Project Update: A good first turn! Let's play some more :D
It has been a little over 24 hours, and it's been a great first day for Innovation Ultimate. Over 1500 backers, $100K raised, triple our goal, and some pretty ridiculous games of Innovation that we streamed online. If you missed the streams, worry not, we'll be doing more soon!
As the card demands, I'd like to thank each and every person who's chosen to support our project here on BackerKit - you all are the reason we make games, and you're also the reason we're able to make games. We're thrilled that so many folks still enjoy a game that was built almost 15 years ago now, and one that we're very excited to upgrade.
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Project Update: Rulebook nearly done! Plus some other image previews
Let's take a look at one spread:
A PDF version of this spread is available here.
The rulebook will be 32 pages, 8.5"x11", with lots of images and examples throughout. It will contain both the rules for the base game and all its expansions. This example spread is representative of the look and feel throughout, and we're excited to share the whole document with everyone next week to read!
Special Achievements
One of the things you may notice about the image above is that achievements are now tucked horizontally under the right edge of your reference card, to show the age name and stripe at the bottom of a card back. We've redesigned the look of the special achievements as well, so that they tuck in the same fashion. One side contains the game information, the other side is a neat image with a tuckable title at the bottom. They'll stand out from standard achievements once in your pile, because they're indeed pretty special.
Decrees and Museums follow the same pattern. We're pretty happy with how they all came out!
Each of these cards also carries an expansion icon, which will make finding which achievements to put into play during setup easier.
Hope everyone has a good long weekend, or for folks who are not in the US, a good normal sized weekend. I DEMAND you eat delicious foods! If you do, draw and score a [5]!
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I bought this game for a friend (I already have the original and the Deluxe version). Since I backed this she has gotten engaged and is getting married in a month. Well, Innovation is on her wedding registry. Since I won't have the Ultimate version for her then I'd plan to lend her my original game but has hoping you had a postcard-sized promo for the Ultimate version I could include to give her some idea of what's coming. Thanks for your help.
Project Update: Quick Update: Moving / Proofs Continue
A couple notes on the process:
1) I've tried to respond to as many emails as I can, but things are wild right now because of our move (Both I and our office are moving to a new place, landlord unexpectedly decided to sell our house/office! Yuck.). I'll be offline mostly the next 3 days as all the furniture moves/internet gets transferred/cat explores new apartment. We have looked through almost all the feedback sent.
2) A few folks have been offering large quantities of writing style advice. We appreciate the enthusiasm, but we are unlikely to change the way that the game is written to fit [insert grammar/style preference here]. Sometimes cards with similar effects are written slightly different from one another for space concerns, sometimes to add extra clarity, and sometimes because it we think it sounds better.
3) Some of the cards are indeed missing, they're being worked on now. Special Achievments, Decrees, Museums, and of course the reference cards will be put together for the next wave of proofing, which will include the rulebook.
4) A couple folks shared access outside the group I'd let in, which I am disappointed in, but it is what it is. Please don't!
I'll be back up and running hopefully Monday in our shiny new place, and will have a lot more time to do Games Stuff instead of Panicked Packing Everything Up Stuff. Happy Spring, everyone!
Project Update: Proofreading
You can sign up at the form here: https://forms.gle/BcD24L1jR2s8V6hF9 - sharing will happen via Google Drive.
Please send feedback directly to me, at [email protected]. If you know me personally, you can send a discord DM.
I am personally in the midst of a move, which will be done in the next couple weeks. We're wrapping up work on files in the meantime! As they're completed, they'll be shared with proofreaders, and we'll be posting normal updates in May as things go to press.
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Hi Chris, I just want to confirm whether the shipping prices in the PM are locked in or there is a chance they can increase. Over the years, I've seen multiple crowdfunding campaigns suddenly ask their backers for extra money since they underestimated the shipping costs. I live in New Zealand which means I often get the short end of the stick when it comes to shipping. Your 12 Game Option is really enticing and the shipping costs for it is very very low ($40) which almost sounds too good to be true. Can you confirm that it will remain $40 for a case of 12 games to New Zealand since I'm a little bit skeptical haha. Looking forward to hearing your response!
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This might be a weird request, but I would definitely buy an extra set of the base edition cards for Innovation Ultimate if it was offered in the Pledge Manager. Here's my reasoning: to me (and most people, according to BGG polls), Innovation's mainly a 2 player game. The decisions are pretty involved, and there are so many possibilities to choose from mean that, outside of 2 players, games can be very long. But as you've said in a previous post, for most games, it will be played with just the base game + 1 expansion. So it would be nice to be able to play 2 simultaneous games of the game by using 2 base sets and 2 different expansions. I would definitely buy it. I think it wouldn't need to come inside more than a cheap tuckbox outside of the main box. But if it was able to fit inside the ultimate edition box, it would be awesome too
Project Update: Happy April! Pledge Manager and Pre-orders are LIVE
Pre-orders are also available for anyone who missed the campaign, at https://innovation-ultimate.backerkit.com/.
Note: Our last update has more images of the updated art and graphic design on the cards, if you missed it! (Double note: Due to a small bug, you need to reload the page once you go to the update, to get it to load)
You should receive an email from BackerKit shortly with a link to complete the Pledge Manager. In there, you can add copies, change your tier, enter your address, and put in your payment info to pay for shipping / any add-ons you've purchased. The add-ons are very simple! You can add on additional copies of Innovation Ultimate for $69, or case-quantities of 12 for $540.
Retail Level Note: If you are a store and need to be exempt from sales taxes, that is a manual process and you'll need to contact me with details after you put in your order. Don't worry, we won't run any credit cards for a while yet, so you've got plenty of time to contact.
We were able to keep shipping costs close to our estimates, but they are generally a couple dollars higher than our guesses last year. We will be shipping from hubs in China, France, the UK, USA, and Canada. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Schedule: We're almost done laying everything out, and will be sharing proofreading versions of the game soon. We spent the last couple weeks doing rulebook tidying up along with a large wording consistency pass across all five sets. Turns out when you make cards over a decade and a half, your use of language evolves over time!
We anticipate the game shipping to backers and pre-orderees early this Fall. We'll have production samples at Gen Con and will be running many demos there, but its quite unlikely it'll be available that quickly.
Happy April everyone and thanks for being part of bringing Innovation Ultimate to life! The large response from backers is what's allowed us to invest so much effort in the art and playtesting that we've done over the past months, and we can't express our gratitude enough.
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I just saw a preorder go up on my usual boardgame store, that listed the game at (after currency conversion), around 92 USD. I paid 69 USD for the pledge + 23 USD for shipping (to Denmark) + 23 USD for VAT = 115 USD. Feels bad man. I should have waited for retail.
We'll be doing a full update Monday when we send all the surveys out.
Shipping costs are a couple dollars more than our estimates, but we were able to keep reasonably close to our guesses for most regions! Unfortunately courier cost increases have been rough the past year or so.
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Three/four months ago, delay of few months was announced from spring delivery to summer. Three/months later, another delay of three months from summer to autumn. What happened? Update almost hides this sneaky quarter delay.
