It’s been a really busy few weeks for us here, with both progress on the game and other life events. I’m really sorry that meant we missed an update last week, but know that work for sure hasn’t stopped!
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We’re on the last couple of assets – I’m currently reviewing the final event and mischief cards while Jose has almost finished the cruising area designs. After this, it’s a couple of tokens and the game board!
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The rules are also nearly finalised and are being reviewed at the moment.
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I’ll be pulling all of this together next weekend and publishing the first version of the Print & Play. I’m sorry this is later than promised, I hadn’t really realised how closely connected it all was, and figured I’d be able to use some existing assets for things, but without re-doing a lot of the rules, it wasn’t really possible to wrap it up together.
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I’m also still waiting on quotes for shipping – I figure this is post-season backlog, but reminders will be sent this week and I’ll be publishing estimates as soon as possible (hopefully in the next update).
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Please let me know if there’s anything you’re curious about or are waiting to get more info on. Juggling a lot of different things, so I’m expecting some stuff to slip through the cracks. But whilst it seems like we’re delayed, we’re still on track to get the games to us and ship them out to you all in May!
IMPORTANT: Add-Ons and Pre-Orders purchased through the pledge manager will be charged on Monday 16th January!
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Hello everyone, we hope you’re enjoying 2023 and are doing well with your own personal resolutions and goals! For ourselves, we’re not adding to our load by trying dry January this year, but we salute all those making the effort! So, between the occasional drink, we’re keeping ourselves busy finalising everything.
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Pledge Manager: Pre-Order & Add-On Charging
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We’ve closed the pledge manager and locked orders – this now gives us pretty much all the information we need. On Monday, we’ll be charging cards for all Pre-Order backers as well as for any Add-Ons that were added to pledges in the pledge manager.
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Note that this doesn’t include shipping costs yet. We are still working on our shipping options and expect to share more details about shipping charges and the process before the end of January!
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Rules
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We’ve stepped quite a bit forwards here, after the awesome help from Chris at EntroGames, we ran things through with our Discord group who had a few more valuable pointers. We were then able to run a blind playtest this Tuesday which went well but did point out one big omission…this is why you always playtest folks!
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With all this input, we’re not pretty much ready with the rules, so now moving onto the layout and graphics.
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Cards
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We’re already now running through the process to create all the cards in their final format. The Visitor templates are all ready and being generated now and we’ve also got the final designs for the backs of all three of our card decks!
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The final Visitor Card designs as well as the card backs for our 3 core decks!
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Dice
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The upgraded Engraved dice were Jose’s favourite stretch goal during the campaign, but…well you see, dice engraving can only be done with a single colour per side. So all our existing icon designs needed to be reworked in concept.
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Now that the work is all done and verified, I think it might be again his favourite, but I’m pretty sure if you’d have asked him at the beginning of the week he’d have given you a different answer
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Brand new icons for our Flirting Dice!
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And also new icons for our Sex Dice!
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Reviewers
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We got a bit further with Review Copies in the past week (and Print n Play beta as a result), so we’re on the lookout for Reviewers! We’ve got a couple on the list, but I will admit none of these are from the LGBTQIA+ community or produce content for the community. For sure getting these reviews is also important to us, but we’d also like to get some perspective from the key audience we designed the game for.
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We’ve reached out to several so far, but no success stories to date. So if you know LGBTQIA+ game reviewers, please give them a heads up and ask them to get in touch!
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Insta Naming
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In case you’ve missed it, we’re collecting suggestions for all our Visitor Characters on Instagram @saunagame, so head over there and check out our posts from the past week and let us know your name suggestions!
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Well that’s it for this week – if we’ve missed anything you’d like to hear about, please let us know in the comments.
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Take care everyone, stay warm (if it’s Winter where you are) and enjoy the world’s jealousy if you’re lucky enough to be anywhere sunny!
Well, things are certainly looking rosy over at Sauna Game HQ this past week, as we’ve been busy as Christmas Elves getting things ready for you all!
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Icons & illustrations
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We’re now all done with our game icons – with the tribes, kinks, roles as well as all the items are ready to be played with!
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What would you bring with you to the Sauna?
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Rules, rules, rules
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After going through quite a few iterations here and refining the mechanics of the rules, we’re delighted to announce we’ve engaged with Chris from EntroGames who is proofing our ruleset as well as helping to make the adjustment from my native British English to American English. This was not such an easy decision, as I naturally add a U in colour and won’t apologise for my lack of Z in…well…apologise. However, with now the majority of our backers hailing from the US of A, it makes a lot of sense for the game as a whole.
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Review Copies
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With these changes, we’re very nearly almost ready to send off for a couple of reviewer copies. If all goes well, we should be making that order shortly after next weekend. I’ll be reaching out to those reviewers on stand-by to get address details this week.
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Print n Play
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I’m sorry to report that the Print n Play timeline has slipped a bit due to my illness last month. We’re working hard to get all the assets in place and I’ll be preparing the Print n Play Beta version at the same time as our Review Copies.
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This first Beta version won’t have all the final graphic designs – so if you’re planning on creating a longer term version for yourself, I recommend you wait for a later version that will come once we have finalised the manufacturing files. But this will include the final ruleset and all the final content – it just won’t look quite as pretty as the final version will.
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Pledge Manager
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As mentioned last week, the Pledge Manager is open until 10th January, when we’ll be closing it off ready to prepare all the fulfillment options and nail down exactly what needs to go where. Most backers have completed their surveys already – but if you’re one of the 40 who haven’t, please do take a moment.
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In case you’ve got any questions or have any problems with the process, please let me know. I’m happy to work with you to workaround any issues you might have if it works out easier for you.
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Twenty Twenty Three!
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We’re a week into the New Year and the excitement is incredible. Jose is zooming forwards with all the graphics and it’s coming together so nicely there are days when I’m struggling to contain myself.
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I can’t say it enough, but all of this is thanks to you all! Your support for the project has been incredible and we really can’t wait to see the final product on your tabletops and hear the laughter across the globe as you fight your way through the Gay Sauna tallying up your scores in the biggest hookup contest ever!
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Until next week – take care, enjoy and happy gaming!
For the most part I’ve enjoyed 2022 – bringing Gay Sauna the Board Game leaps and bounds further has brought me so much joy and it’s been incredible to get the positive response from the community we have had!
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Not everything was rosy though, we lost someone very dear to us this year and nothing positive will ever fill the void they left.
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I’ve also spent the most part of December out of action with flu anda chest infection. It’s been so tough to be forced to stop – I’m used to keeping myself busy most of the time, but when something is stopping you breathing you’re kinda not left with a choice but to respect it and just stop.
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Progress Update
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Thankfully progress on the game hasn’t stopped – Jose has been incredibly busy and productive, not only finishing up all our incredible visitors but also adding final touches to our icons and card layouts.
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Say hi to our Kickstarter Backer Competition Winners: Drake, Greg & Lilly!
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That being said, we are running a bit behind schedule. I don’t yet foresee a real delay in the final fulfillment of the games, but I’m definitely behind preparing the Reviewer and Print & Play versions. I don’t yet have an updated ETA on these, but we’ll get them sorted as soon as possible.
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Our shiny new Kink icons!
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Pledge Manager
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We’ve also extended the Pledge Manager for another 10 days while we wrap up some of the administrative things in the background. So in case you’ve not completed your address details yet, or would like to add anything to your order, you’ve got until January 10th before this is locked down!
During the campaign we’ve had quite some attention from retailers and publishers who are interested in working together. This was incredibly flattering and super interesting for us to investigate. However after many many many discussions, we’ve come to the decision that we won’t be making any Retail or Publisher deals in the coming period for Gay Sauna the Board Game.
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For the retail side, we’re just not yet at the kind of scale where we can split our inventory and our margins aren’t yet high enough for us to give retailers the kind of discounts they’ve come to expect from publishers.
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On the publisher side – we’re busy now building our publishing company (ReRoll Works) and are already in discussions for future LGBTQIA+ games under this umbrella. The big draw for publishers was speeding up language availability, as we know there’s demand for the game outside of English. While this is still very much on our minds, again we come down to scale and feel we need to focus first on ensuring we have big enough success with our initial edition before venturing into other markets.
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For the wider world this has a couple of consequences; firstly the game will only be available in English for the time-being. We have a threshold for new languages so as soon as we reach this scale we’ll be pushing hard to get translations and printing done to meet the demand. In the meantime we hope to be working with our community to help provide an external translation PDF to assist players.
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Secondly, this means the game will only be available for sale through our website and in-person events. We’ll be keeping a close eye on key markets for us, and should there be a good opportunity we will be exploring it, but this allows us to keep things simple.
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Please let me know in case you’ve got any questions or feedback on this. These things have come from lots of discussion and consideration but for sure it’s possible there are aspects we’ve not yet considered.
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Until next time!
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We’re excited to be welcoming in 2023 and looking forward to everything it brings with it!
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Wishing you a wonderful celebration this evening and all the best for the new year to you all!
Hey folks, I’m sorry we missed an update last week, and also for the short update this week.
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I was hit with this new flu going around, and unfortunately it descended into my lungs and I’ve been suffering from a severe chest infection this past week.
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Luckily, Jose has been making great progress on the visual side – we’ve got all 24 visitor illustrations completed and moving on to wrap up other key visuals for the game.
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Additionally we signed this week with AGR Priority, a Spanish manufacturer who will produce the game for us! It’s all way more exciting than my struggling lungs can cope with right now
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I’ll be back next week, hopefully all better and on my feet again, but certainly with some more artwork to share and an update on timelines.
Not much to report this week from this side – we’ve got a nicely growing group of folks in Discord, although I’ve not had quite as much time this past week to work on the game as I’d hoped, it looks like we’ll have a great feedback loop for the final assets.
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My delays mean our reviewer copies are likely to be delayed a little further still – I don’t expect to be able to place the order much before Christmas. This doesn’t affect the complete timeline though – so no need to worry, the complete games will still arrive as planned.
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We are getting close to complete for the pledge manager, so if you’ve not get finalised your address details, please do so ASAP. You can get a new link to your survey here: https://saunagame.backerkit.com/ and please reach out in case of any problems!
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Take care everyone, and wrap up warm if it’s winter where you are! It’s getting really cold here in Amsterdam…hmmm…maybe it’s time for another trip to the sauna
If you haven’t completed the backer survey yet, please can you do this as soon as possible? We’re still missing about 90 of you and these numbers will still make a big difference on our fulfillment plans.
Things are still busy here at SaunaGame HQ! We’ve had some great team sessions to discuss all the awesome content we’re stuffing into the box and we’re getting more and more excited as time goes on to get the game out and onto everyone’s tables!
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Finalising design & copy
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We’re wrapping up the last few of our visitors, so before long we’ll have the complete set of 24! Here’s another cheeky fella while you wait for them all
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Feedback Discord Server!
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Throughout this journey we’ve been dependent on the continuous feedback we’ve had from playtesting and the wider community. As we reach the final stages we want to ensure we continue this and so we’ve decided to create a Gay Sauna the Board Game Discord server – initially to get feedback and have discussions on the final copy and content of the game.
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If you’re interested in joining and helping us out, send me a message here on Kickstarter!
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New prototypes (for reviewers & demos)
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Nothing to announce here, although getting feedback through Discord would help get the content in a good shape earlier
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The rest of the timeline still looks pretty much the same:
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December
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Rules revisions
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File preparations
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Pledge manager & Preorder stores close
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Manufacturing order
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Print & Play v1 (initial publication) – potentially delayed by a few weeks
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January
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Print & Play v2 (tidied up for easier printing)
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March/April
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Receive physical copies from manufacturers
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May
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Fulfillment
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Well, that’s it from us. We hope you all have a fabulous weekend! xXx
We hope you all had a great week and have exciting things planned for the weekend. A cosy evening playing board game? Or maybe a fun night out at the Gay Sauna? Whatever you’re up to, we hope you all enjoy yourselves!
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We’re back with our weekly update, and figured we’d walk you through the timeline of where we are at the moment:
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November
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Backer Surveys & Pledge Manager
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More than 75% of you have already confirmed your pledges in the pledge manager – thank you! If you’ve not done this yet, please do – it doesn’t take very long and it will remain editable for some time in case you change your mind or addresses.
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In case some of you were hoping to pick up an extra copy in the pledge manager and didn’t find it in the add-ons, we had a configuration issue so this wasn’t available for the first few days. It’s been fixed so it should be available by editing your add-ons in the pledge manager.
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Finalising design
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I’ve got to give a huge shout out to Jose who has been incredibly busy cooking up some delicious visitors for us to drool over! Thank you for all your hard work, I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.
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We’ve still got a lot more graphic design to finalise, and I expect this work to continue into December as we review each component also with the latest game content and copy in mind.
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Finalising copy
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I had a lot of fun last weekend digging out all the old narrative text from all our previous versions to set the flavour tone and story in the game. Still in review with the team, but happy to share a handful of names for the Event Card deck:
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Tiny Condom?
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It’s called Foreplay!
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Fashionable Flip-Flops
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Red Raw
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We’ll let you think about these for a while, and come back soon with a bit more context and let’s see if we’re thinking along the same lines
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New prototypes (for reviewers & demos)
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It’s likely to be early December before we can finalise the new prototypes to send out to reviewers, but it will mean these copies are much closer to the final print version, so I think it’s worth the wait.
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As for the rest, most things are still on track; however it is looking likely that the Print & Play v1 might not be finalised before the end of December, as we’re cutting it fine on getting all the assets together. I’ll do my best to see if we can release a beta version earlier on – I’ll keep you all posted in the next couple of weeks as it should become clear what’s possible and by when.
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December
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Rules revisions
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File preparations
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Pledge manager & Preorder stores close
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Manufacturing order
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Print & Play v1 (initial publication) – potentially delayed by a few weeks
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January
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Print & Play v2 (tidied up for easier printing)
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March/April
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Receive physical copies from manufacturers
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May
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Fulfillment
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Thank you all so much for your support, we’re so thrilled that the project got so much support and to be able to continue with all the confidence in the world. It’s all down to you all, so again: Thank you!
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We’ll be back next week with some more updates and artwork for you.
We’re finally launching the Pledge Manager in BackerKit for this campaign. You will receive an email in the next day or so including a personal link. In the pledge manager you’ll be able to confirm or change your pledges and add-ons and most importantly: confirm the address where you want it to be shipped to. This gives me the final pieces of information about what we need to manufacture and ship around the world.
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We won’t be charging for shipping yet, this will come early next year when we’re close to shipping and can give you accurate figures for the costs.
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We will send out the pledge manager invites to a small group first to check everything is working as expected, then we’ll roll it out to everyone. You should receive yours within the next 48 hours. Once you have access, you’ll be able to use the support option in the pledge manager for any questions about your pledge or process.
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Last weekend we were at SpellenSpektakel in Utrecht, and oh boy did we have a lot of fun! It was awesome to meet so many people and introduce them to the game. The team did an awesome job and ensured laughter was ringing out throughout the weekend. Thank you so much Yaron, Miko, Estefano, Shaun, Ryan and Pieter, you were all awesome!
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Meanwhile, we’re making good progress with the game components and artwork and will be including some visuals of the progress in these updates going forwards as we finalize everything for manufacturing. We’ll also give some more details on that process next week (we’re finalizing our discussions at the moment).
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Well, that’s all for now. Give us a shout in case you have any problems getting into the pledge manager, and we’ll be back next week with some visuals!
We’re back from a bit of a break from our regular updates as we tried to catch up with all the backlog of things that couldn’t get done during the campaign. We do still have a bit of a backlog in places, so if you’re waiting to hear from us, we’re sorry and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please don’t be afraid to send a reminder if you need our attention.
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Timelines
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While the backer surveys and pledge manager are almost ready for next week, we thought it would be useful for everyone to see the timelines for the coming months:
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November SpellenSpektakel – 5th & 6th (visit us at booth 922) Backer Surveys & Pledge Manager Finalising design Finalising copy New prototypes (for reviewers & demos)
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December Rules revisions File preparations Pledge manager & Preorder stores close Manufacturing order Print & Play v1 (initial publication)
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January Print & Play v2 (tidied up for easier printing)
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March/April Receive physical copies from manufacturers
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May Fulfillment
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We’ve probably left a whole bunch of things out, so we’ll be posting the latest list in each update.
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Taxes – it shouldn’t have to be so taxing…
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We had a bit of confusion when it comes to our BackerKit Pre-Order store and sales taxes. As a result, prices were being shown as excluding VAT / Sales taxes in your region.
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This has now been corrected – the price shown is inclusive of all sales taxes, only shipping is not included and will be charged later. All preorders have already had their tax stripped from their orders.
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If you need a tax receipt for any purpose, please reach out to us and we will generate one for your order.
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Updates
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We’ll be posting an update every 7-9 days going forwards to keep everyone in the loop. Keeping it short when there’s not too much to post about. If we need action from you we’ll include ACTION NEEDED in the title of the update or message (watch out for the next one on November 10th).
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Well that’s it from us for now, we’re busy this week preparing for SpellenSpektakel in Utrecht – we’re at stand 922 for all those coming along. And we’ve got an exciting adventure for those who do visit our booth with prizes to be won!
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