Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

A Brief Freight and Fulfillment Update
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 03:49:10 AM

Hello Backers!

As promised we are back this week with a quick impromptu Freight and Fulfillment update post-PAX: Unplugged.

General Fulfillment:

We’ve moved a TREMENDOUS amount of containers over the last month, having shipped 100% of Frosthaven units from China - and anticipate hitting fulfillment hard on the other side of this month’s Holidays.

We know that the delays have been a big disappointment with how positive things sounded on our ability to move international freight under a new (and much needed) partner. But want to offer reassurances this was a one time transitional hiccup and are making sure that all channels are ready to ship DAY 1 of production completion in all future crowdfunding ventures.

North America:

All Frosthaven containers have left Shang-hai and are inbound to their appropriate fulfillment warehouses! Fulfillment operations continue daily, with most recently U.S. West Coast orders started to be fulfilled out of Sparks, Nevada.

We also have started seeing lots of orders containing addons beginning to ship, and expect Retailer Backer orders to begin very soon as well. Ultimately, we’re only at about 15% completion for North America - for perspective. Still a lot to go so don’t fret if you haven’t gotten a notification just yet.

Canadian orders were admittedly supposed to have started by now, but based on some surprise red tape with UPS we saw some very frustrating delays getting this going. This was frustrating for both us, and for UPS who had some surprise customs changes dropped on them just as we thought we were good to go. All that to say - we’re being told the US warehouse is now FULLY READY to start pushing as many shipments into Canada as possible, starting Monday.

Please note: As mentioned in previous updates - we are NO LONGER able to change addresses on Canadian orders. Should you receive a notification for delivery at a previous address, please attempt to make arrangements.

EU & Rest of the World:

All Frosthaven containers have left Shang-hai and are inbound to Fulfillment Europe! First containers have touched down in Hamburg and are in the process of making their way to the warehouse for fulfillment. With the delays we’ve seen, and upcoming Holidays - we expect fulfillment to kick off as soon as the team is back in the New Year. We apologize that things have taken so long to get started - but have been assured that the red-tape issues we’ve encountered are now fully behind us and next project things are already set up for immediate freight shipment into Germany. Thank you all for your patience, understanding, and excitement for Frosthaven! And Happy Holidays to our ever patient and hardworking fulfillment team, Fulfillment Europe!

UK

All Frosthaven containers have left Shang-hai and are inbound to Spiral Galaxy! Like the EU and RotW above - first containers land sometime this month - but with planned upcoming holidays we anticipate fulfillment to kick off formally in the New Year. Thank you all for your patience, understanding, and excitement for Frosthaven! And Happy Holidays to our ever patient and hardworking fulfillment team, Spiral Galaxy!

AU/NZ

All Frosthaven containers have left Shang-hai and are inbound to Aetherworks! Like the EU/RotW/UK above - first containers are touching land sometime this month - but with planned upcoming holidays we anticipate fulfillment to kick off formally in the New Year. Thank you all for your patience, understanding, and excitement for Frosthaven! And Happy Holidays to our ever patient and hardworking fulfillment team, Aetherworks!

Asia & South Pacific

With all base units hitting water for international regions - we are giving the instructions to begin trucking products to VFI-Asia for fulfillment. We don’t have an official fulfillment begin date, but will work to get those details confirmed once we have official ship out/receiving estimates next week from our freight partners.

-Fulfillment End-

We’ll be back next week with another regularly scheduled update. In the meantime, please enjoy this wonderful paint job of Frosthaven’s “Starting Six” by Cephalofair’s own contributor and community member - Wilting Moon!

Happy Holidays - and Happy Fulfillment!

Greetings from PAXU
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Dec 06, 2022 at 11:52:28 PM

Hello! Happy, um, Saturday. I am very sorry for not getting an update posted yesterday. It was a very hectic day for us at PAXU announcing our next project, the Gloomhaven Roleplaying Game!

If you want to know more about that, you can read the announcement over at cephalofair.com, or watch the announcement and a live play of the RPG (which I had a lot of fun with) on the PAX Twich channel. You can also go here to sign up to get all the updates about the Backerkit crowdfunding project that is launching in April.

We don't have a lot of shipping info today for you, however. Things are moving along, and we have started touching down product internationally. Price will have a more detailed off-cycle shipping update for you next Friday once we are recovered from PAXU.

In the mean time, enjoy this art from the RPG, which shows that any class and ancestry combination is possible, and we'll catch you next week!

Behind the Curtain of Fulfillment & Forteller Audio Narration
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 06:02:11 PM

Happy Friday!

FULFILLMENT

This has been an eventful last week for the Cephalofair team as Chris and I traveled to Hebron, KY to visit our North American fulfillment center to perform a site visit, meet our warehouse team in person, and hopefully help provide our backers a better “behind the curtain” peek at just how much hard work is going into the receiving and shipping of your orders!

We were excited to be joined by two of our Retail Backer partners – Shane & Sandra Priddy of Family Time Games (Indianapolis, IN)and Kevin Kerkhof of Hitherto Coffee & Gaming Parlor (Greenfield, IN). Oh yeah, and David Waybright of the Man Vs. Meeple YouTube channel showed up. We let him stay.

Our adventure started with a quick flight and drive over to Cincinnati, OH we met up with our fulfillment team from Ware2Go – a UPS owned end-point fulfillment company. After a morning briefing – we were allowed to walk the immense floors of their HUGE warehouse and learn more about the millions, and millions, of books, consumer products, and Amazon.com orders they process through their warehouse each year. I’m not going to lie – what looks like chaos to you and I is their daily bread and butter and it was really something else to get to take in in-person. Big shout outs to Zac, Charles, Tamara, and Phyllis @ Ware2Go!

After a brief walk through the warehouse we found ourselves at the dedicated Cephalofair project staging area – where we had pallets upon pallets of Frosthaven and Frosthaven accessories  were already received and actively in the process of being organized and fulfilled. And before I say anything else I just have to drop a huge THANK YOU to our hard working warehouse team. Everyone we met was so knowledgeable, helpful, and excited to show us what their day-to-day looks like. And man are they putting in a lot of work lifting these 36lb behemoths!

We then got put to work helping ship orders going out that day. So if you got a tracking notification early this week – that was us!

On our way out of town - we made sure our new warehouse friends were properly inducted into our hobby world of gaming by visiting a local game store and hooking them up with some solid gateway games to start their own collections (Azul, Mass Transit, & Wingspan!)

Please enjoy the following recap of the trip we put together – we hope this helps give you an insider look at the scope of this project and appreciation for how many moving pieces are coming together to make our impossible dream, possible:

International Freight

Things continue to move along in international freight. While we admittedly saw delays getting things moving to our international warehouses in Germany, UK, and Australia – we currently have over a dozen containers on water at last to these locations, and another 10 containers shipping out on the 25th.

To make up for lost time, we’re now also working with multiple freight partners. Is this more expensive for us? Yes. Is it more time consuming? Yes. But we’re committed to trying to make up for lost time where we can and thank you all for your patience.

That being said, we’re going to continue to ring the “this project is going to extend into early next year for all regions” bell once again to set realistic expectations for everyone and ourselves. While it has been extremely exciting seeing backers receive their first copies, folks we are only at about 5% completion. That’s just how massive this undertaking is. Thank you all for keeping up the excitement and positivity!

FORTELLER AUDIO NARRATION

TODAY we began digital distribution of Forteller Audio Narration codes via your Backerkit account.

Emails started going out today, so please keep an eye on your inbox if you haven’t seen it already.

And if you haven’t already picked up the audio narration – it’s also available as of TODAY for purchase!

I’m going to go ahead and turn things over to Nicolle from Forteller to talk to you a little bit more about the Official Frosthaven Narration and the team behind it. Until next week – Happy Fulfillment!

Take it away Nicolle!

============================================

Greetings Mercenaries!

The time has come… fulfillment of Frosthaven has begun!

Our team is proud and excited to announce Frosthaven’s immersive narration is NOW available! Forteller has poured its heart and soul into providing an unforgettable experience to match this incredible game.

Over 20+ hours of audio narrative with over 50 professional voice actors, custom music, and inspiring sound effects to amplify your Frosthaven adventures.

Forteller is close to completing its first FREE addition to the Frosthaven narration! The Solo Scenarios and the Road and Outpost cards with their related Section Book pieces are expected to release on December 15th.

Backerkit has begun digitally distributing your game codes via your Backerkit account. Once you receive your game code.

• Visit https://www.fortellergames.com/redeem 
• If you have not already been to our site and logged      in – you will be asked to create an account or log into an existing one –      the redemption will be applied to this account!
• Log into the mobile app with the same account and the      Frosthaven Narration will be ready for your mercenary group!

If you need additional support, please contact us at [email protected].

It’s never too late to amplify your Frosthaven adventure – if you missed out during the campaign, you can still pick up the narration today!

We hope you enjoy this audio experience! Please provide any feedback at our discord community: https://discord.com/invite/R7U4SZc or email us at: [email protected].

Looking Behind the Curtain

That is a small taste of the composition for the Scenario Book Events totaling just over six hours of the total runtime. Here is a quick breakdown:

· Green and Yellow: Voice Actors! Yay! We love you all!

· Blue and Grey: Music, Foley, Ambience

From our Sad Skull Producer

Falling snow... We remember looking at a YouTube video of snowfall and trying to hear what they were conveying, and it turns out snow doesn’t talk. But the wind does; in fact, it howls, especially when it is masking the forbidden, frozen tundra North of Gloomhaven.

Frosthaven is a massive new product from Cephalofair: jaw dropping, ice smashing, and tear freezing madness.

Forteller set out to match this epic game. It is packed with over 20 hours of immersive narrative full of amazing voice acting, sound effects, and enough custom composed music to make most Hollywood executives weep!

· 1,400+ Audio tracks

· 50+ Voice actors

· 20+ Hours of audio

· 10+ Sound designers

· 4 Composers

· 2 years of Full-time production

· 1 actual skeleton in a pear tree

Frosthaven was no mere project for us, our heart lives there. Among the cracking of fire and crunch of snow underfoot, each sound was meticulously cultivated and designed for the last bastion in the North.

Every decision and every actor we spoke to knew how much this game meant to us. Isaac created a new place for us all to enjoy, to experience new stories with our friends, triumph over adversity, and gain more strength through diversity of character. It’s a true treat from a gameplay aspect and we at Forteller have gone far beyond what we thought was possible with Frosthaven.

Not everyone will be able to say they had the honor of riddling out what an Algox sneeze sounds like… Or experiencing the weight of a narrative that has so many different emotions running through it from an audio perspective.

The biggest challenge was voicing the many Algox. Having them represented in a way that was as communicative and creative as the writing was no easy task. We went through hundreds of auditions to find the right sounds. We found that being too grumbly was no good. Without lip patterns it was sometimes hard to understand. And the writing clearly has them speaking eloquently so going with too much of a staggered speech pattern seemed silly and dull.

Emotion and nuance are challenging in audio-only productions and conveying the story in a true and believable manner is the difficult goal. We are proud and excited to share our experience to the world!

It was a challenge worth doing and now that challenge falls to you, the players. Can you take on the unforgiving North? Listen closely, keep your cards in hand and always remember to move fast.

Thank you to the board game community for supporting us!

From our wonderful partner, Dynamedion

For us at Dynamedion, the task of setting the world and story of Frosthaven to sound was an extraordinary experience in two aspects:

1. It is not every day that we get to do audio for a Tabletop game. In fact, this was our gateway project into the board game scene.

2. Frosthaven being our first of this scale, what a scale it was! Hours of content and the third largest Kickstarter project of all time - but also one that we as a team were in love with on a personal level.

I (Jannic) clearly remember carrying my 10 kilo box of Gloomhaven out of the store and through the medieval alleyways of Marburg at the start of the pandemic, which we then completed within a year.

This certainly sweetened the workflow immensely, as we started editing voice-overs, created ambient sound locations, put Foley cues in place, designed creatures, manipulated voices to depict out-of-this-world characters and worked on magical, elemental, combat, destruction, and other special FX.

All previous experience notwithstanding, you never stop learning. As we went, we kept optimizing our workflows, project pipelines and structures. We were also helped greatly by the near infinite resources from our friends at BOOM Library with outstanding quality sound effects and plug-ins (special shout-out to Enrage), which made this project possible within the given time frame in the first place.

Special thanks also to the Fortellerteam and Adam in particular, who was extremely supportive, quick to respond and a great guy to work with.

We hope you have as much fun listening and playing as we had creating this experience.

Time for Thanks!

Thank you to the entire Cephalofair team for trusting us to create this narrative experience. It has been a Sleigh ride through the horrors of the Whitewood and back. Your continued support is heartfelt.

We got to work with a wonderful actor, director, and board-gamer (Travis Oates) who was kind enough to lend Adam some wisdom and guidance! His best lesson was making sure to let the actors be the actors.

The wonderful sound diviners at Dynamedion (Boom Library, Witcher 3), Christian Wirtz and Jannic Bohme, helped us to pull together a team of composers, sound artists, and foley specialists really let their talents shine. The sound assets for this game, particularly the soundtrack and foley work is truly breathtaking. We even wrote a sea shanty!

Adam James Laveaux (A.J), Ian Abraham, Dale Skutt and Paul Greenleaf were pillars of extra support when we needed it the most. Getting this thing on ice was no easy task, and you guys really did your due diligence. What you did with the Road, Outpost and Solo scenarios is marvelous.

There are a lot of moving pieces in Frosthaven, but even more that we had to overcome to get this wonderful and massive project coordinated. We feel we went the extra mile for the players, and they are about to experience something very…cool.

To our own personal Lurker, thanks for believing we could do it. Without further ado, all we can say is…

Welcome to Frosthaven.

We want to extend a big thank you to the incredible and talented creatives that are the beating heart of the Frosthaven:

Phillip Sacramento

Adam Huff

Adam Rowe

Aimee Smith

AJ Laveaux

Alexander Doddy

Alexander Theoharris

Alice Himora

Andrea Hadhazy

Andy Mack

Ben Balmaceda

Bonnie Bogovich

Bowman Dean

Bradley Gareth

Breanna MacDowall

Chris Nichter

Cpt. Andreas Somville

Dale Skutt

Deb Stein

Emma Powell

Ian Abraham

Jaquelyn Graham

Jared Raman

Jason McCracken

Jeffery Pillars

Jennings Brower

Joe Bianco

John Patneude

Julie Shields

Katabelle Ansari

Kathy Manfre

Kelsey Maher

Marcus Freeman

Margaret Ashley

Megan Youmans

Michael Malconian (Vermling extraordinaire)

Nathan Elks

Paul Greenleaf

Rachel Rial

Rei Feeser

Rhinnaon Moushall

Ryan Cooper

Torvald Tempestas

Travis Oates

Ty Anderson

Wolf Williams

Jannic Böhme

Patrice Börding
Katharina Bär
Stefan Kemler

Michael Gorjacev
Benjamin Drumeaux

Marit Schmitt

Adam Lehenbauer, Executive Producer

Nicolle the Troll Charriez

Thomas St Pierre, CEO

EU & AU Set Sail! Final Call For Canada Address Changes
about 2 years ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 03:49:37 AM

Hello Everyone!

This update is coming to you off-schedule, which is something we will be doing periodically as needed with how much is going on now that we're finally in the #EndGame of this monumental project. Lots of breaking news, with more details to follow in the next week, but we wanted to get you what we had as soon as we had it!

European & Rest of the World Fulfillment

Today we're very excited to finally announce we have our first two vessels on water and on their way from Shanghai to Germany for general European fulfillment!

While we haven’t been provided vessel names to share (we’re working on tracking these down for you) I have been told they have an estimated port arrival date of DECEMBER 1st 2022 to Hamburg, Germany. From there, they will travel via rail to our fulfillment warehouse. We’re working on meeting with our fulfillment partners to make sure things are lined up to turn things around quickly and will be back with more information in coming updates.

Oceanic Fulfillment

Today we received word that we have our first container on the water to Australia for Oceanic fulfillment! We also have confirmation that 4 additional containers have been booked and will be shipping very soon. (We’re working on vessel names and will provide these and estimated arrival dates once we have them)

Asia Fulfillment

Clearance was given this week for shipment from our factory in Shanghai to our fulfillment partner VFI-Asia. Once we see things moving here, it should be just a quick land transit to our fulfillment partners VFI-Asia. We’re lining up a meeting with them and will have some more information soon!

UK Fulfillment

While nothing is on the water as of this week - I have been told that arrangements are finalized and books are cleared to begin moving forward very, very shortly (Dates TBD, but we are putting full pressure here). As mentioned in previous updates - we have already been proactively booking vessel space to make sure we’re not wasting time while UPS continues their due diligence and red tape navigation. We’re in touch with our UK fulfillment team and will make sure communications are open and active for once things are moving.

North American Fulfillment

There are no major updates for North American fulfillment this week, as we covered most everything in last week’s update found HERE. We are officially 1 week into fulfillment and are seeing lots of excited backers receiving 36 lb. cartons on their doorsteps and into their hearts!

Reminder: Canadians orders will begin being processed as early as next week and as such…..THIS IS THE LAST CALL FOR CANADIAN ADDRESS CHANGES! Failure to update your address with us at [email protected] may result in failed delivery attempts, returned packages, and/or additional shipping charges.

-Fulfillment End-

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back next week on our normal schedule - in the meantime we just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone sharing in the excitement of fulfillment. We’re seeing so much celebration and support amongst backers, even those patiently waiting for fulfillment to begin. We have a long way to go in every part of the world - but we appreciate how much this community constantly builds itself up and just wanted to recognize those posting well wishes, sharing memes and .gifs, and excitedly asking questions from those who have copies in hand.

Until next Friday -Happy Fulfillment!

N.A. Fulfillment Commences! Apps and Ocean Freight Updates.
about 2 years ago – Sat, Nov 05, 2022 at 06:35:59 AM

Happy Friday!

Price here. So we’ve got some big news updates today, please fasten your seatbelt and keep your arms and legs inside the update at all times.

Let’s go!

Worldwide Fulfillment

We have big news today but first I’d like to start with some top level fulfillment information, requests, and reminders:

1.  Fulfillment is going to be a LENGTHY, lengthy, process. While we have some exciting news today - please keep in mind, and respectfully remind each other, that we will be shipping games throughout the rest of the year. In full transparency, likely through January at this stage based on some pretty consistent port and rail congestion we’re seeing and brokerage delays on international shipping channels. We appreciate your patience and ask you to share in the excitement that fulfillment has begun even if you may be waiting on your shipping notification to arrive.
    
2.  You will be emailed when your order ships. We will communicate when your state/province/region is completed. Due to the increased service requests we get during fulfillment, we will largely be unable to respond to individual requests for order status requests. Even if your neighbor down the street has received their order - there is no precise rhyme or reason to fulfillment order so until we have officially signaled that “FULFILLMENT IS OVER IN X” in our bi-weekly updates, please do not email to ask for an order status.
    
3.  We’re here to help! In the event your order is missing please contact Chris at [email protected], we can assist with a UPS claim to locate your missing package.
    

Got a damaged or missing component? We’ll do everything we can to rectify your order. Replacement part support is already in motion, we’ll have extra components in our warehouse on the 15th, and we will be deploying a new and improved replacement request form within the next two weeks on our webpage (https://cephalofair.com/pages/contact). Simply fill out the form, attach any photos for damaged components and we’ll get a replacement sent out to you asap!

1.  Box Replacement Will Not Be Available. We are aware that sometimes games arrive with small box dings, dents, or blemishes received in transit form our warehouse to your doorsteps. Therefore we’ve done everything possible to prevent this from happening such as: a) increasing our box thickness, b) increasing the carton thickness, c) redesigning our game assembly, d) redesigning our carton assembly, e) restructuring how we load ocean containers, f) most games (with accessories) will even be double cartoned. Producing, freighting, storing, and shipping empty boxes is very much not a realistic expectation or a financially responsible thing to do on our end, or for most board game products from publishers. Not only can we not guarantee a new empty box would arrive any less damaged - it costs just as much as sending a brand new game due to the size of the box. We simply won’t be stocking empty box inventory. HOWEVER, should your game arrive entirely destroyed, crushed, splitting, etc - this is an entirely different story and we’d ask that you reach out to [email protected] so we can best serve you. Thank you all for understanding!
2.  Let’s have fun! Fulfillment is both the most exciting part of the crowdfunding process, but also the most stressful - for you and for us! If we could snap our fingers and have the game appear on each of your doorsteps simultaneously - we’d go full Thanos mode. The reality is we will be servicing tens of thousands of order inquiries, claims, and relaying those needs to our half-dozen operational partners over the coming months. We’re super excited to do this, and your excitement will only help. So help us by wishing your fellow backers “Happy Fulfillment!”, celebrate when your crowdfunding neighbor gets their copy first, congratulate your local game store backer filling their storefront window with Frosty goodness, drop some hype memes and gifs, etc. We won’t rest until every backer has their copy.  We still service requests from 2017’s Gloomhaven fulfillment from backers who just now reach out, and nothing has changed. As always - we offer full refunds should you decide your copy is taking too long, just reach out and let us know.

North American Fulfillment

SURPRISE! Our first container ended up arriving super early and caught the entire team by surprise the other morning. While last update we’d communicated the first batch would be heading to our Canadian friends, we actually had one last compliance hurdle we had scheduled for this week - so that batch will continue in the coming week as planned.

So, uh, yeah. HAPPY FULFILLMENT DAY! Things officially kick off today, and the very first of you will and have already started seeing tracking numbers TODAY. IT’S HAPPENING.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To repeat reminder #1 above - you are the first, but will also very likely be the last. There is a very real likelihood we’re looking at fulfillment through January at this stage. We appreciate your patience and excitement for one another!

Chris and I will be making a trip out to Kentucky to visit the warehouse in the next update to give everyone a sneak peek behind the curtain of fulfillment so you can see the entire process

Europe/United Kingdom/Oceanic/Rest of World

We’ve gotten some clarification from our freight partners about why we’ve seen such delays in bookings for these regions. While we unfortunately don’t have very exciting news to share yet - here are the facts:

Good News: Bookings have started being made for EU/UK/AUS containers on ships. These are reserved for us, but will be dependent on the completion of the rest of our brokerage process.

Bad News: Brokerage has taken longer than UPS anticipated to set up these logistical channels. China → USA is fairly straightforward and something we were able to clear very quickly, but changing regulations in these other countries, especially over the last few years, have made the process a little more complicated and time consuming. While we could start shipping blindly - the risk is too great to have containers seized or held by customs or authorities for not having cleared the proper laws and regulations on the import side could mean even greater delays or some pretty hefty fines and penalties. A lot of this is due to the size of the project and the fact that it required us completing changing both freight brokerage and end point fulfillment partners in order to scale appropriately and not prevent bottlenecking and even longer delays than we're experiencing now. Once we get through this red tape, Cephalofair will be fully upgraded and set for future fulfillment campaigns. 

The Fact Remains: Ultimately, we are just as disappointed to not have a shipping notification for you yet, but hope we can reassure you that even though North America has received their first containers, they will also be the last to receive their containers as well.  We simply have that many more containers going to the USA for North America that we anticipate it also being the last to wrap up fulfillment.

We'll be lining up a new round of meetings with our international fulfillment partners to make sure they have the latest information and we're all pivoting as best and quickly as possible to changing time tables.  Thank you all for your support, understanding, and patience. 

Asia/Pacific Islanders

The above statements regarding EUR/UK/AUS apply here as well - but the good news is our transit time will be considerably shorter from our factory in Shanghai to our fulfillment partner VFI Asia located in Fujian, China. We also are looking at many fewer containers so as soon as we have brokerage clearance, we’ll prepare our shipment immediately!

-FULFILLMENT END   -

We have a few more exciting updates from our licensing partners below, so from here I will wish you a “HAPPY FULFILLMENT!” and catch you next time from Hebron, Kentucky and the epicenter of Frosthaven Fulfillment for some behind the scenes insights to the fulfillment operations. Have a great weekend!

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Forteller Narration:

The Forteller Frosthaven narration is completed and awaiting our approval for launch. We’re working closely with the Forteller Team and will begin DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION of your key codes via your Backerkit account. You will receive an email notification once your key is available. More information coming very soon!

Frosthaven Assistant App:

Hello future Boneshapers, Blink Blades, and Banner Spears (and the rest of you lot),

I am Carley, the online Community Coordinator from Lucky Duck Games and longtime Gloomhaven player, and I am thrilled to finally share with you all some insight into the companion app our flock is making for Frosthaven.

The Incredible Developers

Our team members, Simon and Macéo took on the task of developing the app for Frosthaven. They joined the Lucky Duck flock as interns, working on tasks like the Content Creator tools that allow Destinies board game players to craft their own scenarios.

Now they join our company full time, bringing to life projects like the Frosthaven app. In April, they began the project, taking specifications provided by Cephalofair, and sorting them into the basic functionalities that would define the app. Recognizing that what constitutes a good app in this case isn’t something incredibly flashy, but instead a tool that can be seamlessly integrated and support ease of gameplay, they set out to make something to reduce management and keep players focused on the important things: the big baddies left to fight and how to avoid your newly summoned summon walking directly into a trap and dying. We knew from the start that this would include the absolute basics:

• Monster HP and condition tracking
   
• Character HP and condition tracking
   
• Pulling monster ability cards
   
• Managing the monster and ally modifier decks
   
• Multiple device compatibility
   
• Zooming in on ability cards for easy reading
   

With priorities sorted, Macéo and Simon got to work sorting an initial screen flow.

But a lot has changed since that initial planning of the app. All in all, it took about a month to implement the basic features, but many features have been added and adjusted to ensure a smooth gameplay experience since. We are excited to share more behind the scenes of all the app making magic in the next update.

The Loud, Gloomhaven Fan Girl

The other member of this ragtag Frosthaven app team has been myself. Macéo and Simon are the wizards making it all happen, and I have helped with feedback along the way as our company’s very loud Gloomhaven fan girl with an abundance of opinions. I have played through all of Gloomhaven, Forgotten Circles, and Jaws of Lion with multiple campaigns, and in each, I utilized an app to help make scenarios more functional for my group.

All that is to say, I have played Gloomhaven with an application A LOT, and care immensely  about making sure the Lucky Duck application not only checks the boxes on basic functionality, but really matches player needs. When I first saw the rough implementation from Simon and Macéo, my list of questions and ideas was very long, knowing that things like keeping the app spoiler free, user friendly, and flexible for different group play styles is important. I would cry if a character class revealed too soon for met, and while I’m a player who loved using the app to track monster stats, I liked to track player stats and initiative off screen, so making sure the app was adequately player conscious and customizable for groups was important to me, as both a part of the team making it happen, but also as a player myself.

The App

Macéo and Simon have been incredible in building a beautiful app and responding to my infinite requests. It’s been a joy to work on with them, and we are in the home stretch of final modifications so that it can be ready for your table too. A little over a week ago, Frosthaven arrived for me here in the US and at our office in Krakow, and so we are now able to really, truly playtest with the app.

I’ve completed about ten scenarios with an ultra squishy and challenging starting duo of Deathwalker and Boneshaper, and there’s been a number of changes we’ve wanted to address since. But while not perfectly ready to roll out yet, I am excited to give you a sneak peek below and to share more soon as we near announcing a precise release for you all.

Thanks for welcoming the Lucky Duck team to the Frosthaven family and your table. Let me know if you have questions, and I will be present in the comments to answer them as best I can.

-Carley Reinhard, Lucky Duck Games

Laserox

With Frosthaven organizers out of the way, the Laserox team has been hard at work on their next crowdfunding campaign to bring you all some really neat ways to enhance your Frosthaven campaign experience! Check it out and If any of the below offerings interest you and your group, please give them a follow over at their Kickstarter page HERE - launching Nov 16th CET 18.00.
    You can also join their team Discord HERE.