Pledge Manager 5% test
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Jan 04, 2024 at 04:33:26 AM
Hey Everyone,
We’re launching the smoke test for the Backerkit Pledge Manager this morning. About 5% of backers across all pledge levels will receive an e-mail directing them to their survey. If all goes well we will launch the full scale Pledge Manager soon after.
If you get the e-mail and have issues with the Pledge Manager please let us know here.
If you don’t get an e-mail just be patient and wait for the full scale launch. We’ll do another quick update when that goes live.
Thanks!
-Asterisk
1/1/2024 Update
about 1 year ago
– Mon, Jan 01, 2024 at 08:05:58 AM
Happy January,
The Pledge Manager - The Pledge Manager is under review at Backerkit and we’re resolving a support issue so we expect to have it ready and sent out within the week. The survey will be pretty straightforward but let us know in comments or a message if you have any issues and we’ll work on it. We are planning on having the Pledge Manager open for a little over a month so we can include a reminder in February's update as well. We’ll send another update when surveys go out to make sure people get a heads-up.
Production is a Go! - We’ve approved all updated files and prints from Panda and given them the go-ahead to start mass production. This step took a bit longer than we had hoped but we’re very happy with the changes and we think you will be too. Now is probably a good time to talk about how we planned our timeline and why, even with a couple weeks delay here, we are still on track to deliver on time by July of this year.
Our Timeline - We’ve backed a lot of kickstarters and are well aware of the view most backers have of the delivery promises that are made by people running campaigns. Our goal with this campaign was to set reasonable expectations for ourselves and to be as prepared for each step as we possibly could. With that in mind we constructed a best-case-scenario timeline that estimated each step of the process based on the information we had at the time, then we plugged in holidays, then we added two months on to the end as a buffer. We’re heading into the part of the process that is least familiar to us but we’ve been working to prepare for it and we feel like we’re in a good place to avoid major delays on our part.
Next Steps - Production is expected to take 10-12 weeks plus 2 weeks for Chinese New Year so we’re taking that time to connect with our fulfillment partners and the companies who will handle ocean freight to the different regions around the world to prepare for that point. There’s some weird stuff with VAT registration and freight coordination where each needs info from the other to proceed but we’ll have that sorted soon enough.
Thanks so much!
-Asterisk
December update: Pre Production Copy
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Dec 01, 2023 at 08:18:59 AM
Hello, it’s December.
Let’s do the big one right off the bat, we got the Pre Production Copy(PPC) in the mail recently and have been looking it over, playing games with it, and recording a video! Fair warning, there are a couple things we’ve included to hopefully make the unboxing experience pretty special when you get to open your copy. If you’re the type of person who likes little surprises you can skip the section of the video labeled “SPOILERS” and jump to the component layout and final thoughts which are spoiler free. If you hate surprises we do show everything that comes in the box in that spoiler section so watch away.
As stated in the video, this copy is not intended to show the final tile quality in terms of cut lines. Also, the print quality is a bit lower than it will be in the mass production run because of different printing methods. So, we are not making changes to either of those aspects of the files. Special thanks to Mike Hawthorne for herding us while trying to make a video without laughing.
These are the areas we are adjusting:
Color corrections on Minors and Majors - Getting a look at the different components for each company printed with our updated colors highlighted a few places where the color of individual components could be pulled a little closer together. We used a lot of textures and layers in designing each component so it’s not as simple as matching a color, it’s more about matching the overall feel so the set for each company reads as cohesive. These are relatively minor changes and will be made by submitting updated files to Panda in the coming days.
Texture removed from earnings board - We noticed on the mounted earnings board that the texture we used to add a bit of life to the board was interfering with readability of a few of the numbers so we’re going with a less textured look. Again, just a file update.
Gold Foil selection - This was the hardest element to select properly so getting the in-person copy was crucial to getting this right. The one we selected for the Pre Production Copy ended up being a little more reflective and a little more yellow than we were hoping. It looks good, just not quite what we had in mind. So, with what we know about the one we chose we can make a more informed selection to bring the look of the box closer to what we want it to be. This is as simple as changing the swatch code with Panda so they use a different foil when making the boxes. Also of note, the details in the gold foil were fantastic, no changes needed there.
Rulebook edits - Small issues were found when combing through the rulebook, easy to fix with a file update.
Plastic bags - We defaulted to a low number of plastic bags initially because we do want to reduce the amount of plastic we include. After seeing how the game will be packaged and what bags are included (some to pack components along with the ones we include) we are adding a few more bags to properly store the components once punched.
None of these adjustments require the creation of another preview copy so we are hoping to give the go ahead to Panda to start production soon after our files are submitted and accepted. We are hard at work on the new files so we could have them submitted as soon as today if all goes well.
Tile Trays - In other news, on a sadder note, it doesn’t look like tile trays will be a realistic inclusion for this production run. We think it’s best to tackle the storage solution with our future plans when we can devote the most attention to it and execute it properly. We will be reaching out to third party tile tray producers to see if they are interested in filling that gap in the meantime and if we can help them in any way.
AAG Wave 6 preorders - All-Aboard Games have opened preorders for their 6th wave and one of their upcoming titles caught our eye. 18Svea is the first in what looks to be a series of micro 18xx games they will be producing. We love seeing designers working on smaller and shorter 18xx games so we’ll be ordering a copy ourselves. If you’re interested you can check it out plus other games in the wave here: AAG Wave 6 Preorders
What we’re working on this month
We will be getting the backer survey together to launch early next year. We think it’s best to wait until after the holiday season when there’s a little less going on.
Kevin will be plugging away at a set of solo mode rules which are starting to get interesting.
Finally, we’re getting everything squared away with our fulfillment partners to make sure we are all as prepared as we can be to handle the next steps after production is complete.
Thanks again, next update should have more details about the backer survey!
-Asterisk
11/1/2023 Update
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 08:32:15 AM
Hello, welcome back, good to see you,
As we said in the last update, there was a lot going on this month so let’s get into it.
All files are uploaded and approved by Panda and we have approved the digital proofs for all print files. We did a big proofreading pass of the rulebook to catch any small grammar or punctuation issues and we added some new stuff here and there. You can check out the version we submitted to Panda here: Rulebook.
After uploading, there were some tweaks and adjustments needed to get everything oriented properly, making sure the copy they are printing for our approval is as close to perfect as we can get. We ended up investing some extra time on this now so we can hopefully approve the pre production copy (PPC) with minimal changes needed. At this point we are right on schedule according to our campaign timeline. The expectation is it will take Panda about 3-4 weeks to create the PPC and get it to us. We’ll spend about a week looking over it for approval, maybe a bit longer if we need to adjust any files.
Once that arrives we are planning to make an unboxing video going over all the components and letting people know if we find anything that needs to be adjusted.
We received the money from Kickstarter, paid Backerkit, paid our expenses from the campaign, and will be paying our downpayment to Panda as soon as we decide on our final order volume (likely while the PPC is being printed.)
We have late pledge/preorder options available on Backerkit now and are working on the details for the backer surveys for when it is time to send those out.
We’ve started the process of registering for EU and UK VAT which will allow us to manage our import fees and VAT payments properly and to avoid any surprises. We are partnering with SimplyVAT for the first year of filings starting on January 1st 2024.
The TableTop Simulator module has been updated to the current version. This includes the new art for the game boards, the new rulebook, and a small buff to Eastern Mining (The mine spot on the home tile has been bumped by 10 in Green, Purple, and Grey) that we had been considering for a while and decided to implement.
Take a look at the new board images:
Stock Track
Earnings Board
Round Tracker
Thanks again for all your support!
10/1/2023 Update
over 1 year ago
– Sun, Oct 01, 2023 at 05:32:51 PM
Hey everyone,
We know it hasn’t been long but it is the first of the month so here is our October update:
Tim is working on finalizing files here and there, the biggest thing at the moment is making sure the mounted boards are properly updated since pulling them off the punchboards allows us to include some features we weren’t originally able to. We’re putting reminders under the stock track for how tokens move and when. We’re also adding multiplied totals on the earnings track so each space will have the 10% number in a large font as well as what payouts for 20% - 60% would be in a smaller font to the side (i.e. the 11 spot will have 22, 33, 44, 55, and 66 to the side) . It will be so nice to play the game without our phones out!
We’ve also sent our final specs to Panda to generate the quote we will use to determine how much needs to be sent as down payment and to make sure we are on the same page about what files we will be uploading.
We are working on the backerkit survey/pre-order/pledge manager. We’re focusing on setting up pre-orders and late pledges at the moment (which will be priced at $80 since they are post-campaign). Once we get that nailed down we will shift to the survey and pledge manager since we are not planning on sending those out until we are closer to production and have a better idea of the fulfillment landscape.
We will likely have a mid-month update this month because there is a lot going on in the coming weeks.
For now we wanted to show a little preview of our tile art, making the backgrounds unique for every track tile in the game. As you can see the side roads and names build up in volume as the phases advance, similar to what you saw in the prototype, but now no two tiles are the same. This extra bit of flavor really shines as the game goes on and more tiles get added to the map. We love it and hope you do too.
