Fulfillment is on track
over 2 years ago – Tue, Aug 03, 2021 at 11:38:13 PM

The games are at the warehouse

Things are moving along nicely. In fact, the base games and expansions for the US have already arrived at Deep Water Games' warehouse!! At this point we are waiting for the replacement cards to arrive via airmail in about 1 weeks time at which time we will start US fulfillment. DWG expects that they will be able to get everything in the mail within 1 week of starting.

International orders are being ocean shipped to their respective hubs right now and will begin fulfillment in September.

Now is the time to make sure your address information is up to date. If you've moved recently, please re-visit the BackerKit pledge manager link to update your information.

The games are looking great, and the playmat is very vibrant!

Rat Queens: To the Slaughter

Just wanted to drop a quick shoutout to another Kickstarter. There's less than 48 hours left to back Rat Queens! A brand new game from Deep Water designed by Sen-Foong Lim and Erica Bouyouris. Rat Queens is a collaborative boss battler based on the New York Times best selling graphic novel. To the Slaughter!

I've had the pleasure of personally meeting Sen-Foong Lim and playing his games as well (such as Junk Art). There aren't many Asian and Pacific Islander game designers in the board game industry and I'd be remiss if I didn't give his live KS campaign a shoutout during its final hours.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepwatergames/rat-queens-to-the-slaughter?ref=5x50nb

Again, thank you everyone for your patience. I'm excited to be playing the expansions soon!

- Joseph

Color matching issue and making things right
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 02, 2021 at 05:23:37 AM

Overview

I won't mince words here and will get straight to the point. We discovered a mistake that the factory has made. There is a significant color mismatch issue between the blue of the blueprint cards from the 1st/original print run of Fantastic Factories (our previous KS campaign) and this 2nd/new print run of Fantastic Factories. There's also subtle, but still noticeable color mismatch between Fantastic Factories and the expansions. It's taken us some time to formulate a plan, but we have a fix that should ensure that all backers will get consistently colored cards with minimal to no delay for US backers. Unfortunately this fix will delay international fulfillment. Details on the issue and the fix below. Feel free to skip to the fix if you are not interested in the details of how the error occurred.

Color mismatch

During the manufacturing of a board game there are a number of checkpoints that happen to ensure things are accurate and correct. After sending over files, one of the first checkpoints is the digital proof. This is where they print all the assets onto paper and send it to us to check for accuracy in details such as typos, card quantities, etc. Notably they print this using regular printers and not the offset mass production printers that the final game will be printed with. At this time the blueprint colors matched. I stressed multiple times that the blueprint colors needed to match across all print runs of Fantastic Factories. Here's a snippet of a conversation I had with Jacob from our publishing partner, Deep Water Games (DWG), who is coordinating with the manufacturer. We had assurances from the factory that they would color match with the original print run of Fantastic Factories.

The next step would be for the factory to air ship us one of the first production copies of the game off the mass production line. However, given the assurances, our rush to adhere as closely as possible to the original timeline, and DWG's positive track record with this manufacturer, this step was skipped, and we only received a production copy of the game only after the print run was completed. That's when we discovered this:

Furthermore, the expansions don't even match the base game from this same print run (although the difference is more subtle). Those of you who have followed Fantastic Factories' journey from the first Kickstarter know that I'm very serious about quality and consistency. I'm employing as much restraint as possible to prevent this part of the update from turning into an unproductive rant, but simply put I was incredibly disappointed and frustrated with this outcome.

Fixing the problem

We have a huge commitment to you, the backer. Given the existing delays, the state of global shipping, and the errors in manufacturing, it seemed like an impossible problem to solve. Luckily, we were able to come up with a solution that the factory was willing to help with to make up for their mistake.

What we will be doing is have the factory reprint ALL the blueprint cards from the base game and the expansions. These reprinted cards will match the color of the blueprints from this new print run of Fantastic Factories base game. These reprinted cards WILL include the promo blueprints as well.

US Backers

Cards are luckily fairly compact, so these cards will be air shipped (much faster but much more expensive) to DWG's warehouse for US fulfillment. Because of the faster speed of air shipping, these cards should arrive around the same time as the games will. As we are packing the games to be shipped out, this pack of reprinted cards will also be included in the shipping box.

If you backed just Fantastic Factories, you won't need any of the replacement cards. If you backed any of the expansions (Manufactions or Subterfuge), you will be automatically receiving corresponding blueprint cards that you'll use instead of the ones contained within the box. If you backed for any of the expansions but not the base game, we assume you own Fantastic Factories from the 1st print run and will also provide reprinted copies of blueprints from the base game. This may sound a bit confusing right now but as the games arrive, we'll post another update with more specific instructions and details.

International Backers

We were able to catch this error before international ocean freight departed so we will unfortunately be delaying that shipment because we're going to have the factory open all of the games and replace the decks then re-shrinkwrap them. This does mean an additional delay to international backers.

Future retail copies of the game

Not directly relevant to backers, but in case you were wondering how we plan on selling the expansions in retail if the colors are mismatched: In our hurry to get the games to backers, we actually only put games destined to backers on the boat. This fortunately works in our favor because the factory has agreed to open up all the retail copies of the expansions to replace the cards. Yes, it's as tedious as it sounds, but it's what's necessary to make things right.

Updated timeline

At this point all the games destined for US backers are on boats and on their way to the US. Ocean freight is continuing to be unpredictable and a global issue. Given the latest status, our new US timeline is about 2.5 weeks later than our previous update. US fulfillment (that's when we start shipping games out from DWG's warehouse) is anticipated to be started August 6th instead of our previous estimate of July 20th. We expect most US backers to receive their games in the month of August.

International ocean freight is unfortunately delayed due to the color mismatching mistake. This puts us a whole month behind compared to our last update. International fulfillment is expected to begin September 1st as compared to our previous estimate of July 30th. We are really sorry about this additional delay.

Here's an update timeline graphic:

For those of you really into the details, the container ID for our US shipment for the expansions is TCLU1126861. It left Shanghai June 4th (one of the stops along the way) and is estimated to arrive in LA on July 5th. Then it will spend about a month getting through customs and trucking across the US to the warehouse in Michigan.

In general shipping is extremely volatile right now. We've seen ocean shipping prices surge 300% in the last year. Luckily we're in a position to absorb that and the only negative effect on the backers is the unfortunate delay. Thank you everyone for your patience and understanding.

Personal news: A new player has joined!

Normally I don't like to include personal details into updates since it's not relevant to backers or the game, but I'm making an exception this time! My wife and I have been expecting a second child and our new baby girl has finally arrived!

I look forward to playing Fantastic Factories with her in the future!

- Joseph

Fulfillment timeline adjustment
almost 3 years ago – Sat, May 15, 2021 at 01:19:58 AM

Here's the latest news as well as an adjustment to our previous timeline (TLDR: 1 month delayed due to ocean shipping delays):

• Manufacturing of everything is completed.
• Base game is arriving to the US in the next week or two (but won't be shipped out to backers until everything arrives).
• Expansions are unfortunately not on a boat yet but projected to be on a boat on May 20th.
• US and international fulfillment will not start until late July and will take through August to complete.

Here's a graphic that should help illustrate the estimated timeline:

• May 10th: All manufacturing complete
• May 20th: Ocean shipping to the US begins
• June 10th: Ocean shipping to other regions begin
• June 30th: Games arrive at ports
• July 20th: US fulfillment begins
• July 30th: International fulfillment begins

Thank you all for your patience. Waiting is the hardest part. I'm excited to see it all arrive!

Joseph

Manufacturing and Fulfillment News!
about 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 03:21:51 AM

Hello everyone!

Apologies if things have been too quiet around here. I'll get right into it and talk about the shipping timeline and then share some fantastic photos/videos of the mass production samples!

Manufacturing/fulfillment overview

• All factory samples have been approved.
• Base game production complete.
• Base game is now on a boat in the ocean. ETA to us is June.
• Expansions and promos are in mass production.
• Ocean shipping for the expansions has been booked for the end of April.
• Fulfillment begins late June - early July. Both the base game and expansions will be shipped together.

Those of you who have been following closely will notice that we are unfortunately a little behind schedule now. You might have heard global trade and ports are experience very high delays. Normally something takes about 30-40 days to arrive to us once booked. However, with everything going on our shipper is estimating it will take about 60 days. If that remains true it means all the product will be in the US and at our fulfillment partners around the world by the end of June.  Unfortunately we probably won't be able to fulfill everything until July.  But we're confident even if things change that these dates shouldn't be too far off.

The good news is Deep Water Games will be fully moved into their new warehouse by then and their fulfillment capabilities will have increased exponentially. That means when the product arrives the time to fulfill everything will be a lot shorter than initially expected.

Production Samples!

Now for the good stuff. Here are some photos and videos of the production samples. Everything is looking great! Only thing not shown is a paper insert we've requested to be included in order to keep everything from tumbling around too much in the box.

Manufacturing Update - Tracking on target
about 3 years ago – Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 10:33:09 PM

Manufacturing and ocean freight

As expected in update #11, manufacturing for the base game has begun but won't be finished until after the Chinese New Years holiday, which typically results in a few weeks of the factory being unavailable. The base game is on track to be completed and on its way to fulfillment centers via ocean freight the first week of March. After that the manufacturing of the expansions will complete at the end of March. Ocean freight takes about 4 weeks, meaning games will arrive in fulfillment centers in early May.

When will the games arrive at your doorstep?

This puts us on target for the earliest wave of games to arrive to backers in mid/late May. Keep in mind that different regions will likely receive their games at different times (games can spend an uncertain amount of time getting through customs) so we expect fulfillment to last into June.

Pledges locked but addresses can still be updated

At this point your pledge selections via BacketKit are locked and cannot be modified. You can still update your address via BackerKit if you've created an account with BackerKit or you can dig up the original email with the subject line "Response Needed -- Get your reward for Fantastic Factories: Manufactions" which was sent in November 2020.

Print and play is available

Since we've locked down the orders, the print and play files are also available. If you backed this Kickstarter campaign, your pledge will have included a corresponding free set of PnP files for you to use as well in case you can't wait until the games arrive! Look for an email sent late January with the subject line "New Digital Content for Fantastic Factories: Manufactions on BackerKit" which should have a link to where you can download these files.

Thank you again everyone for your support.

- Joseph