Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

MSRP and helper apps
about 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 06:03:23 AM

Hello! We have a very important update about the planned suggested retail price (MSRP) of Frosthaven once it hits retail distribution. This doesn't affect any prices of anything for this Kickstarter project - those were locked in long ago - so if you are looking for information on helper apps and other progress, feel free to skip ahead to the break.

So we would officially like to announce that the MSRP of Frosthaven will be $250. I know, that is a much bigger number than the $160 communicated during the Kickstarter campaign, but a lot has changed in the last couple years, both in the world and in our design.

Just to make sure it is absolutely clear, you aren't paying anything extra. Your orders are locked and guaranteed, and this is only about the MSRP, which affects what distributors, retailers, and customers will pay for the games in the future.

So why the change?

The biggest reason is just the vast amount of additional content and components. The scope of this project has grown significantly in the last couple years since that initial MSRP was set. At every step of the way, we chose to take those steps to add more content into the game because all of it was important for my vision of what the game could be. And to that end, we ended up with:

• 35% more cards.
• 25% more map tiles.
• 25% more monsters.
• Twice as much vac tray storage.
• 40% more scenarios and narrative text, which directly increased the size of the books.
• 40% increase in rulebook size to really provide a comprehensive ruleset and present everything in a professional and visually pleasing manner.
• Expanding the campaign tracker from one sheet to five to really fill it out with information and provide a logical place to store scenario stickers.
• Basically, there's just a lot more contents and components that we thought there would be.

In addition, the rise in freight shipping has been increasing the price of games across the industry and it is no different for us. We're seeing prices multiple times higher than what they were two years ago, as well as increased prices for materials such as paper.

So with all of that in mind, we felt it was responsible to set the MSRP higher than what was previously communicated, not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of our distributor and retail partners, who need to justify shipping the box around and putting it on their store shelves.

And with all of that said, it is also important to note that we do not have a wide retail release date set for the game, though we do intend on offering additional copies ourselves during the next crowdfunding campaign we're anticipating running later this year (after this campaign is fully fulfilled).

And just to reiterate one final time: we're not asking any of our backers to pay anything extra. We just felt this was something important to communicate as we get closer to fulfillment.

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I'd also like to spend a little time addressing Esoteric Software's announcement that they won't be developing a Frosthaven Helper app. While we are saddened by this news, we fully understand and wish them the best.

We recognize that we assured backers during the Kickstarter campaign that there would be a helper app for Frosthaven, and so we have every intention of doing what we can to make that happen. We are starting to talk to other software development companies to see what we can do to help get something similar to the helper app developed. These things take time, though. I can't guarantee anything will be available by the time you get your copy of the game, but I am confident that a solution will be developed to fill the void.

If not having a helper app is a deal-breaker for you, we understand. As always, you can email [email protected] to request a refund.

For those interested in the Scenario Viewer app, and we don't anticipate any complications on that front and are looking forward to using the Frosthaven version at launch.

Thank you all for all your suggestions for improving the rulebook over the last couple weeks! They definitely helped in plugging up some last tiny holes and making readability improvements. We're still furiously working away at proofing and should have some more news on that next time.

For now, I hope you have a great weekend! Play some games and stay safe!

Rulebook and production news
about 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 05:03:03 AM

Hello! I know we've been a little light on new info the past couple of updates with the Lunar New Year and everything, but I am excited to have the rulebook available for you viewing pleasure this week.

As you will soon see, this rulebook was a massive labor undertaken by Jason Kingsley, and we could not be happier with the results. 84 pages of blood, sweat, and tears and it is almost done. We're getting ready to send it off to the printer (the last file they need), but wanted to give the community an opportunity to look it over as well.

A few notes:

• If you'd like to provide feedback on the rulebook (typos, clarity issues, etc.), you can do so here. We're pretty confident in its polish already, but it doesn't hurt to give it one last pass. This form will be open until next Friday, and I'll try to keep an info box up at the top with all major corrections we find so we don't get too many of the same submission.
• There are six pages removed from the back of the book. Pages 78, 79, 82, and 83, which are the treasure index, a particularly spoilery appendix, and the credits, were all taken out because we really didn't want people to spoil themselves on some particular things before naturally encountering them in the game. That's not to say there aren't other spoilers in the appendices (everywhere else spoiler content is added through stickers), so pay attention to the table of contents if you don't want any of that.
• In addition, the index (pages 80-81) is still getting its final touches, so that's not quite ready for review, but we'll be finishing that up today.
• For all of the box set up information (shuffling decks, organizing), there is a separate sheet that goes on top of everything, similar to Jaws of the Lion, so no need to worry about that.

Alright, that's enough notes! Here it is!

RULEBOOK!

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In addition to the rulebook, we did want to give you what production updates we can. We plan on getting this rulebook submitted to the factory over the weekend, so that, by the end of next week, we will be able to fully finish the digital proofing process. If we do need to make any changes to the rulebook based on this community review, those can be added during proofing. From there, it will take about two more weeks to receive and approve the physical proofs.

So about three weeks from now, we're hoping to officially hit that big red button, which means we'll see games actually start shipping out of China around the middle of May. From there we don't really have any new information on that shipping process. There will be a lot of containers to ship and we are still very much in a global shipping crisis that we expect will continue for the rest of the year, so it is difficult to offer even conservative estimates. This will be a long fulfillment process that will take several months, but at least we have a very clear idea on where we are with production now, which will help in navigating the shipping effort.

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In other news, the illustrious Josh McDowell is leaving his position as associate creative director of Cephalofair Games at the end of the month to explore other exciting opportunities, and we wish him the very best! Josh has been integral to this company from the very beginning with Forge War and has been the lead graphic designer on all of our games. A year and a half ago he was officially hired and was absolutely key in getting Frosthaven across the finish line. I'm sure this isn't the last we'll be seeing of him, as he is always welcome back to help on any graphic design or video work we need done.

Thank you Josh!

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Unfortunately, however, we must end on a solemn note, because we must speak out against the reckless aggression from the Russian government targeting Ukraine. It is horrendous and is hitting us very hard, as Alexandr, the main artist for all our games since Gloomhaven, lives in Ukraine and is in the middle of it all right now. We stand in solidarity with him and the countless other people who have been killed, harmed, or displaced by this evil act. There is no justification, and it will most assuredly impact us all, one way or another.

If you'd like to learn more about the history of what is going on, we recommend these resources:

• Video explainer
• Concise Twitter thread

And if you'd like to help the humanitarian effort in Ukraine, we recommend these resources:

• Ukrainian Red Cross: "All funds will be used to help those in need, affected by armed conflict, blood collection, mobilization of volunteers and resources, and emergency activities."
• Ukraine Humanitarian Fund: "Your donation will help the UN and our humanitarian partners operating in Ukraine through the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund - one of the quickest and most effective ways to directly support urgent humanitarian relief on the ground."

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Thank you all. Try to have a good weekend, enjoy that rulebook, and, as always, stay safe. I'll catch you next time.

Happy 100th Update!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 12, 2022 at 05:12:26 AM

Hello! When you launch a project, you don't really anticipate writing 100 updates for it, but here we are, still going strong, for better or worse!

Today I wanted to take a little walk down memory lane, look back at everything we've built together over the past two years, and talk about all this project has meant to me.

But first, the news! The factory is just starting to come back on line after the Lunar New Year and communication has resumed. All files other than the rule book have been proofed and either fully updated or in the process of being resubmitted, and we are in the midst of coordinating the official start of production. We'll have a better production schedule for you next update, once we've been able to do a little more post-New Year leg work.

So with that said, let's dive in!

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It's kind of strange to think how closely the start of this project coincided with the start of the pandemic, especially considering that both are still ongoing. It is worth mentioning, though, because of how much influence the pandemic has had on the project as a whole.

The pandemic hit the US full-force in March 2020, pretty much exactly when we were planning on launching the project, and the big question became, "Are we still going to do it?" It was an unclear and scary time, but we decided the best way to help in the pandemic was to move forward and give people something to interact with and look forward to during the whole thing. As we can all attest to, given the past couple years, mental health is extremely important, and, as a board game company, while we couldn't do much on the front lines (other than make some donations), we could at least work hard to make people happy.

And, in the process, working hard gave us a much-needed distraction from what was going on in the world, as well.

Given a global pandemic, I think that first month went about as well as it possibly could have. After delaying the launch a week to give everyone a chance to settle and adjust to the new normal (including the Cephalofair Games employees and contractors, who had to adjust to partners and children spending all day at home with them as well), the project was launched to staggering, overwhelming success.

Which was all of you, of course. I hope you had a great time that month, too! We had daily announcements (the guest designer list still amazes me!), daily puzzles, and a whole new community-driven campaign. No stretch goals (well, okay, one stretch goal), but that was most assuredly for the best, given how big the box is already.

I didn't leave my house the entire month (except for walks), and worked pretty much non-stop, but it was all worth it, to execute such a fulfilling project that brought so many people so much joy. Almost $13 million raised, the biggest tabletop project on Kickstarter and the third biggest of all time.

It was rarified air that carried a lot of weight to it, because the Kickstarter itself was actually the easy part. Now we needed to actually finish the game and fulfill all our promises. It was not lost on us that the #1 and #2 projects In that most-funded list didn't actually fully deliver on their promises, and when we do, we will be the biggest project to do so. No pressure, right?

So I took a week off (but not really, because I was reviewing community scenario and event submissions), and then put my head down and got to work.

One thing that quickly became apparent, though, was that I couldn't just put my head down and work, because there was no way I could do everything myself. First off, there were all those guest designers! I had to define for them exactly what tools and content they had at their disposal to create scenarios. All the monsters, all the overlay tiles and map tiles, plus the overall story of the game and details on all the different groups and factions involved so that they could make decisions about where their scenarios fit into all of it. It was a big iterative and collaborative process. I would jump in to fill the gaps they weren't comfortable filling in themselves, and eventually, working together, we got a whole lot of side scenarios that fit nicely into the game.

And another huge collaborative effort was defining what exactly the town of Frosthaven contributed to the gameplay and how players interacted with it. From early campaign tests, I had a rough idea of how everything worked together and how the development of the city progressed through the campaign, but to really nail it down and refine a lot of the rough edges of the campaign as a whole, we brought in the Satire team as developers.

They wrote nearly all the events (over 250!), which was a huge weight off my shoulders, but also nailed down what attack events look like, the town guard modifier cards that come along with it, and how to progress and improve that deck. They took a look at every building, evaluated my intention for how that building fit into the campaign, and made it better. Sometimes this involved tweaking various aspects of it, but also a lot of content was written and puzzles devised. They even designed and developed a building of their own to help spice up end-game content.

And then there was the playtesting! I've extolled the virtues of the Frosthaven playtesters before, but really, not enough good things can be said about these folks. This was an effort much larger than probably anything in the history of board games and involved more than 150 testers. 17 character classes (each with ~30 ability cards), over 50 monster sets, 138 scenarios, and that crew would not rest until everything had been balanced to the highest standard.

Okay, well, that's a bit of hyperbole. There was a lot of resting, since the process took well over a year.

An important part of that process was also campaign testing, where we developed a simple metric for what was gained in a scenario without actually playing it, then had testers go through the steps of the campaign over and over to see how all the various resources and metrics of the campaign progressed from start to finish. We made a lot of great changes to that process until campaign progress felt good and in pace with the rate at which players should resolve the threats facing Frosthaven.

All the while, I was just constantly creating new content and iterating on the existing stuff. For a couple weeks, I'd go through all the playtester's comments and suggestions on character ability cards, then I would spend a week revising scenarios, then do a pass on all the monster materials, then create and edit some new items, then make campaign revisions, work on the puzzle book, and then it would be back to revision character cards again. And all the while I was interfacing with all our wonderful contractors to get things edited, illustrated, designed, developed, and laid out for printing.

An important part of this was reevaluating every aspect of the graphic design from Gloomhaven and working to elevate the entire design aesthetic - a process spearheaded by Josh. From new ability card designs to more player-friendly scenario and section books; every icon, color, layout, and card was scrutinized and improved. It was a massive undertaking, but worth it to ensure the cohesiveness and playability Frosthaven and everything we do in the future.

Meanwhile, Chris has been an absolute rock, handling all the customer service requests for all 80,000 of you. We hired him on as a convention manager right before the pandemic, but he has been kept plenty busy even after we pulled out of all conventions in 2020. And now that we've getting back into that, well, Chris is just a superstar.

And let us not forget about Price, who was dealing with factories and shipping companies to get that first wave fulfilled, and has been working ever since to make sure the second fulfillment goes smoothly. He made sure all the thousands upon thousands of components were organized and communicated to the factory effectively, but also took it upon himself to figure out how it was all going to fit in a box, working with the factory and other contractors to make the most effective use of space. Price also worked with all of our many partners like Forteller, Folded Space, and Laserox to make sure all of the production for their products would be as streamlined as possible and be fulfilled effectively, as well.

It was a learning process for sure, but we got better as we went along. Like I said, I initially wanted to do everything myself, but that quickly gave way to getting and organizing help. For instance, I initially tried to just communicate with playtesting groups through email, but we pretty quickly moved everything to a Discord server, which worked out much better. Even then, it took a lot of effort from some invaluable coordinators to organize all the data that was coming in through that Discord. And Marcel stepped up in a big way there, too, maintaining our digital playtesting mod, which was used for everything.

And really there are a million stories like that throughout the development process, where we'd encounter some insurmountable problem, usually stemming from just how unbelievably large the scope of the project was, and then find some way to get through and make the game better in the process. A lot of that was facilitated by Price, as well.

And so, ultimately, two years later, even with all the work that was done, collaborating with hundreds of people, here we still are without the game in hand. Obviously no one wanted or expected it to take this long, but I for one am grateful for the process. My original vision for Frosthaven has been realized in a way more glorious than even I could have envisioned two years ago. Even without the game in hand, I can say unequivocally that all that work was worth it. All 100 of these updates have been worth it. This game is going to be so mind-blowingly rad.

If I have one regret, it is that I was completely unable to effectively communicate an accurate timeline throughout the project. Simply because the scope was so large, I had a hard time comprehending how much work it would take. I sincerely apologize for that. On the other hand, if I had fully understood the scope from the beginning, I would have definitely charged more, so it's not all bad for you.

I'm not sure what else to say at this point. The last two years have been an absolutely wild ride. We've had ups and downs, and learned a lot. Personally, I feel I have grown tremendously as a person, and this project has been a huge part of that. My life has changed dramatically for the better, which is weird to say given the pandemic, but it is true.

I am very thankful you have taken this journey with me, and I hope you have gotten something meaningful out of it as well (aside from the actual game, which will be most assuredly awesome). Catch you next time!

Envelope X Update
about 2 years ago – Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 01:16:56 AM

Hello! Obviously I'm not going to talk about envelope X too much, due to spoilers. Envelope X refers to something discoverable in Gloomhaven. Over the years, a lot of people have asked for physical components for it, which is why we decided to offer a physical version during this project, which will be delivered alongside Frosthaven for those who ordered it. In creating the files, though, we thought it would also be a good opportunity to revisit the something and do a little more development on it, to improve the balance, add some artwork, and do some other stuff that is hard to talk about without getting into spoilers.

But that's not going to stop us from talking about it, we're just going to take the conversation over to Reddit, where we have better tools for spoiler-tagging and moderation. Developers Drew Penn (Gripeaway) and Dennis Vögele (Themris) took lead on this project and have done a nice write-up on the process here. You can also now find an updated version of the print-and-play files for envelope X in the secret place where you can normally find those files.

Everything else is still progressing. The Lunar New Year has started, and we are still anticipating having all digital proofing completed by the end of it so we get master proofing copies made as soon as the factory starts up again and enter production soon after that.

Other than that, I also wanted to let you know that Laserox will be streaming a live build of the full Frosthaven organizer Thursday, Feb. 3 at 16 CET (that's 10am EST) on their Twitch channel, and they also invite you to join their Discord channel , so check that out if you're interested!

That's all we have here. Again, you can check out the Reddit post for more discussion of envelope X, but be prepared for major, major spoilers. Or you can just enjoy your weekend! Catch you next time!

No News
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 01:54:09 AM

Hello! I am happy to be here with you all after two weeks, but I don't really have any news to report! Everything is still progressing, but describing how it's progressing feels pretty redundant at this point with previous updates. So if you're looking for the latest news on timelines, the previous update is still the best information on that.

So with that in mind, this is pretty much a non-update update. Just stopping by to give you a thumbs up, because I'm committed to checking in with you, but that is it for now. Catch you in another two weeks!