We wanted to bring you another update from the Argo and share some exciting progress on Jason and the Argonauts. We are happy to report that everything is moving along very nicely, and the voyage has reached another important milestone!

We have now provided all of the production files to our manufacturer and have approved the e-proofs needed to begin producing our sample copies.

This includes not only Jason and the Argonauts, but also the Add-On Packs and custom dice trays.

Our manufacturer will be bringing these samples to Essen, where we will have the opportunity to inspect them in person and show a handful of copies to Adventurers, industry friends, and our international localization partners.

Once these samples arrive in our hands, we will carefully inspect every aspect of the production. We'll be checking the cards, tokens, packaging, colors, printing, foil, and all of the little details that make up the final game.

If we discover anything that isn't quite right, we'll make the necessary corrections and have new samples produced for another round of inspection.

If everything looks as it should, we will give the final approval and move forward into mass production!

Once we reach that milestone, we'll have a much clearer production timeline to share with all of you.

There are quite a few treasures being forged for this voyage, and not everything is being produced by the same manufacturer.

Items such as the Enamel Pins, Deluxe Dice, Solo Gaming Patch, and Custom Leather Dice Storage Container are being produced by a separate manufacturing partner.

We recently received samples of these items, and I have to say… They look absolutely fantastic.

We are incredibly happy with how these items have turned out, and we're excited for you to eventually get your hands on them. We produced limited quantities of many of these add-ons, and they are still available through the Pledge Manager for anyone who would like to add them to their order.

Unfortanlty some treasures have already disappeared, including the Spartoi Enamel Pin, so if there is an add-on you've been considering, now is a good time to check your order before they are gone.

Click here to access your pledge manager: https://jason-and-the-argonauts.backerkit.com/

Everything is moving along as planned, and we are extremely happy with the progress being made.

The next major milestone will be receiving the Jason and the Argonauts samples and putting them through a thorough inspection. This is an important step before we give the final approval for mass production, and we want to make sure we get everything right before the game begins its journey into the factory.

We'll provide another update once those samples arrive and we've had the opportunity to inspect them.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. We'll do our best to answer them!

Until next time, Adventurers…

May the winds remain favorable, and thank you once again for helping bring this legend to life. ⚓

Hello Spirit Friends,

We're in a fairly boring part of the campaign, where everything is done, and produced, and I'm just waiting to receive the books from the printer. Unfortunately, some inclement weather has delayed shipment, but in all likelihood I will have the games in a matter of weeks and will begin shipping rewards immediately. I'm beyond excited to get them games in your hands.

In other exciting news, Backerkit has invited us at Free for All to take part in a Holiday Market, and in the upcoming Pintopia 2027. What's more is that we'll be leading one of the banners for Pintopia next year. It's really an honor to have that kind of belief from Backerkit, to be invited to both, accepted and given some leadership responsibility. Plus, creating the reward pins for My Very Own Forest Spirit was so fun that we're really enthusiastic to play more in that realm. Expect more on these projects in the future, but if you want to be early, check out the links below.

As always Spirit Friends, take care of yourselves, and have a great spooky season.

Free for All Holiday Market

Questquest Pintopia

Hi everyone,

This is Natasja bringing you the October update on Portent, its progress, and some artwork to go along with that <3

As of last week, the basic artwork for all the 22 kami has been completed! It was a bit more work than I realistically planned for, so completing that last kami art (aptly the art representing the tarot card for Judgment) was a very sweet victory indeed <3

Does that mean all art is finished? Not just yet. The art still needs some shading and color touch-ups. I will also still be adding additional artwork here and there in the book, and there is the artwork for all the court cards from the Minor Arcana to go into the tarot deck (which is 4 cards per suit, so another 16 pieces). But with the basic kami art now in place, the game feels well-rounded at long last. From here on out, everything else will be the cherries on top <3

 

Portent's playtest is scheduled to end in two weeks' time. I love being on the sidelines and watching how people interact with the game, honestly <3 It's so rewarding.

After the playtest ends, I will proceed to quality assurance and processing all the feedback. That is when the book will really take its final shape. This process can easily take a month or a bit longer. I am still hell-bent on delivering in the first season of 2027, so I'm going to work hard and do my best there. 

Some of you might have already seen it around, but I couldn't help the allure of joining Pintober this year and am joining with the Yokai Ghost Parade. Pintober is an enamel pin event on Backerkit where it's all about the spooky season. For Yokai Ghost Parade, I designed 7 yokai enamel pins and am also creating some extra things like prints and phone charms (and maybe a sweater?). There's also a few freebies for early followers, early birds, and when you back 3+ projects in the event.

If you like enamel pins and yokai, you can check it out here: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/natasja-van-gestel/yokai-ghost-parade/

Anyone who is visiting MCM London in a few weeks, or Kaidan in Mainz two weeks later, will already get a chance to see some of those new products. The pins, though, will be campaign-exclusive until fulfilment!

But of course, finishing Portent remains my top priority <3
 
Wishing everyone a lovely Halloween, and see you in the November update!
 
Cheers,
Natasja

In my last update, I left off with the challenge of finding the right green, purple, and yellow materials for the inside of the EDG7.

Our manufacturer told us they could easily make the colors we needed. That seemed like the obvious solution, especially since trying to source material from nearly 8,000 miles away isn't exactly easy. They showed us samples that looked perfect, so we had them shipped to us for approval. Unfortunately, when the samples arrived, I discovered that the colors had simply been printed onto white fabric. (see picture below)

The white base material was much stiffer than what I wanted, and more importantly, I wasn't comfortable using a material where the interior colors were simply printed onto the surface. It didn't represent the level of quality I'm trying to achieve with the EDG7. So, after about three weeks, it was on to Plan B.

The manufacturer then told me they could custom dye the material, but I would need to purchase 3,000 yards of each color. That was far more material than we could possibly use. I was also told that the colors I wanted essentially didn't exist in the material we needed. I knew that couldn't be entirely true because my original EDG7 demo bags were already made using those colors. At that point, I decided to find the material myself.

After a lot of digging, I found several fabric manufacturers offering the purple, yellow, and green colors I was looking for. Of course, colors on a computer screen can look completely different in person, so I ordered physical samples from several suppliers. (see pictures below)

Two of the suppliers had exactly what I needed. I sent my findings to the bag manufacturer, but surprisingly, they were reluctant to use the material I had sourced. They suggested it could be old stock and potentially tear more easily. That raised a red flag for me. I contacted the fabric manufacturer directly, and they confirmed that the material had been manufactured within the last six months and was good quality. I also had the samples in my hands, and the material looked and felt great.After some discussion, I convinced the bag manufacturer to move forward with it, and we began making another round of samples.

The original production sample was about 95% there, but there was one small issue. Eight Vault 100+ deck boxes fit inside the EDG7, but just barely. The bag would close, but the zipper wasn't as smooth as I wanted when the bag was completely full. That wasn't good enough. I ordered two additional samples, one adding 1/8 inch and another adding 1/4 inch to the height of the bag. The goal was to make sure the EDG7 could close smoothly at full capacity, just like my original demo bags. When the new samples arrived, the deck boxes fit perfectly. Problem solved. But then I noticed something else.

The outer shell material didn't seem quite right.

One of the most important parts of the EDG7 is the material protecting everything you carry inside. The bag was designed around genuine X-Pac, a lightweight, durable, tear-resistant, waterproof laminated fabric commonly used in high-performance outdoor gear, backpacks, and accessories. Most people may never know or care what X-Pac is, but this matters to me.

I'm trying to make products for the board gaming community that are built differently and built to last. X-Pac is also made in the USA, which is meaningful to me because Modern Meeple's resource organization products are manufactured (not 3D Printed) here as well. I questioned the manufacturer about the material, and they assured me it was genuine X-Pac. With the interior colors finally solved, the sizing fixed, and everything seemingly ready to go, we were preparing to sign the contracts and begin mass production.

I was actually ahead of schedule, which was incredibly exciting. Then, on the day we were supposed to finalize everything, I was told the truth....., The outer material wasn't genuine X-Pac. I immediately stopped the process.

The manufacturer told me it was a very good imitation and was supposedly just as good as genuine X-Pac. That wasn't acceptable to me. I'm not interested in fooling anyone, and I'm certainly not going to tell you that your EDG7 is made from X-Pac if it isn't. Once again, I was told that genuine X-Pac was simply too difficult to get. At this point I thought, If I managed to find the interior fabrics myself, I'll find X-Pac myself too.

After some digging and phone calls, I was able to arrange a meeting with the president and sales manager of Dimension-Polyant, the company behind X-Pac. I wanted definitive answers. Was the material in my samples genuine? If not, where could I buy the real material, and how could I make sure the EDG7 was manufactured using it? During that meeting, it was confirmed that the material used in my samples was not genuine X-Pac.

Dimension-Polyant were incredibly helpful. They pointed me toward legitimate sources and explained how I could purchase genuine X-Pac directly and have it shipped to the bag manufacturer. Then something happened that I wasn't expecting. They liked the EDG7. They agreed to officially support the project and allow us to use official X-Pac logo tags inside the EDG7, showing that the bags are made with genuine X-Pac fabric. That might sound like a small detail to some people, but to me, it was a huge win. I never expected that opportunity when this project started. (see pictures below)

I brought all of this information back to the bag manufacturer. They weren't happy. Ultimately, they decided they no longer wanted to manufacture the EDG7 or continue working with me on the project. I suspect that came from being called out and me not being willing to accept a fabric that's not genuine. That was incredibly disheartening.

It meant months of R&D, countless hours, and thousands of dollars were essentially gone, and I would have to start the manufacturing process over again with someone new. I called my friend Chris because, frankly, I needed to vent and get some advice. He reminded me why I had made these decisions in the first place and reassured me that walking away was the right move. I could have accepted the imitation material and stayed ahead of schedule and saved 10s of thousands of dollars. But that wouldn't have been the EDG7 I promised you.

With our goal of shipping in December getting closer every day, finding a new manufacturer became a mad dash.

The upside is that I've learned an incredible amount through this process. Having already gone through development once made evaluating and working with a new manufacturer much faster. Once I found a new manufacturer, I immediately ordered another sample, which itself takes weeks to produce. Then came another difficult piece of news. The new manufacturer told me that producing the EDG7 correctly would cost approximately three times what I had originally been quoted. That was devastating. The pricing for the EDG7 campaign was based on our original manufacturing costs. My original plan was to manufacture considerably more bags than the number ordered through the campaign so we would have inventory available afterward. With the new production cost, that's no longer realistic. My priority is making sure every backer gets the EDG7 their order. I'll only be able to produce a relatively small amount of additional inventory during this first production run. I'm hoping that once people receive their EDG7s and see the quality for themselves, we'll be able to generate enough additional orders to make a second production run possible. So if you want to late pledge, now is the time!

I received the newest production sample a couple of days ago. It looks great. I'm extremely happy with it, and after everything we've gone through to get here, I'm moving forward with mass production. The timeline is going to be tight. Right now, I'm being told mid-December for delivery, but I want to be very clear that this is an estimate, not a guarantee. Our original plan was to already be shipping by this point and to have the EDG7 available at PAX Unplugged and in time for the holidays. Obviously, all of these manufacturing issues have changed that timeline. I'm planning to personally visit the bag manufacturer in November to see production firsthand, make sure everything is being made properly, and hopefully catch any potential issues before it's too late to correct them. I'm also exploring the possibility of bringing approximately 50 finished EDG7s home with me so that I can have a limited number available at PAX Unplugged. I want to be completely transparent about that.

With production costs increasing approximately threefold, having a small number available at PAXU would help Modern Meeple start to generate some of the revenue needed to offset those unexpected costs and keep the EDG7 moving forward. I don't want any backer to see EDG7s at PAXU and wonder why someone can buy one there before their own bag has arrived. If I'm able to bring some home early, that's the reason. But those EDG7s will not come with all the free bees in the Backerkit campaign. Financially this has set me back tremendously and I need to try to recover as soon as possible. My hope is that every bag will be completed by then, and we can start shipping, but I'm not going to make a promise I can't guarantee. But I will update the progress as we move forward. 

There is good news on the other campaign items as well. All of the D20 dice are scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I already have roughly half of the patches here, which is several thousand patches, and the remaining patches are currently in production. We're getting there.

We still have approximately 100 backers who haven't completed their surveys. Six reminder emails have already been sent. Because the number of extra bags in this first production run is now extremely tight, I had to place the production order based on the information currently available. Unfortunately, that means backers who haven't completed their surveys may not receive their first choice color. So if you haven't completed your survey yet, please do it as soon as possible.

This process has been much more complicated than I ever expected and those issues came from areas I didn't think would be the bottleneck. There were several points where taking the easier route would have saved time and money. I could have accepted the printed interior fabric. I could have accepted imitation X-Pac. I could have pushed forward with something that was simply "good enough."

But that's not what I want Modern Meeple to be. I'd rather deal with the delays, headaches, and additional costs than send you something that doesn't live up to what I promised.

Thank you for your patience, your support of Modern Meeple, and most importantly, for trusting me to make the EDG7 the way it should be. If you have any questions, please reply to this update and I'll answer them as best I can. Thank you for sticking with me.

Everyday Gaming deserves better gear. That's exactly what I'm trying to build.

Josh

One of the interesting things about working on Wardens of the Blue Rose is that I get a chance to take another look at Blue Rose’s magic system. True to its inspirations, magic—the arcana of Aldea (not to be confused with those of its sibling game, Fantasy AGE) are broad areas of magic adepts grasp through intuition. Magic is like artistic ability: a talent that is unevenly distributed through the world, but which still requires effort to develop. It resembles the modern conception of the psychic in some paranormal fiction.

I was initially concerned compacting the rules would be a problem, but it turned out we had already mostly designed a magic system suited for just this sort of thing, possibly because I was prototyping rules-light Blue Rose stuff before we even thought about this project.

Instead of listing possible magical effects, we’ve adopted a more freeform system where each arcana provides broad ability over its domain. Arcana have set limits in the rules, but broad areas to play around within them. In Wardens, we have connected it to the Ability, Bonds, and Fortune systems. Fortune—the power of your story—fuels magic, which reshapes the story of the world. Your Arcana Bonds measure your potential, while Abilities measure your skill at shaping any power you can call forth.

One difference between Wardens of the Blue Rose and past Blue Rose games is that we don’t really emphasize the potential to use arcana. In the setting, magical potential is innate, but we don’t have any rules that say whether you have that potential or not. Instead, we assume that if you learn magic, you have that potential.

Oh, and do we have spirit dancers, seers, and shapeshifters? Yes, we do! I can’t wait to show you. Work proceeds apace, as some systems and setting chapters begin to shape up. In fact, that just reminded me of a new concept I’m debuting, which I’ll describe in a future update. Cheers!

~Malcolm Sheppard, SAGE Developer

Hello forest friends,

Friend, Illustrator and Printmaker, Morgan Hyatt has finished printing hand-carved linocut prints featuring their cover and center spread art. The prints came out so beautifully, human-imagined and human-made. Check them out:

Hey there, folks! The prototype for Deeds Drawn showed up on my doorstep today, so I did a (lengthy) unboxing video reviewing its quality and covering various aspects of the game. You can find the video below.

Next stop, full production!
-Wrel

 Hello everyone,

This is a quick reminder to please complete your surveys. Currently, 15% of surveys remain outstanding, and we need an accurate count to finalize our orders for bag color material, Heavy Play items, Envy Born Games, and 9th Level RPGs.

I will share a detailed update in the next few days. It has been a challenging process with a lot of learning along the way. I am expecting another sample on September 16th and will provide a full report once I receive it.

Thank you all for your continued support and patience.