Campaign Closing Hours, What's Next?
over 9 years ago
– Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 07:31:07 PM
Hello everyone!
Thank you all for your support and interest! It's been a wild ride, and we're floored by the reception of these little guys and gals! We're looking forward to getting them all made and sent out to each of you.
The campaign will end in about 10 hours, after which I won't be able to edit the main page. That's why I put the link to the BackerKit Preorder system front and center, which will allow people to get involved if this campaign's timing just didn't quite work out.
There's a period of about two weeks where credit cards are charged and paperwork is filed. As soon as I can around the end of that, I'll send out the surveys. You'll see a Kickstarter-native survey in your Kickstarter profile, but it will be very simple. It's best for organization if you'll use the BackerKit surveys, and you'll receive an email with a link to those. (That said, if you only want to use the Kickstarter survey, that's fine.)
Once we get those sent out, please answer them as quickly as you can, so we can get a good count put together for the production run. We have a fair idea of how many meeples we'll need, but we need to get a good bead on what colors and genders we're dealing with. Also, the sooner we get information, the sooner we can get data to our EU shipping partner, which will make that process smoother as well.
The surveys are also where you'll tell us if you're getting Add On items, and what you're getting if so. One advantage that BackerKit allows us, with Add On items specifically, is a tight rein on items that we have that are limited, like the Tinker Dice, since we won't be making more of those in the foreseeable future. They will be first come, first serve.
Tangentially, while I was counting what we have, I found some more of the Tinker Metal Fudge dice, so those have been included in the Add On system. They will cost the same as the Tinker Metal D6 dice, in the same three colors. They look like this:
Thank you again, everyone! It's been great to see these meeples find interested parties. We'll do our best to get them made quickly and sent out as soon as we can.
Thanks!
Tesh
Gold, Nickel and Other Colors
over 9 years ago
– Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:55:49 PM
Hello everyone!
We're winding down, thank you for your support! As a reminder, we'll be sending out survey links within a few days after the project ends. Please get those filled out as soon as you can. We do prefer that you go through BackerKit, as it helps us a lot in nailing down final counts for production. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to go to their survey system, you can answer all that you need to give us in the Kickstarter-native surveys, they are just clunkier and less helpful to us as we put the data together.
There's a potentially big change I wanted to address, though, at least if you have your heart set on Antiqued Nickel. We've been looking at these little guys for a while now, and I've learned how to discern the difference between Antiqued Silver and Antiqued Nickel (Antiqued Silver is shinier, Antiqued Nickel is duller, but they are of very similar overall tone), but it's not ideal under some lighting. As such, I've asked that the factory make the female prototypes in a similar color set, but to change the Antiqued Nickel into a "Misty Gold" finish, which is a matte finish like the Antiqued finishes, but without antiquing lines. It should work better to tell it apart from the other colors at a glance.
We're still waiting on photos from the factory to be sure, but after much discussion and observation with what we have so far, I believe it to be a better solution. As such, the photos you see in the campaign so far represent the "old color scheme", and I'll get a "new color scheme" photo to you as soon as I can. The factory is working on it right now.
It's a fairly minor change in the overall scheme of things, but I believe it's one for the better if you're planning on playing with all 8 colors. So, please plan on this being the final color scheme:
Antiqued Brass, Brass, Antiqued Copper, Copper, Antiqued Silver, Silver, Black Nickel, Misty Gold
Since we haven't put together the order yet, this isn't nailed down in metal, as it were, so if the photos from the factory show that the Antiqued Nickel is still better, we'll go with that. I just wanted you all to know now that we're trying to make the full 8-color sets as playable as possible.
We did also look into doing nonmetal colors like blues and greens, but the factory wasn't able to get a dye solution working. They can do any Pantone flat paint color, but when they paint these little fellows, the detailing gets lost. It's just not a viable solution, unfortunately.
I actually prefer the metallic look at any rate, but it seemed wise to at least investigate other colors. I'm sorry that they didn't work.
If you have any questions, please let me know, and please keep spreading the word!
Thanks!
Tesh
Across The Pond
over 9 years ago
– Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 11:57:11 PM
Hello everyone!
As noted last time, we're going to have a shipping company handle EU shipping, I just need to run some numbers with two different places and get quotes before we nail down which company. It's up in the air as to some of the details, then, but we're going to say that using such a service makes us "EU Friendly", inasmuch as it will allow us to get these little meeples to those of you in the EU without the troubles of making you deal with a potential VAT surprise or customs quirks on delivery. We've always been happy to send Tinker goodies worldwide, but this way we can try to take the edge off of some of the bureaucracy, at least for the EU.
The two companies we're looking at have different policies and costs, but in a nutshell, we'd be sending them either a bunch of prepackaged parcels with labels, or a bunch of stuff, and they will package them up. Either way, they then send them out from their base there in the EU, which should mean things go smoother. I'm not certain how the timetables will be affected by that interim step, and whether or not some of that time will be made up in greater efficiency from their ability to ship within the EU... but I hear it's pretty close to a wash in the end.
This does mean that we'll be prioritizing all of our EU orders, though, which is a slight alteration of our standard shipping priorities of "big to small, international first within a tier". We're going to try to get these all sent out to everyone as quickly as we can, and getting all the EU stuff as quickly as possible to these shipping companies should help out.
This won't change any of the pledge values, it ultimately just means that we'll be paying that VAT after the dust settles. Some of the calculus I've worked with so far says that we'll be taking a bit of a hit to do that, but not so much that it's not worth doing.
So, if you or someone you know has been on the fence, wondering about that pesky VAT thing, please know that we're going to do our best to keep it out of your hair. If it's relevant, please spread the word!
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Also, more visually exciting, we have a series of photos to show off from the esteemed Professor Candy, photographer and gentleman. (I've never seen him wear a Professor Layton top hat, but I can imagine it.) He's a friend, and kindly offered to take some beauty shots of some of the meeple prototypes. My photos are rather more rusty and rustic, since I run a more ramshackle photography organization. He's actually a professional with a camera, though, so he gathered some great shots that I'm excited to finally share.
Pinterest has been a bit buggy for me of late, but you should be able to see his work over here:
https://www.pinterest.com/khopesh/professor-candys-metal-meeple-photos/
This one's my favorite, though. Something about the goggles just clicks for me.
Thank you again, everyone! We're winding down, now in the last week. Please keep spreading the word, and we'll let you know as soon as we have anything cool to show from the factory on the Dame prototypes.
Tesh
Gearpunk Beta Dice Add Ons
over 9 years ago
– Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 12:12:39 AM
Hello everyone!
Just a quick note this time about the Gearpunk Beta dice that we're including as Add Ons, introduced earlier, but now officially part of the campaign. We heard back from the factory and they should have the fixed mold for them ready for inclusion in the main production run.
I've updated the main page's infographic to include these little gems. They will be $5 each, and they will come in four different finishes: Antiqued Brass, Antiqued Copper, Antiqued Nickel and Antiqued Silver. They are like the meeples, in that they have a solid zinc alloy core and are plated with these other metals. They are about 35 grams each (about 1.25 ounces), so about three times the weight of the meeples, though of comparable height to the Top Hat male meeples at 20mm (standard D20 size).
Also, we're still working on the "EU Friendly" shipping. I've nailed it down to one of two different companies, and hope to hear back soon with more details.
Thank you everyone!
Tesh
STGCON and Dame Design Files
over 9 years ago
– Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 07:40:15 AM
Hello everyone!
We survived the St. George Game Convention this last weekend, braving heat and a leaky radiator for the 250 mile drive. It was great to meet some of you in person, thank you for stopping by! We also got some great feedback on the Pantheon Wars game, and yes, we would still like to make it happen. Sometime next year if at all possible. In the meantime, it's still available as a Print and Play game over on my blog (and will be for the foreseeable future), so please check it out and let us know what you think!
It would be great if we could do a Kickstarter campaign for it before GenCon, so we could show it there, since we might have a presence there in 2017. That's been one of my long term goals, so that we could get these Tinker goodies out to a wider audience. It's great to see people like our work, even the "Wayward" D4 dice!
We also (of course) showed off the prototypes of these Tinker Steampunk Metal Meeples, the only eight in North America (the other eight are in the hands of a friend of mine across the pond, and we'll talk about those in a few days), and found that almost everyone liked them. We'll get them made and sent out as quickly as possible.
I don't have much of an update on that, except to show the Dame design file I received from the factory. As suspected, we lost a little detail, but at the scale we're working with, that was inevitable (and as might be noted in this image, I asked them to include the hair bit and dress bit that they missed, so we're good to go). These will still be fantastic, and we'll show proper prototype photos as soon as we can. They are working on the molds right now.
Thank you, everyone!
Tesh
