reason. Just contact [email protected].

Also note that no wave 2 products will be limited, so there is no urgency on any of that either.

Additional Add-Ons

First of all, an update for you on the card sleeves add-on. We've decided to offer a full set of premium-quality, 0.1mm-thick sleeves for all cards in the game with no art. There will be ~750 standard sized sleeves and ~1100 mini Euro sized sleeves, and the price will be $40, plus shipping. For reference, sleeves of this thickness work with the Gloomhaven Broken Token insert, and we will make sure they work with the Frosthaven insert as well.

Second, I also want to formally announce two challenge coins that will be available for purchase in the pledge manager. With the huge success of the Kickstarter in the midst of this pandemic, I knew I wanted to give something back to help ease the suffering in the world, but Kickstarter doesn't allow any money raised through their platform to be donated to charity, so the situation was a little tricky.

We decided we wanted to make two challenge coins - items that have no bearing on game play, but were thematic and cool - and have all profits from their sale go to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The problem is that we couldn't really advertise that or put the coins in our list of add-ons while the Kickstarter was running, which is why I am excited to finally announce them now!

So we've got the Gloomhaven coin,

and the Frosthaven coin.

Both are 38.5mm metal coins with colored enamel accents. Those are preliminary 3D renderings, but hopefully we'll have some production photos for you at some point down the road.

Each coin is $5, and all profits, which we are considering to be the sale price minus production and freight shipping costs, will go to the World Health Organization. 

All backers of previous Cephalofair Games campaigns are getting the Frosthaven coin added to their pledge for free as a show of thanks (as advertised in updates to those campaigns), but the Gloomhaven coin is separate from that offer.

Both coins are wave 2 products, but given that it would be better for COVID relief to happen sooner rather than later, consider purchasing them in wave 1 if you can. As a further recognition of this urgency, Cephalofair Games has already donated an extra $50,000 to the fund (just to be clear, this was not money raised from the Kickstarter).

Retail Pledges

And one final note for retail backers. You will be sent a registration survey Monday that requires your attention and response. If you have any questions about it, please contact [email protected]. The pledge manager for retail backers will not go live until wave 2 at the end of June.

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All right, so that brings us to the event design competition! This update is already really long, so I'll try not drag this out too much.

There were also about 300 entries in this competition, many of those being multi-event chains. However, I don't think I selected any event chains as winners, as they all were either too complicated, or suffered from the cardinal sin that eliminated a large percentage of the entries: the non-choice. In a nutshell, this is when something interesting happens, and your choice is either to investigate/participate in the interesting thing, or ignore it.

I realize that many of the original Gloomhaven events suffered from this as well, but I am making a concerted effort to curb that type of event to give players more interesting choices. Essentially, a good event card should actually be two good events - one for each choice that is made.

So, without further ado, here are the winners. with links to their specific winning entry:

• Jordi De Jongi
•  Jussi-Pekka Jokinen (winter road event)
•  Osvaldus Rubavicius (the Doomsayer)
•  Christopher Read (event 9)
• Darren Caulley
• B Tobias
• Pete Howes
• Jacob Walla
• Zachary Andrews
• Rob Ouwersloot

Congratulations to the winners! I'll be contacting you through Geekmail over the weekend to just get some info on how you want to receive your free copy of Frosthaven!

Thanks to everyone who participated in both competitions! Even if you didn't win, I hope you had fun and you keep making cool custom content for the game!

See you next week!

Scenario design competition results and Jaws of the Lion news
almost 4 years ago – Sun, May 10, 2020 at 12:11:10 AM

Hello! I am still here! With updates!

The first thing to say is just that the pledge manager will be coming next week. Exactly when it drops is still up in the air, but next week's update will come before it does, so look for that for more details. Also I just want to remind you that the pledge manager coming next week is mainly for red add-on purchases. All add-ons will be available, but anything you purchase during wave 1, you'll have to pay for when the first wave closes next month.

If you only want blue, wave 2 products, and you don't want to pay next month, you can decide not to participate in the wave 1 pledge manager and just wait for the wave 2 pledge manager to open in July. For more info, see the add-ons section and the timeline on the main campaign page. There will also be more info in next week's update.

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Next, I wanted to share an important bit of Jaws of the Lion news. Yes, Jaws of the Lion is not part of this Kickstarter, so I'll refrain from talking about it in the future (you can subscribe to the Cephalofair Games newsletter to get further updates). It's just a lot of people have been wondering about when it will be available, and we are finally confident enough in our shipping timelines to give an official update.

So, for the month of July, Jaws of the Lion will be available exclusively at Target, and then it will be available through normal hobby distribution starting in August. So if you live outside the US, you can get it through your normal channels in August, but if you live in the US, you can pick it up a month early at Target.

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All right, so let's get onto the scenario design competition - the reason this update is running a little late.

Yeah, let me tell you, I was not expecting so many entries. There were somewhere around 300, which took a very, very long time to look through and judge. It would have been easier, but most of them were really good, and so deciding was very difficult!

Seriously, everyone who submitted a scenario needs to give themselves a huge pat on the back. These scenarios were great, and I felt bad only selecting the very, very best, because you could have easily filled three whole Frosthavens with the quality on display here. But there just wasn't that much space, so, in the end, I selected seven scenarios that I thought represented the best.

Really, I am very sorry if yours wasn't selected. It doesn't mean your scenario wasn't great, the bar was just super, super high.

So without further ado, here are the seven winners (in the order they were submitted):

•  Belara's Keep by Ryan H: I just really liked the conceit of having two paths interconnected with hexes that existed in both paths, and the way it was implemented, where players had to go back and forth, but always have at least one character on each path, was done very well.
•  The Abandoned Hideout by Edwin Everman: I loved the thematics of riding down an eel-infested river on little rafts, dodging traps. This one was probably the most complicated of the selections, which gave me a little pause, but I think with some development, we can reduce that a bit.
•  The Dancing Iceberg by Themris: The core concept of balancing two halves of an iceberg is really great, especially when tied to the thematics of giant crabs dancing back and forth across it. This one might also be a little too complicated with all the rules for each separate waves, but Themris has already provided some ways to cut back on that.
•  The Lustrous Pit by J Kaemmer: The sixth time was a charm for J, as this was my favorite of his many submissions. There were a lot of scenarios featuring sliding on ice, and I think this was implemented the best, with lots of complications add through map design rather than extra rules. We may need to clarify summon focusing rules a little more, but that should do it.
•  Furious Factory by General_C: I really liked the idea of these laser spires that spun around and caused mass carnage somewhat randomly, but could still sort of be controlled to the players' advantage.
•  Temple of the Protector by Drew Burmahl: Again, this one featured some great environmental effects as the focus of the scenario without over-complicating things with too many rules.
•  Ice Cave by Scott Hathaway: Instead of focusing on the slipperiness or brittleness of ice, Scott focus on the reflectivity to great effect, creating a scenario focused around mirroring the placement of allies and enemies.

If there was a trend to my selections, I would say what resonated with me the most were scenarios that provided interesting new mechanics that didn't get too bogged down in special rules or extra setup or section breaks. There was one interesting core concept that was implemented very well.

I also have a list of honorable mentions, which didn't make it into the game, but I would recommend checking out anyway, as they are all still very impressive:

•  Crystalline Ruins and Call of the Deep by J Kaemmer
•  Return of the Hunters by Adrian Brooks
•  Hall of Mirrors by LordGert
•  Mechanical Overlord by Kevin Sedgewick
•  Gelid Ravine Bridge by Steeve Leonard
•  The Rockpool by Geoff Bowers
•  Vermling Pirates by Daniel H
•  Northern Expanse Research Facility by John Lehman
•  The Tragedy of Lady Hollande by Aerlynn
•  Forgotten Royalty by Robert Matte
•  Dark Reflections by Jordi de Jonghe
•  The Painted Bastion by En Andre
•  Impending Doom by Andrew Wilkins
•  Sorcerer's Cellar by Rich P
•  Murder in Frosthaven! by James Sullivan
•  Wind-Scoured Bridge by David Tidd
•  Crossing the Lake by Marcin Ślęczek
•  Bloodpool Crypt by Johannes W
•  Caravan Escort by Pádraic MacOireachtaigh

Seriously, any one of these would have easily made it into Gloomhaven, so if you are looking for more content, these will keep you entertained for a while.

To the winners: once I delve deeper into the development phase for Frosthaven (give it at least a month), I'll be reaching out to you on BGG to discuss your scenarios and work out any development that needs to be done. Once that is finished, you will be paid for your work.

Thank you so much to everyone who joined in on the competition.You all have legitimately blown me away.

I have not had time yet to go through the submissions for the event competition, so the results of that will be in next week's update. See you then!

A full list of appreciation
about 4 years ago – Mon, May 04, 2020 at 02:17:17 AM

So, listen, this isn't a regular update. If you are only interested in info on when/how you are getting the game, you can go ahead and skip this.

But the thing is, it is still slowly sinking in with me just what happened two days ago. The magnitude and the ridiculousness of it, and I feel compelled to publicly thank all the behind-the-scenes people who made it happen. Of course, as always, I need to thank all of the backers who showed up to the party, but there are also a lot of individuals who really, really need a shout-out. This may end up sounding like a drawn-out Oscar acceptance speech, and the music might start playing me off, but all of this stuff needs to be said.

So I need to start by thanking Price Johnson, the Cephalofair Games VP of marketing and operations. He was the main man behind the scenes, coordinating a hundred different things like fulfillment, retailer pledges, ads, and finances. I don't know how many meetings he took every day so I didn't have to, but I know none of this would have happened without him. Or maybe it would have, but it would have been a year from now and a lot crappier.

And then I need to thank Chris Kessler, the Cephalofair Games sales manager. He did and continues to do the full-time job of answering any and all questions you have about the campaign, and he is much better at it than I ever was. Without Chris, the customer support side of this would have been a disaster.

Next, thank you to Jason Kingsley, the freelance graphic designer who made everything on the page look so beautiful, bringing everything up to your own standards, which were much higher than mine. You put up with me throughout the entire month of daily updates and announcements and all sorts of nonsense, and I couldn't be happier with the results.

And a big thanks to Jon Ritter from Other Stuff, who took a lot of that other stuff off our plate, just like he advertises. Coordinating advertisements, 3D rendering, communicating with Kickstarter, just general advice about anything and everything. Cephalofair Games is a small team, and so it was great to have someone take care of all the stuff we couldn't.

And in conjunction with Jon, I need to thank Seun Omotunde and everyone at Backerkit for working so hard on ads and getting the word out about the project.

The other person who helped out daily and deserves a big thanks is Marcel Cwertetschka, who put together the Tabletop Simulator module for Frosthaven and updated it every day with the puzzles and new scenarios from the community-driven campaign. He also created a few puzzles himself when I was too busy and burnt out to do it myself.

And, of course, no Kickstarter page would be complete without a video, and Josh McDowell did an absolutely bang-up job with ours. It is truly something special. Plus, of course, Josh contributed a lot of graphic design to the project as well.

Then we have the guest designers. Thank you all for your willingness to participate in this with me and lend your creativity to this project in a way that can only make it more fantastic.

I also want to thank all the partners we have that have agreed to us selling their products through the Kickstarter - Broken Token, Forteller, Asmodee Digital, and Sinister Fish. You have all enhanced the game experience in your own way, and I am very grateful for that and for your desire to be a part of this project.

And then I really need to think all the creative, wonderful people who have lent their talent to making Frosthaven as beautiful as it is. Artists Alexandr Elichev, Francesca Baerald, and David Demaret, sculptors Chris Lewis, Andrew Cothill, and Chad Hoverter, and writer Andy Nellis. You have all done stellar jobs that allowed us to put the game's best face forward.

I feel like I would also be remiss if I didn't thank my core group of play testers, who also helped considerably in getting Frosthaven where it is today. Clinton and Alden Bradford, Kaili Jiang, Jelena Paripovic, John Cole, Brian Lewis, and Kendra Baratta - you are all great people that I very much enjoy playing Frosthaven with.

And here comes the music, but I still have the most important person to thank: my wife Kristyn Childres, who shot a puzzle solution video for me every single morning, and, more importantly, kept me sane throughout the entire month of this roller coaster ride. It has been a pleasure being stuck in quarantine with you and the dog.

Thank you all and good night!

Breaking records as we cross the finish!
about 4 years ago – Sat, May 02, 2020 at 12:12:14 AM

#1 funded board game.

#3 funded across all categories.

$12,969,162

We did it. We flippin' did it.

I cannot thank you all enough for making this happen. It was a fantastic journey, and I hope you all had a wonderful time taking it with us all here at Cephalofair Games. It was quite the epic finish, and I couldn't be happier with the results. We will be adding the 17th character to the game, and it will for sure be something epic as well.

So thank you.

This is the third update today, so I don't want to take too much of your time, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what will be happening moving forward. We'll be moving into a weekly update schedule for the near future. Next Friday I hope to have the results of the scenario and event design competitions for you. There are more entries than expected, but I'll do my best to get through them.

And then two weeks from now we will be launching the pledge manager through BackerKit, so I'll be here to talk you through that as well. In the coming weeks/months, we'll also have updates on sleeves, other add-ons, the development process, as well as game elements I didn't get a chance to talk about yet.

We've gotten through one journey, but there's a whole other journey we get to take where we make the game and ship it to you so that you can, in the end, take your own journey through Frosthaven. I'm looking forward to keeping you all updated on that process. But for now, I just want to say THANK YOU one last time!

 And also thank you to Adam Poots and Kingdom Death: Monster for their classy shout out in the final hours that helped us get to the top of the mountain.

The threat competition results and final guest designers Adam and Brady Sadler
about 4 years ago – Fri, May 01, 2020 at 11:39:24 PM

I don't want to jinx it, but this might actually happen! I guess I need to start thinking about what that 17th character might actually be!

But let's take a short break from the drama of huge, staggering numbers becoming more huge and more staggering to delve into the other drama of the campaign: the fight between the Algox and the Unfettered (and the Lurkers...kinda).

I give you now the FINAL TALLY!

And #TeamUnfettered takes it! It was a valiant fight to the very end, but really, who can compete with a real live bladespinner?

There were so many great posts over the month on all sides! I was very impressed by your creativity, and I really want to thank you for taking this to heart and really running with it in ways I didn't expect. It has been a blast, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Yes, there are winners and losers here, but when it comes down to what it all means for the game in the end, I will use the entire saga as inspiration. Clearly the Algox and the Unfettered both deserve to be highlighted (with maybe the Lurkers cheering from the sidelines) with how close this competition has been throughout. So I will put in some extra content for both of them, and hopefully when you encounter it, you will recognize some of the story beats. What that content is exactly, well, you'll just have to wait and see.

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And, yes, we do have two new guest designers for the last day: Adam and Brady Sadler! Adam and Brady are the heads of design at Blacklist games, where they have published great dungeon crawl-type games like Street Masters, Brook City, and Altar Quest, but they've also had a storied history before that as freelancers and working for Fantasy Flight, with games like Descent 2nd Edition and Warhammer Quest in their credits.

They also did some guest design already on a little game called Gloomhaven, so doing some work on Frosthaven shouldn't be too much trouble, and yield some great results for us! In addition, Blacklist is running a Kickstarter right now for sets of fantasy miniatures. Some of them match up pretty well to Gloomhaven monsters, including the dreaded ooze.

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And I guess all that leaves us with is the final puzzle for the Brute, coming out of retirement for one last mission. With everything else going on, we had to shoot this one kind of fast. I will leave you with Stephen F's description of the situation, which I quite liked:

"In today's puzzle, he's throwing a big party and inviting all his friends over to celebrate the success of the Frosthaven Kickstarter reaching $10 million+! But oh dear, his house is such a mess, covered in over a dozen damage traps, and everyone will be here any minute! Thankfully he has some helpful Automatons that he can use to clean everything up before they arrive."

Oh, in case you don't know who Stephen F is, he has been on top of these puzzles all month, posting them on BGG and pointing out any mistakes I've made, so I recruited him last week to look at the puzzles ahead of time to make sure there weren't any mistakes. So big shout out to Stephen!