Pledge Manager Closes Tomorrow (March 1st)!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 05:05:28 PM

Tomorrow (March 1st), we will be closing the Pledge Manager within BackerKit. 

There are still 46 backers at the $50+ level that have yet to complete their surveys (and 73 backers at the $1 level). Once the Pledge Manager closes, this process will be more difficult and could result in your games not arriving when other backers receive their games. This may happen because we need the finalized surveys to know how many copies of the game to send to the fulfillment centers in the US and worldwide. If we have to ship from the US to another country, it could result in higher shipping as well. So please complete your surveys in the next 24 hours to avoid any issues. 

I will send one last Reminder from BackerKit shortly after this update is posted. 

• The BackerKit email you should be looking for is from: [email protected]
• Subject should be something like: "Reminder — Response needed to deliver your reward for SKEPTICS relaunch"

Once we close the Pledge Manager, we will be compiling the backer data and providing it to the fulfillment partners for their internal processes to begin. We will also be providing the country and count data to the manufacturer and freight to ensure the correct number of copies are sent to their respective fulfillment centers. 

We expect to receive an update from the manufacturer early this week with news that SKEPTICS manufacturing is done and that they are sending us the final product sample to verify. We look forward to providing more information throughout the month. I suspect that we will have quite a few updates in March, very little in April while the games are on the boat, and more updates in late May as they are hopefully arriving at the docks. 

We can't wait for the games to be in your hands; we are getting closer and closer each week. Have a great week!

Brian and Jon

Usiak Games and Designs

Pledge Manager Closing on March 1st
about 4 years ago – Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 09:37:03 AM

Hello all, 

Jon and I are both really busy with our day jobs, but we did want to give just a very quick update based on an update from the manufacturer. As we said in the last update, 

the Pledge Manager will be closing on March 1st.

Please get your shipping and add-ons paid for so we know what is being shipped where. We will only be sending a small number of additional copies to each major shipping hub; it will be very difficult getting games shipped out if you do not complete it before we get them palleted together ready for freight. Obviously, it is our responsibility to ensure you get your game, but please get your Pledge Manager sorted out as soon as possible so we can ensure a smoother process for everyone. Message us if you are having issues with the Pledge Manager or finishing your order. 

There are currently 52 backers at the $50/$100 level that have not completed their survey as well as 76 at the $1 level. I will be re-sending the surveys out in a few minutes, but I encourage you to check your email and spam/junk folder so you do not miss it. 

Schedule

As of now, our schedule from the Feb. 4th update is still what we are expecting. I will re-paste it here for your convenience: 

• Feb. 1 - Feb. 15 - Chinese New Year (manufacturing is offline)
• Feb. 16 - Feb. 28 - Manufacturing Finishes
• Mar. 1 ~ Pledge Manager Closes
• Mar. 7 - Mar. 8 - Final Manufacturing Copy Received by Jon.
• Mar. 9 - Late March - Games are being packaged and picked up by the freight company.
• Late March - Late May - Games are on the ocean headed to the US and UK shipping hubs.
• Mid June - Games are in route to the backers via local package delivery services.

Once we get the final manufacturing copy in hand, we will do another update (roughly 2~ish weeks if all goes according to plan). This manufacturing copy will be a single copy put together by the manufacturer based on what they think is a good "packaging" of the game. We will provide any changes we see as needed and give the approval for the remaining 1500~ copies to be packaged and put on 6-7 pallets for the freight company. 

We will have more to say and pictures for the early March update. Have a great week, 

Brian and Jon

Usiak Games and Designs

Early February Updates (Pledge Manager and Schedule)
about 4 years ago – Sat, Feb 05, 2022 at 03:26:26 PM

Good Day Everyone, 

First off, I hope 2022 is going well for you. For me, it has been an interesting start of the year already. 

Pledge Manager Surveys

There is less than a month before we are going to close the pledge manager. Please take the time to go in and complete your survey, pay for shipping, and make any additional purchases you would like. I will hit the button to send the reminder to everyone who is still pending survey completion. Once this survey closes, it becomes very difficult to process updates to your order beyond the occasional address update that may be needed. 

Schedule

There really isn't much to report regarding the project that hasn't already been reported, but I did want to confirm the updated schedule we believe we are on. These are estimates based on what the manufacturer, freight, and the distribution centers have told us their required times would be. I have once again put in a little extra time in the schedule to account for delays, but assuming the manufacturing wraps up this month, I think this is fairly realistic. 

• Feb. 1 - Feb. 15 - Chinese New Year (manufacturing is offline)
• Feb. 16 - Feb. 28 - Manufacturing Finishes
• Mar. 1 ~ Pledge Manager Closes; this may shift a week either direction based on Manufacturing status.
• Mar. 7 - Mar. 8 - Final Manufacturing Copy Received by Jon.
• Mar. 9 - Late March - Games are being packaged and picked up by the freight company.
• Late March - Late May - Games are on the ocean headed to the US and UK shipping hubs.
• Mid June - Games are in route to the backers via local package delivery services.

I wish I had more to report, but we are at that part of the project where all we can do is check status from our partners and provide those details to you all. Thank you all for your patience with the project; this being our first project, we have learned a lot especially about timelines that will help improve our future projects. Everyone being so supportive and providing positive feedback has been amazing and helps drive our passion for making even more games. 

Thank you again and expect another update from us around the last week of February when we expect manufacturing to be wrapping up and providing us a detailed status; we plan to ping them on the 23rd if they haven't reached out before then. We want to give them about a week to ramp back up because no one likes being bothered immediately after a holiday.  

Have a great weekend, 

Brian and Jon

Manufacturing Update and Available Pre-Order Quantities
about 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 12:27:14 PM

Hello everyone,

We have a few updates to provide today. Unfortunately, we do have a bit of disappointing news that will likely result in a slight shift to our schedule, which is out of our hands. I will then follow up with some general updates.

Manufacturing Update

Originally, our manufacturer was expecting our games to be done by January 31st, and they would have the final manufacturing sample in the mail to us before their Chinese New Year begins. However, the region where they are located has been impacted by a recent energy conservation regulation requiring a reduction in energy usage. This means, they will likely not have our game done until late February after they return from their two-week holiday. 

At this point, I am expecting the game to be delivered to backers in early summer (June) timeframe. Once we get into the start of February and known for certain they didn’t finish before their New Year, I will provide an updated graphic for the schedule, but I basically expect it to shift two months to the right.

Because of this shift in schedule, I am going to extend the Pledge Manager to late February to allow more time for the 156 open pledges to be completed.

Games and Dice Quantities

Since we are a first-time publisher and don’t have access to existing funds from other released games, the current stock of games is all we expect to have for some time. We do have plans to do a second print run with the next expansion Kickstarter, but since that expansion is currently in development, it may be a year or so before we launch that Kickstarter. 

Additionally, this print run is the only print run that will include the promo cards and the expansions. In future print runs, the TWiiNS, Entity, and Storybook mode will be a separate box and purchase. The promo pack is currently a first print run exclusive; therefore, we don't know when/if these will be printed again. If you have any friends or family who would be interested in this game, please pass this information along to them; the current print run is the best value to get the game and the expansions mentioned above. The pre-order store will remain open until the Pledge Manager closes.

We almost ran out of the full Dice Collection in November, but we were able to add in another batch with the manufacturer before they locked our order. Like the game, once we sell out of these, we won’t have any more until a future print run.

We currently about about 275 copies of SKEPTICS and roughly 100 of each of the dice packs left for sale from this first print run.

Tabletop Playground Mod?

I recently got a copy of Tabletop Playground on Steam. I am looking into the level of effort to port SKEPTICS to this platform. Obviously, we care more about the physical game getting to you all, but since I have no control of the current state of the manufacturing, I wanted to see if there would be any interest with backers having access to the game on that platform. Let us know in the comments if you would like to see the game on that platform; if there are enough positive comments, I will work on the port for that platform when I have some free time. I know people have strong opinions about Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia, and I imagine there is a crowd who are fans of Tabletop Playground so I wanted to potentially offer this option for those people.

We hope you all are having a great start to 2022. Let us know if you have any questions or comments about the update or finalizing your pledge. 

Brian and Jon

Usiak Games and Designs

Unboxing Video and Project Update
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:28:51 PM

Hello everyone, 

We hope you all have had a great holiday season. We are definitely looking forward to the new year and all of the new possibilities 2022 will bring. 

Pledge Manger Surveys and VAT/Taxes

806 of you have completed your BackerKit pledge manager survey providing you updated address, paying for your shipping, and adding any add-ons you may have wanted. We still have 181 who need to still complete this survey; if you are not sure if you have completed your survey or not, be sure to check your email for survey reminders that are sent out periodically. This includes the $1 backers; you won't be asked for an address or payment unless you decide to order a game via add-on. Having these surveys completed simply helps us gauge when we can provide the shipping details to our freight forwarder and get that ball rolling. We plan to keep the pledge manager open until late January so there is still time. 

VAT/Taxes were included shortly after the pledge manager went live (check the update on November 18th for detail). Most people went in and updated their payments after this inclusion, but there are a few we see negative balances for. If you don't recall paying the VAT/Taxes, please double check your pledge manager link for a negative balance. 

SKEPTICS Manufacturing Sample Unboxing

And finally, I found time to do an unboxing video of the pre-manufacturing sample of SKEPTICS. Jon provided a number of pictures back in October, and I had planned to do the unboxing at that time but then life happened. There were minimal changes between this copy and the final copy that is currently being manufactured. We did find a few typos, the green dice needed to be a slightly different shade of green, and a minor tweak was made to the magnifying glass space to allow the fifth one to sit in the space better. We hope you enjoy seeing how the game turned out. 

Schedule/Manufacturing Update

Due to the schedule conflicts with other projects with the manufacturer, our game did not start as soon as we had planned. It has started and is expected to wrap up in late January. At that point, the components and boxes will not be assembled. They will assemble a single copy to send to us before the Chinese New Year begins, and we will provide detailed instructions on how it should be packaged. Once that is provided, they said it will take about 1-2 weeks to assemble everything and have it ready for freight to pick up. This should be late February/early March. 

In pre-COVID times, freight would take about 3-5 weeks to reach the shipping hubs, and it would take 1-2 weeks for games to be shipped out to your homes.

I had a lot of slack in the schedule for this, and it appears we will be using most of that. While April delivery is still possible, it is very unlikely and likely will slip a month or two. We hope by the end of April, the games will be at the shipping hubs being packaged for individual shipments to all of you. I will have a better projection for you in late January once manufacturing has wrapped up, and we see the state of freight in the new year. In late January, I will work up a new schedule graphic based on what we know at that time and when we expect the games to begin reaching backers homes. 

New Year

It is almost a new year. 2021 has had many ups and downs for all of us. We are looking forward to the new opportunities 2022 brings and to working on our next projects (yes, two projects) we can't wait to tease and start playtesting with the community. Have fun and stay safe as you celebrate the new year this weekend. 

Brian and Jon

Usiak Games and Designs