We’ve taken the next step towards getting the games into full production. It's taken a little longer than we had hoped, but about what we had expected. The Mylar bags are a newer packaging option for our manufacturer, so there was a bit of back-and-forth to ensure our graphics are set up correctly and that they are configuring their templates to the correct sizes. But as of today, we have sent them formal approval of the digital proofs, and the next step will be to manufacture the physical proof for our review.
Those will likely take another week or two to be created and shipped to us. But once we have them, we will share photos. Assuming no changes or corrections are needed at that time, we should roll right into full manufacturing, which should take roughly three to four weeks. However, some of that depends on the factory's schedule. But we are currently on track to have the games heading to the US before the end of the year.
We can’t make any promises yet, but we are doing our best to have them in your hands in time for Christmas. But since we all know delays can happen, our official timeline is still to have them delivered to you all by February.
We will leave you with this video of David playing Cellblock 18 and Riposte! on our friend DC’s livestream a few weeks back. They started playing the card games at about an hour in. They also played Mirror Agents and talked about Winter Rabbit on the front end of that stream if you want to check that out.
Things continue along pretty smoothly here. We had to make some minor revisions to the art files, but they are back with our manufacturer, and they are working toward the next step in the process. We are hopeful to get on the production schedule starting either the end of this month or early August.
While we wait for those logistical issues to be resolved, we have received the sticker sheets from a US-based producer. They came out looking great, as you can see below. We really love the work Ali did on both these games. Everything just pops.
Each sticker sheet has five stickers. One is the game logo, and then four stickers featuring art from each game. Those who backed multiple collaborating Poketopia campaigns get these for free; many of you also grabbed these as add-ons. If you missed them, don’t worry, you will still have the chance to add them to your order when we get the surveys out in a month or so. And then if we end up with any left over, we plan to take them to conventions next year.
Riposte! and Cellblock 18 Sticker Sheets
Hopefully, when we send the next update, we will be fully into production. Until then, thank you again for helping us make these games a reality.
Wanted to give you an update on things. By now, all your cards have been charged, and Backerkit has sent us the funds. We have sent our files to our manufacturer for review, and things are moving along fairly smoothly. We are now waiting for them to complete the digital proofs, which, once approved, will then be followed by physical proofs before we move to full production.
Barring any issues with the files that we might need to clean up, we expect the game should go into manufacturing sometime in the middle to late July. So we are currently on time and on track.
We will, of course, let you know if we run into any issues that might cause delays. But we are fairly confident that you should all receive your games by, or possibly a little earlier, than our expected February 2027 delivery date.
In other news
If you follow our social media, you probably already heard this, but our previous game, Winter Rabbit, got some exciting news on Friday. We won Light Strategy Game of the Year at the Origins Awards. This is absolutely huge for us.
Photo from the Awards presentation at Origins, where Winter Rabbit won Light Strategy Game of the Year.
For Winter Rabbit, Cellblock 18, and Riposte!, we want to once again thank all the backers who have made this possible for us.
First of all, I'd like to thank you all for backing this campaign and making this project a success. We are a truly indie company, and we can only keep making games because of backers like you.
Here are some stats about this campaign:
We ended with 490 backers!
The campaign raised $10,673
Backers pledged for 517 copies of Riposte! and 338 copies of Cell Block 18
Backers added on 64 copies of our older games
You guys really like stickers.
What's Next?
Right now, we are busy setting up the pledge manager and prepping the game files for manufacturing. We just finished final revisions to the rulebooks, and everything is almost ready to go. The sooner we get everything sent off, the sooner we can deliver your games.
As backers, all you have to do for now is hold tight. You should start to see your cards charged within the next 24 hours. We'll continue to send out updates as the production process progresses. Once manufacturing is nearly complete, we'll send out surveys to collect shipping addresses and fees. You can expect that near the end of this year.
As of this morning, we have surpassed the $ 8,000 mark with over 370 backers. Thank you all for your support.
This campaign was a bit of an experiment for us. We wanted to see how Backerkit's features compare to Kickstarter, where we have run all of our previous campaigns. With that in mind, we purposefully ran this as a very low-risk campaign. No stretch goals, minimum spent on advertising. Just focusing on these two small games and learning the ropes of this platform.
You are the ones who helped us make this a success. Now, we currently have a little under a week left in the campaign. So please, if you know anyone who might be interested, please share it. While we have funded, the more money we make, the larger a print run we can afford. That will mean more options for us to continue selling the games on our website, at conventions, and possibly even in more retail stores in the future.
We’d also like to remind folks that if you back three or more campaigns in the Card Game section of Poketopia, of which we are part, you will get a freebie from each campaign that funds. So if you haven’t yet, take a look at some of the other campaigns, and spread the love.
