Stay on target...stay on target....
over 7 years ago – Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 12:49:01 AM

Hey All,

TL;DR

• Manufacturer updated - ship docks in USA on 10 October, then think of it as about 2 weeks after that that you'll have your shiny new box[es] (your address's distance from NYC obviously messing with that timeframe)
• There will be some spare parts available if you need them - of the check-in-advance copies that we have tested, you likely won't need them, but we'll see.
• We're at Hartford, CT's ComiCONN this weekend...
• ...and then at NJ Comic Expo and BGG.CON during the 16-20 November long-weekend.
• Website being tested pre-re-launch - aiming for 2 weeks until that big announcement.
• Want your feedback on what you feel would be best to have on the website and what you'd find to be useful!

The News!

I got more good news from the manufacturer - according to current sailing timetables, the ship carrying PCov (and about a million other things) will be entering my good ol' port of NYC on 10 October. It will then, according to what I've researched and learned about this process, go through some customs checks/assessments, and go through some inspections checks/assessments. Once that clears, the items are loaded on to the USA, on a truck, and moved to ShipNaked's distribution site.
From there, each pallet/carton/collection of boxes is indexed and stored. Then, ShipNaked takes our data and uses it to generate shipping plans for each order, sending them out, and voila, the game is there at your doorstep. This should take no more than 2 weeks after 10 October, and I will keep up on that as much as I can balance. It's exciting!

As for the exclusives, these have gone through a lengthy review process, and are a bit held up. We're getting there, and I'll have more info as we go on. Right now, here's what you can expect: if you got a card or many cards, you will receive a small packet in the mail with, possibly, hand-written addressing marks. It'll be from Hikari Games and the inside will be stiff to protect the cards. Inside is drops of geek-love, in the form of the exclusive, etc cards that you are set to get. There will be bonuses!

Spare parts will be available because it's a thing we thought would be good to have as a just-in-case measure. Based on some stress testing we've done with production test copies, it's unlikely that you'll need them, but we'll help you how-ever we can if something comes up.

We've been literally whirlwind and wall-to-wall since before Gen Con this year. We had a great Gen Con, of course, because...Gen Con...and then we heard that we got selected to be among the elite 10 featured tabletop games at Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX West (the PAX formerly known as Prime). So that was a fun announcement that then led to running around like crazy to make everything work. There were plenty of challenges, not the least of which is making sure the "kit" of demo-games, extra cards, banners, signs, business cards, other hand-out flyers, forms, our iPad, etc etc can get over and back safely from NYC to Seattle! Then we got a giant contact list to burn through and we reached out to dozens of great people. And we met even more! By the way, the people who made Banner Saga (1 and 2) are awesome folks - we connected with them, with easily a half-dozen other games companies, and then, we got to meet more amazing gamers. It was a long convention - easily 5 days, and then there was an extra day tacked on to do some more networking and connecting with media folks.

...

...

And then what we thought was disaster struck. We weren't able to get off the waiting list for NYCC.

...

...

No. Way. Man.

...

But, with some quick thinking and quicker action, we sourced a bunch of different conventions, sorted by quality and likely fit to PCov, and then we found two options that could work, ComiCONN and NJ Comic Expo! The following weeks involved furious contacting of the vendor management folks, then checking on our supporters locally in and around each of the convention locations, and then getting tangible logistics in order. Whew. Find us this weekend at booth 908 in Hartford at the XL Center, starting Saturday for everyone!

Now that that's mostly-over (there are still some things to close out with finishing touches...and then there's the convention to, you know, actually run!), we're planning out our next steps - and one thing is the website.

Here's where you come in.

We have already scheduled out some work for polishing up the PCov Academy, the PCov Library, and the Evangelist portal to support info about mechanics, strategies, etc, and then lore and the overall story, and then the resources and support for Evangelists (our ambassadors of PCov to the WORLD) - respectively.

But that does not have to be all.

We want to hear from you about what you might want out of this community, out of us, and out of your experience with PCov. What I'd like to know is at least:

(a)  What kind of information do you want at your fingertips about PCov when you're starting out - and why that particular info?

(b)  What kind of content - video, gifs (which I love), static images, etc - do you like the most and what does it do for you?

(c)  Tell me about your ideal experience on a game or a game's community site - what could we do for you to make the PCov experience awesome?

Check this form or email me at [email protected] - you ask, we will listen!

Shipping, PAX/Indie MEGABOOTH, and Limited Edition cards
over 7 years ago – Sun, Sep 04, 2016 at 08:01:29 AM

Hey All,

TL;DR

• Games are now ready to leave China rather than earlier, I'm a bit frustrated, but complications happened out of my or my team's control, so I hear it. Game boxes are at-port and 6 weeks is the current estimate to be at the distribution point to ship out to all of you. More below, including quotes from manufacturer.
• T-shirts should be ready in a couple weeks and shipped directly to your doors; these will likely come in before the games, but I can hold them. Granted, the game is the most important bit.
• Extra cards (exclusives, perks, limited edition) are delayed, but are looking very good (spoilers below)! Future sneak peeks to come!
• We were selected for Indie Megabooth and that's super exciting to be among the very few tabletop games selected and featured! The rest of the team is at PAX Prime (now, "West") this long weekend and I'm holding the fort clearing up the other issues stemming from the complications mentioned before.
• Website is being revamped entirely, page by page for a new launch.

Full Details

Games:

Yeah, so the bottom-line up-front: "The games are already at the port and ready to go. ... After we ship out the games this week it will take about 6 weeks to get to Ship Naked so I would expect the games to be delivered in mid-October. When the games are shipped we'll have a better estimated timeline based on the vessel the games are on." Direct quote from our manufacturer. This is what I heard and that led to a longer conversation. 

Things had been on-time, but it now looks like there were some things with getting the games into port and ready to be cleared out of China that led to a delay. The goal was to have had the games on the seas right now so as to make the aim of 1 October at latest. We're getting there and I'll also have updates as this progresses because some ships take different routes and there might be more shift - in either the earlier or the later direction. Our manufacturer has noted (see below) that shipments to the East Coast of the US usually take 5-7 weeks. We're getting there, and it's the final stretch!

The conversation, just so you know, had to do with the cards that were jumbled and the attempts to rectify that - I told them to not touch them because, and you all confirmed this, it's not worth the risk of losing cards from the boxes. This way we'll still have complete boxes, fully-assembled, and the only task on any of you is to rearrange cards if you want to play with the decks we pre-built for you. As far as I know, our printer has guaranteed that each box will have the right number of cards per the order. If you ever have questions, again as I have said all the time, email me - [email protected]

T-shirts:

The shirts are looking fantastic - the color is bright and clear; I'm just checking on how they'll be for the long-term, so I've been washing a few samples like crazy for a bit. Because of the suds-ing, I keep feeling reminded of Bubbles from Finding Nemo. 

So far, so good; if any of you want to see what it's like after a few good washes and some more after that, comment below and I'll bring my camera to the laundry. Timeline-wise, the shirts will be dropped-shipped, so as long as they don't have delays in printing (ink inventory, materials shortage, volume in-queue, etc) then they'll go out soon. Granted, they aren't the game, but deserve an update.

Extra Cards:

These are looking really beautiful. The art is excellent, the design is still oh so nice. The only downside is the waiting period we're in to get the cards cleared, but we'll get that soon and this should be a faster-than-the-box process to get out to all of you. Though to be fair about it, I'm having my doubts about the speed of ocean shipping, but it's possible that the lighter weight and smaller size of the card order will lead to a faster, perhaps even air-based, shipment.

We had an interesting time figuring out how to display the cards as exclusives/limited edition/specials of some sort. We started with a couple of proofs, then polled a good number of you randomly (KS supporters and Facebook and twitter followers), and many of you if not unanimously said that the easiest solution was the best - why not use the PCov logo in a smaller form to be the symbol of these specials? We loved it because you loved it. So, without further delay, here are the sneak peeks - cards that every gamebox backer will get, Bog Runner and the alt-version of The Lady (original Lady also shown; these are early proof versions of the cards):

The alt-version is supposed to display The Lady in her prime; as the supreme power of the Lunar Court, the high-queen of the spirit world of Tir na Ten (or Land of Heaven). As the Cataclysm tore into the world of Tir na Ten, a great discord pulled apart the powers of spirits and many of these courts fell prey and the leaders' powers we weakened. The Lady in her grandeur is now The Lady, still powerful, but restricted; in-need of supporters to realize her better powers.

The Bog Runner is a good and very early unit available to all. Runners are beasts, but sentient, carrying messages in their minds as well as on their swift bodies. They dash across the swamps of Tenska, staying careful not to become the targets of raiders. They are most useful far away after covering long distances, so keep these in-mind when building a deck with solid early play.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in comments!

Indie MEGABOOTH:

We're excited about it, it's a huge-and-humbling honor to be selected to be featured, and have gotten to show the game off to many awesome folks. The weekend is just about half-over, but there's so much to do at PAX in Seattle. Wish the rest of the team luck - they are meeting and demoing with people all-weekend long and you'll have some updates from them later.

What I can note as news is that the price of the box is increasing for everyone who has not already secured their pre-order. No backer needs to worry, but we're raising the price until we reach our MSRP - so if anyone wants to still lock down the earlier pricing, tell those folks to email me ([email protected]) to arrange a pre-order.

Website:

We're going to have an awesome re-launch of a ton of pages - nearly 90% of the entire site will be upgraded and updated with new content, access to content, and a few extra features. Keeping you posted! If there is something you want to have as part of the website (and we will have card data, no worries!) - reach out to me and/or comment below. Talk soon!

And as always, if you want to know anything else not-mentioned here or have feedback about things you'd want to hear about or hear more about, say so - I appreciate all of the engagement I get from you all - thanks!.

Geekfully,
/A

Manufacturing Final Phase + New Partnership!
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 11:16:28 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

A short update - with a quick unboxing gallery!
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 11:12:16 PM

Hey All,

TL;DR

• Check out the pics!
• And please review the ***Remember the Puzzle Deck? portion.

Here's the update - well, rather, the gallery!

So, this is my first "visualized unboxing" - the video to be produced soon, but likely after GenCon. Feel free to tell me about things I miss or things that could be good for the video!

We're starting with the box, all plastic-wrapped.

 ...and with a couple swipes of a scissors, the plastic is gone. On top popping open the top of the box.

 ...and hiding under the manual...

 ...OK, but I'm missing out on some of these tokens - where's the close-up?

And there are plenty of tokens - it's going to take me some personal getting used to because I've been using prototype dice for so long. I'd really like to know how you all feel when you start trying out the tokens in-play. Our tests have gone pretty well, just FYI. And the tokens and Tracker parts are 2mm thick punchboard, art on both sides.

But let's get a look at that board!

An excellent, 2mm thick, wrap-around art game board. Thankfully there is some nice space around each card when it's placed on any of these squares - even if the card has been pre-sleeved. And you might notice the symbols on the Home Rows - those are for marking what squares you can play units to from your Hand. They are also on Commander Units!

And now, the meat of the matter...

 Here, there is a bag of plastic baggies for both tokens as well as decks (and you'll be able to sleeve them using 80x80 mm sleeves; both Mayday and FFG I believe carry these right now) and smaller baggies holding the connector bits for the Trackers. Again, more on those later. In the meantime, let's get a better look at those deck piles!

 You'll see the 4 pre-built decks in the shorter stacks. Then, there is a 5th stack (the one with the blank card on top of it) that contains the Puzzle Deck*** (more on this, too, later), Quick Reference Guide cards, the expansion pack of cards, and these 6 blank cards for YOU to design some cool ideas with! Send them over and we'd love to chat about incorporating your ideas into inspiration for release cards!

Now, these decks all shrink-wrapped are a bit misleading. There are a ton of cards in this box! Nearly 250 of them! With an really nice matte linen finish. And there are 100 tokens, 2 dial-based Trackers, 2 slider-like quasi-trackers, the game board, and baggies. So let's look at the "load-out" in all its glory...

 As you can see, there is the Puzzle Deck*** of cards in the box-bottom, plus the blank, make-your-own cards, and one of the pre-built decks. Then, we have the expansion pack of cards at the bottom of the image, and the 3 other pre-built decks along the right-hand side, on top of the folded game board. And just for space and sanity reasons, I've bagged all of the tokens - and assembled the Trackers. Oh, but I forgot one thing - the manual, which also doubles (based on its back-cover) as a Quick Reference Guide.

***Remember that Puzzle Deck? Yeah, so our manufacturer sent us this kinda-sad info about how they packed up the cards. I requested that the order of the cards in these decks - especially the "expansion deck" of extra cards - is important and should be the same as files I provided. Not sure who ultimately didn't get the message, but the cards are a bit jumbled as-is. I asked about what it would take to re-order the cards as requested, but they noted that they'd have to do it by-hand and because of human error, there would be a chance that cards get lost during assembly. That feels like a pretty significant impact, and not an experience I'd want to give any of you, but tell me if you would prefer I get them to re-assemble the cards. My feeling is that since we have decklists in the manual, it's not too bad to grab the Puzzle Deck out of the extra cards or the structures out of each deck, but gain, you tell me and I'll listen.

Now, just to close this out, some of you have wondered about the final construction of the Tracker. I'll have super-detailed specifics in a future update, but at least check out these extra images:

 Also good to note: these connector bits are really well-made. They fit perfectly to the punch-out holes in the Tracker pieces and then they provide a nice, secure but not iron-gripped hold on the dials. And let's get a close-up of the layers and thickness of it...

 So, what do you think? Change the lighting a bit? Talk about something in particular that was missed? Pictures are too grainy or weird in some way?

Share comments below!

Geekfully,
/A

Manufacturing Update (near to the last step!) & MORE!
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 12:57:08 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.