Hello!

Ok the Smoke Test has been sent for the Pledge Manager Survey! In case you are not familiar with what this is, it is a test of the Pledge Manager Survey where it is sent out to 5% of backers to give us an opportunity to correct anything before it is sent out to everyone! Usually after 24 hours or so, if everything is looking good then we would send out the remainder of the surveys. I'll check in on responses tomorrow to see how everything is going. If you encounter anything odd, please reach out to us at [email protected] instead of BackerKit over the weekend, since they are out of the office.

We will have another update when the Smoke Test is complete and all of the surveys are sent and the Pre-order Store opens. PDFs will be sent out at this time, though all of you should have received them during the campaign. We will also let you know when to expect surveys to close and cards to be charged in this update as well.
 

Unfortunately BackerKit does not have the ability to set a free shipping threshold based on the dollar total of an order. The price of shipping is tied to the weight of the items. Therefore, before orders are locked and cards are charged, all orders that have a total value of $100 or more will have their shipping fees manually removed before cards are charged. We will send an update out closer to this time with more info. 

Ok onto the discounts and special somethings.

To address the issue with the Ennies Emporium being so close to the Summer Sale, we're giving all backers $18 in Exalted Funeral Store credit! In order to receive it you just have to complete your survey! Once surveys are closed we will send out the store credits to the email addresses associated with your BackerKit account. They never expire and there is no minimum purchase required to use them. They also can be used on sale items.

Every year as part of our Summer Sale we make some cool weird free zines that are never to be available again. Well we are printing a few more of the two exclusive ones for this year and giving a physical copy (and digital copy to digital backers) to each backer for free! They also will not factor into your shipping fees since they will be marked as having no weight. Check them out!

The Castle Automatic add-on will now also include the EXCLUSIVE free large scale (A3) map of the Castle Automatic illustrated by Guy Pradel! This map will not be available for purchase and is ONLY available by preordering, which has been extended only into the Ennies Emporium camaign.

We appreciate everyones continued patience. Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. 

Thanks so much, 
Cristin and the EF Crew

Okay!

Smoke test surveys have been sent!

I'll be sending out the rest of the surveys pretty much right after those come back with the thumbs skyward.

Also, check out the art print inks! Sam Bricke from Garbage and Glory is going to color this piece and the cross collab backers will get it with their pledges!

How cool!

Hit me up with any questions!

Hoping to get everything shipped next month once I'm back from Dragon Con (Labor Day weekend)

Cheers!

Hello again,
I've just hit the button to send out your PDFs except for the GMs Companion and the Electric Witch Pouch - we're still working on those, but naturally we'll send them to you just as soon as they're ready to go!

Hopefully everything has been set up correctly to deliver you DrivethruRPG PDF codes - this is my preferred option, since you can get any and all future updates to those titles.

For example, we just updated the Maskwitches core book PDF, because thanks to your support here, we've been able to order an offset print run of the book! This is a significant upgrade on the previous hardcovers: they will all have sewn bindings, and an additional couple of art spreads to bring the page count up to 176 pages. The PDF now includes those pages.

We're awaiting delivery of that print run right now - we commissioned it as soon as the funds arrived with us, and we've printed it in the UK, and it should be with us in less than 2 weeks, allowing us to keep on schedule.

We're also still to print the GM's Companion, but that will also be printed in the UK, at a printer we use all the time, with a very fast turnaround.

We have been taking delivery of all the other books we needed to restock over the last couple of weeks, so we now have stacks and stacks of Ice Caves, Meat Spoilers et al ready to go.

So it's all happening.

The GM's Companion is about to enter editing, so that's all happening on schedule too. Nice.

Here are some new images I've been making - not sure if these will go in or not, but you can never have too many. I am procrastinating on making the final selections, because as usual I've shot hundreds of images, and we "only" need about 60. Maybe more if we do some split pages.

I've been getting heavily into vintage Soviet camera lenses lately, so I've been making good use of those. I'm also adding "camera lenses" to the layers of language of the project, which already uses puppets, and masks to talk about characters in roleplaying games. The way we look at those things through different lenses seems like a worthwhile thing for me to think about.

Enjoy the photos, and enjoy your PDFs - mea culpa that it took as long as it did for me to figure out how to send them to you!

Jon

Hello Friends!

Thank you for your support! We truly appreciate you pledging and voting on our games! We  wouldn’t be able to even participate in this group event without your help in selecting our games for the Ennie Awards.
We know you must be excited to get your hands on these nominated, and award winning games, but there are just a few more steps before these goodies are launched out of our warehouse to your homes.

First. Pledge Manager Surveys.
Expect these to be sent out by Friday August 28th. There will be a smoke test first, and then the remaining backers will receive surveys shortly following that. You’ll be able to edit and adjust your pledges and manage any add ons you might want.
Once the surveys are completed, and the shipping charges collected, we’ll move directly to the

Second Step. Fulfillment!
That’s it? Just two steps?? nope one more

Third Step. Discounts?
We want to address the elephant in the room about some folks being upset that we had titles on sale during our store summer sale. We totally understand that frustration and as soon as Tephrotic Nightmares looked to be the winner we started to think about what we could do for everyone. We did not plan on it being the winner or to have this linger towards the sale. We do have a couple special somethings for everyone ! This will go along with the survey going out for everyone. 

Yep! All the items from this campaign are ready to ship! That’s right. They’re all waiting for you in the VIP section of our warehouse securely behind velvet rope and the bouncers.

Thank you so much for all your communication, patience, and support. We will have another update detailing progress details as soon as the Surveys are sent!

Exalted Funeral Team

Hello Friends!

Apologies for the radio silence over the last few weeks. I've been Quite Busy, and I've been prioritising sorting out your rewards over actually telling you as much, but that's still not ideal. 

So, allow me to rectify that and update you on how everything is progressing.

I've now received all of the bits and pieces that'll be going into your reward bundles!

This has all taken a couple of weeks longer than I was expecting – lead times for customised goods should be taken with a pinch of salt, I fear – but we got there in the end and I'm happy with the results.

The wooden bookmarks for Darkened Hill & Dale are printed on sustainably sourced FSC®-certified plywood, and I decided to add a little tassel, because who doesn't love a tasseled bookmark?

The die-struck metal keyrings required a bit of back-and-forth with the manufacturer's design team, as we had to tweak the artwork a little to make it work with the material and manufacturing process. I'm glad we put the time in, though, because I think they've come out particularly nicely.

I've also taken delivery of more Giclée art prints, acquired a looming tower of player handouts, folded dozens of handout folders, selected some particularly nice mosaic tiles for the pin badges, and had fun working with Alewood Games on Stage Fright – more on that last part below.

Oh, and Patchwork Fez Games has just moved into a dedicated office space!

This move is good news for fulfilment of your rewards!

My game-making endeavours have previously been run from my 'office' (i.e. the second bedroom) in my flat. Over the last couple of years, that space had steadily filled with boxes of books and piles of packaging and crates of craft materials until I was climbing over things to reach my desk – and then the cascade broke containment and spilt out into the rest of the flat, clogging the hallway and burying the dining table.

I tell you this because I pack and ship rewards myself, and it was going to be quite difficult to do that with such limited space. It was such a problem when I originally Kickstarted Darkened Hill & Dale that I waited until my dad went on holiday and then temporarily turned his house into a fulfilment centre.

However, the new office gives me plenty of room to store my materials and enough space to set up a couple of order assembly tables. I'm looking forward to having some elbow room!

The upshot of this is that I should be able to pack and post rewards pretty rapidly once you've completed your Backer Surveys and shipping addresses are locked and shipping fees charged.

On that note, acquiring the bookmarks and keyrings finally allows me to complete the preparations for the Backer Survey, because I now know precisely how much everything will weigh, and can thus calculate the lowest possible shipping costs for you all. 

I'm hoping to finish setting that up tomorrow, and will then send out the survey as soon as BackerKit confirms I haven't mangled it.

So – keep an eye out for your Backer Survey over the next few days!

The sooner you complete your survey, the sooner I'll be sending things out to you. If everything goes to plan and folks respond promptly, I'm hoping to start shipping before the end of next week. 

You'll need to complete the Backer Survey even if you're not expecting a physical copy of anything, because I'll need you to confirm the best email address for sharing the digital files with you!

I'm intending to distribute digital copies via DriveThruRPG, and will be doing that in regular batches as soon as your surveys are completed. 

Stage Fright is very nearly finished. The delay in completing the scenario has largely been on my side – I've been struggling to get my brain in gear due to spinning too many plates (plus my brain simply does not function properly during very hot weather, which we've had a lot of.

Nonetheless, it'll soon be done, and I'm hoping we'll be able to share that with those of you who back both this project and the ARKYVR project within the next couple of weeks!

For those of you in the EU, you may have spotted that I've suspended EU shipping on my web shop due to the new PPWR regulations (which are a nightmare for smaller businesses and creators). Don't worry, though, you'll still be receiving your rewards. I have a plan.

For those of you in the rest of the world (e.g. the USA), you may find that you're charged taxes/duties at the end of your Backer Survey. In these instances, I'll be sending your packages with the duties pre-paid, to avoid them being caught at customs and you having to pay an extra fee for their involvement. 

This is all slightly more complicated than it should be, but if things goes awry at any point and you find you've been charged tax twice, get in touch and we'll sort it out.

Not every territory will have the option to pre-pay duties, so some of you may end up with your packages intercepted by local customs service, but fingers crossed nobody gets any extra fees!

That's it for now. I'll post again as things progress but if you have any questions in the meantime, give me a shout!

Your pal,
Sarah 💜