Put on your hard hats! The award winning card game is expanding! Which faction will you align with to establish market dominance?
Just a quick reminder that we will be locking down orders on January 15! Make sure you finalize your pledge selections. We will still be able to make address changes for a little while but you won't be able to update your pledge to include any more add-ons.
Joseph
It's been a while since the last update, so I figured I'd let you know where things are at.
First off, we plan on closing the pledge manager on January 15th! 90% of you have filled it out. If you haven't already please be sure to completed your pledge before then otherwise your game may not arrive on time. The email was sent in mid-November and should have the subject line: "Response Needed -- Get your reward for Fantastic Factories: Manufactions". If you are having trouble completing your pledge, please send us a message on Kickstarter.
We were hoping to get manufacturing started earlier so we could get it in before Chinese New Years (~February) and deliver the games early. During Chinese New Years, manufacturers in China will typically shut down for a few weeks for what is their biggest holiday of the year. Deep Water Games has reviewed and approved the digital proofs, and we are mostly waiting for the factory to ramp up and fit Fantastic Factories into their schedule. With our current timeline it looks like the print run will start before Chinese New Years but won't be completed until after.
This puts ocean freight in March and beginning of fulfillment in late April/May putting us on target so far to deliver before our target date of June 2021.
Finally, I wanted wish everyone happy holidays! May you all be warm and safe this season. 2020 has been a rough year for some. What are you looking forward to in 2021? I love being around people, so I'm excited to be able to eventually be able to attend tabletop gaming conventions again!
- Joseph
By now you should have received an email from BackerKit to fill out the pledge manager survey. Look for an email with the subject line: "Response Needed -- Get your reward for Fantastic Factories: Manufactions". Please be sure to fill out the pledge manager! If you don't, we won't have your address and will be unable to ship the game to you when the time comes. We don't have an exact date yet, but we will let everyone know when we are closing the pledge manager. It should be some time in December/January.
If you selected a pledge level (Manufactions, Both Expansions, Everything New, or Everything) during the Kickstarter then we should have already collected your pledge amount, which should include shipping. That means if you don't select any add-ons then no further payment should be necessary. If you find that this isn't the case, please let us know in the comments or a direct message. It's possible we may have set up shipping costs incorrect for your country.
If you decide you want to upgrade your pledge level (for example, you pledged $1 for pledge manager access but want to go in on the Everything pledge), you can adjust your pledge level at the very start of the flow. If you only pledged $1 to get pledge manager access, upgrading your pledge is most likely what you'll want to do unless you are only getting add-on items like the Fantastic Factories base game or promo packs. If you pledged $1 and want the Manufactions expansion, you will need to switch your pledge level to your desired pledge level.
The items associated with your pledge level should automatically be included, but while filling out the pledge manager you'll also have the option to include add-ons like extra copies of Fantastic Factories, Manufactions, and/or Subterfuge.
If you are in the US or Canada, you can additionally add some titles from Deep Water Games like MonsDRAWsity, Floor Plan, or Welcome To... Some of these games are even available at a discount from MSRP. These games are unfortunately only available as add-ons in US/Canada because the Kickstarter fulfillment in the US/Canada is from the DWG warehouse where those games are also located.
Some of you have been asking whether a print and play would be made available. This is a great option for those of you who can't wait until the game arrives or for backers who live in regions where the shipping is cost-prohibitive.
If you have a pledge level selected, your pledge will automatically come with the PnP files corresponding to the games/expansions included in your pledge. The PnP files are also available as stand-alone add-ons.
Please note that the included PnP files will not actually be available for download until we lock down the orders and collect payment (December/January). This is the first time we've distributed PnP files through BackerKit so please bear with us in the event that we run into some weirdness.
I just wanted to provide a little peek behind the curtain as we are in the midst of preparing all the print files. Last week I finished the box design and layout. Each box has a top and bottom and the edges of the layout wrap around the sides of the box. Check it out:
This week we've been finalizing the layout of the tokens and faction boards on the chipboard sheets.
Until next update!
- Joseph
For this campaign we are using BackerKit to manage pledges. For those of you who aren’t familiar with pledge managers, a pledge manager lets you customize and adjust your pledge as well as allow us to collect and update your shipping details. Through BackerKit you’ll be able to pay for shipping and decide whether you want to upgrade your pledge level or include add-ons like Promo Pack 1 or additional copies of the game.
The pledge manager is NOT open yet! We have it mostly configured and have tested it a bit to make sure all the add-ons are available, correctly priced, and that shipping is accurate. Next week we will try a smoke test, which will open the pledge manager to 5% of backers to ensure there are no hiccups before we open it up to the rest of you.
Once we send out the BackerKit email to everyone and open up the pledge manager, I’ll post another update with some detailed information and screenshots on how to use BackerKit. If you think your mailing address might change over the next few months, don’t worry, you should be able to update your address up until we close the pledge manager.
As I mentioned in recent updates, the art is complete! The rulebook layout is complete (pending final edits)! The box/package design is going through a final pass! If you'd like to take a look at the rulebooks, you can find them here for Manufactions and here for Subterfuge.
On the campaign page we set our estimated delivery date to June 2021, but we have an ambitious schedule with the goal to bring it to you much earlier. To that end, we are aiming to have factory production begin in December and complete in January before the Chinese New Year holiday hits and factories shut down for a few weeks. We will likely close the pledge manager in January as well, locking in your selections and shipping information. Then during February, the games will spend roughly a month in ocean freight before it arrives at fulfillment centers around the world at varying times. For the US, they will be sent to Deep Water Games’ warehouse to be fulfilled and shipped out to backers in March/April.
Note that should we miss our production timeline before Chinese New Years for some reason, we’ll still be on track to deliver by June.
In the next week or two, you can expect an update talking about the pledge manager. Beyond that, updates will be a little less frequent but will be shared as we hit key milestones. To follow along more closely, feel free to follow me on Twitter (my handle is @fanfactories) where I make tweets not just about Fantastic Factories but also about Kickstarter, board games in general, art, and publishing.
- Joseph
We ended the campaign strong with over 5,000 backers! What's absolutely amazing to me is that nearly 2,000 of you have pledged at the level that includes the base game. That's 2,000 players new to Fantastic Factories!
When Justin and I set out to design and publish board games, our goal was always to get our games into as many hands as possible and spread the joy we feel when we play Fantastic Factories. That's why I like to focus more on backer count than the funding amount. One of my personal hopes was that this campaign's backer count would exceed our first campaign's backer count and here we are with almost more than 1,000 backers than we had 2 years ago!
We all just wanted to say thank you again, from myself, Justin, and the whole Deep Water Games team. We love making games for you all and couldn't do it without all the support.
I put a lot of work in crafting these updates and filling it with what I hope were interesting details about Fantastic Factories and the expansions. But I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if people were really reading and engaging with the updates until the previous update. When I asked you all about your preference around the solo playmat (with or without rules), I got an immediate flood of comments with a resounding yes, we want rules printed on the playmat! I'm very happy that people know what they want and that we're able to make it happen. As suggested by some people, we'll also be adding the game end condition onto the playmat as well.
While we can't take every suggestion being made, I love to see people leaving messages in the comments. Having that feedback helps me write these updates. Feel free to let me know what you want to hear more of or less of in future updates!
For now I just wanted to celebrate the fantastic end of the campaign and thank you all again for your support! I'll provide a more detailed update next week about what next steps look like and what we'll be working on in the immediate future.
- Joseph