Hello Grand Festival Backers!

Price here. Today we’ve got….RPG & MINIATURE PROTOTYPES AND WHITE BOX SAMPLES!

Let’s jump in.

 

Arriving this week from Panda is a white box sample and prototype of the Gloomhaven: RPG Deluxe Box set. Please note: This is not the final design. Changes are still being made, physical testing is still underway, and final design must first meet our strict quality and usability requirements before we approve and put into mass production.

-It’s really real! Panda did a great job bringing our rendered-only vision to physical life, and this is one of the most important steps before we make final design decisions.

-Card Tomes: We didn’t know how feasible this concept would be, and Panda tackled it head-on. Our original pitch was something like “Clamshell card insert, reminiscent of Disney VHS cases.” The tome feels both thematic and sturdy. 

-Elemental Bookmarks: These look and feel great! They’ve got good weight and size, and we can’t wait to see them in their full-color majesty.

-Storage Vault: We successfully ran tests storing a myriad of Gloomhaven board game components, map tiles, and accessories we can see GM’s using for their RPG sessions. 

-The Core Book: This is our first time seeing/holding the book in person…and MAN…is this thing thick! The final book will of course not only have full color, but embossed title treatment, foiled cover detailing, and two ribbons (red and gold). 

-Kallax Compatible: So far, we’re still Kallax (shelf) compatible! 

-Card Sleeve Compatible: Every tuckbox has been designed to fit sleeved cards and decks! The only exception is the “Ancestry Deck” which only holds non-used cards until you are ready to build them into your character’s “Ability Deck” tuckbox. That tuckbox does have room.

The Meh:
-Missing Shelf: The factory unfortunately overlooked one of our requirements in this first prototype attempt: a dedicated drawer for accessories such as the GM screen, character sheet pad, and mercenary company sheet pad. We’ve already informed them of this oversight and are correcting it in our next iteration. 

-Open Back: The factory included a lid that folds all the way off the reverse side, revealing a back with holes for which they intended the card tomes and books to be pushed out of the shelves. This was counter to our requirements and original design request. We’d hoped to explore other options first and will be continuing to work with them to perfect the best way to remove components from the shelves without difficulty; including finger cutouts, ribbons, and/or inset shelves to support removal from the box’s front side. We’ll report back!

-Card Tome Lids: The factory took a stab at designing an innovative plastic lid that could service both sides of the card tome sides at once. While a neat design, it gives us concern. Our original intent was to have one lid per side. Since the tuckboxes rest in wells, and cover the smaller perk deck wells underneath, this approach means you run a higher risk of multiple components falling out upon opening. We’d very much like to avoid that. They’ve taken our feedback and are going to return to our original request on the next iteration. 

-Book Size: The sample we got of the Core Rulebook was slightly larger (taller & wider) than our specifications for the designed/layed out the book, so we’ll be correcting this on the next sample.

We’ve finally received white box samples for Forgotten Circles and Jaws of the Lion Miniature Sets, including production miniature samples, trays, lids, and base rings.

Let’s take a look:
(featuring my corgi, Max, drinking water in the background)

 

Miniatures Next Steps:

With these first two miniature boxes approved, we are confidently continuing work on packaging design and layout for FORGOTTEN CIRCLES & JAWS OF THE LION. Design and layout choices here will directly flow into the other remaining box sets. According to our factory partner tray samples for GLOOMHAVEN SUMMONS and FROSTHAVEN SUMMONS should be wrapping up this week so we're expecting those to be the next two sets ready to share with you. 

We're also continuing to check in multiple times per week to make sure mold completion is progressing without delay and are asking for their assistance dialing in ETA's for mass production. Below is our updated Progress Tracker. Once we have all molds confirmed as approved all products in the "Mass Production" phase will be able to move forward together.

With the release of the third and final major content update for Frosthaven Digital before it leaves early access later this year, I thought it appropriate to give a shout-out to Youtuber High_on_Hopeium, who has been posting videos of his playthrough of Frosthaven Digital since it entered early access last year. He just posted his 50th video this week, which is some serious dedication. We wish him the best of luck as he works towards finishing the entire campaign.

And that will do it for this month. A big thank you to our whole Cephalofair team for their collaborative eyes and hands on these samples helping ensure all requirements are met and findings are found.

And thank YOU for reading and sharing your thoughts! We look forward to sharing with you more progress and updates next month.

Good day! It’s the first Tuesday of the month, and I am excited to bring you our progress on the miniature and RPG waves. It has been a flurry of activity with lots of communication back and forth with the factories on both fronts, as we work out pre-production issues and finalize the sculpts. Below, you’ll find the usual updates on both projects.

Hey Backers, Price here with this month’s Miniatures of Gloomhaven update!

Thank you all for your patience last month as our production team was in Kentucky meeting with our manufacturing partners, aligning in-person over this year’s projects, and making sure no production stones were left unturned. Being a fully remote company, it is really important to occasionally work face-to-face and power through outstanding creative direction.

On the miniatures side, I’m excited to share that meaningful progress has and is currently underway across ALL miniature sets.

ALL MODELS ARE MODIFIED & APPROVED FOR PRODUCTION!

We completed our final round of approvals for digital modification, which means Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Summons, Frosthaven, & Frosthaven: Summons are all officially entering steel mold production. 

JAWS OF THE LION & FORGOTTEN CIRCLES MOLDS ARE COMPLETE!
I’ve excitedly gotten confirmation that steel molds are complete for both of these upgrade sets and mold-testing copies will be sent to us next week along with “white-box” samples (packaging and tray samples without artwork).

BOXES & BASE RINGS
With these production samples underway, we are now confidently starting on final packaging direction, copy writing, and tray map reference sheets. It’s a fun endeavor that makes us feel a little bit like chocolatiers figuring out which delicious morsels go next to which and how you identify them. Equally important, that you know where they fit back into their packaging when you’re done!

With final modified files on all models, we’re re-exporting 3D renders of each for production-accurate representations on the packaging and reference map sheets. 

Each miniature will have a reference number under them that indicates which Miniature Upgrade Set they belong to (see image below). These will be cross referenced inside each set with a visual reference map (like the sheet that tells you which chocolate is which inside a box of chocolate) to make setup and teardown easier for players. 

We’ve also confirmed final base ring counts you’ll get with each product, based on campaign-specific scenario requirements, monster group quantities, etc. 

With each campaign upgrade set, will include the optimal number of numbered base ring (#1-6, #1-10) in the appropriate colors (white = basic; yellow = elite) to accurately track miniatures to their respective monster stat cards and HP trackers. 

They are as follows for those interested:

Gloomhaven Miniatures

White: 4 sets of #1-6; 2 sets of #1-10

Yellow: 4 sets of #1-6; 2 sets of #1-10

Red: 1 set of #1-2

Blue: 4 sets of #1-2, 1 set of #1-3, 5 unnumbered

White: 2 Sets of #1-6; Yellow: 2 Sets of #1-6

Red: 2 unnumbered

Blue: 1 set of #1-2, 2 unnumbered

White: 1 set of #1-6; 3 sets #1-10

Yellow: 1 set of #1-6; 3 sets #1-10

Red: 2 unnumbered

White: 4 Sets of #1-6; 2 Sets pf #1-10

Yellow: 4 Sets of #1-6; 2 Sets of #1-10

Red: 1 set of #1-2

Blue: 1 set of #1-2, 1 set of #1-6, 8 unnumbered

We anticipate a lot of continued progress this month and look forward to sharing next steps with you in the month ahead!

Moving on to RPG efforts, we are working out some production elements of the deluxe box with the factory and organizing everything to begin sending over our files for all the various elements of the project. The main thing we wanted to share with you this month, though, was our final cover art for the book, illustrated by Phan Tuấn Đạt and designed by Arch Anderson, using filagree designed by Francesca Baerald.

Our original vision for the core rulebook called for a standard-issue full-color cover and an upgraded deluxe version with premium detail treatments. After some discussion with our manufacturing partners, we are pleased to share that the deluxe cover will be sent out to all backers who ordered a physical book at any tier.

As we take our final steps toward sending the book to print, we wanted to share some more spreads featuring the full art treatment. Our graphic design and art teams have been working hard to make sure that this book is visually stunning.

An extra-wide illustration by Kendal Gates welcomes readers into a fracas in the streets—but for these mercs, it was Tuesday.

Throughout the production of our games, we have gathered a whole lot of amazing illustrations of cool items you may encounter on your adventures. This book has given that artwork a chance to escape the confines of their mini euro cards. Classic artwork by Alexandr Elichev, Mates Laurentiu, and Yanis Cardin are worked in throughout the book, showing greater detail than their previous published appearances.

One of the things we’re most excited about with this system is the ability to mix and match ancestries and classes for a more customized mercenary. The first pages for each class and ancestry have been given special attention by our design team to encompass all the basics on one spread. Like many of the book’s key art illustrations, Jocelyn Sarvida’s valrath silent knife illustration gives us a glimpse of an individual from the world of Gloomhaven we’ve not seen before. 

We know that many of you are eagerly awaiting shipping timelines and the re-opening of our pledge manager. We remain committed to providing that information as soon as we are able. 

We’re excited to be moving forward with our next step toward full-scale production. The prepress process is underway. This means we’re starting to share production files with our manufacturing partners for final review and collaboration on any adjustments necessary to ensure high-quality production. This is the first of many waves of file submission, review, and revision, and represents our moving into another key phase of the process.

Alright, I’ve got a bit of a weird one for you this month. We at Cephalofair Games aren’t huge fans of April Fools’. In fact, I almost went through the entirety of last Wednesday not realizing it was happening, which is really an ideal situation for me. But then I ran across this April Fools’ post that made me appreciate what the day could be: an opportunity to create high-effort nonsense.

This comes from Redditor IAmPolarExpress, who decided to post an ASMR video of two Gloomhaven mercenaries becoming more than friends. It may not be for everybody, but I appreciated it. The content is all SFW, but it does feature heavy use of the words “dumb” and “idiot,” which may offend some. Looking forward to the next one where your vermling boyfriend brings home a gift for your anniversary!

And that will do it for this month. Have a great rest of the month, and we’ll catch you next time with even more progress on getting these two projects across the finish line!

Good day! I hope you are all doing well. We are in for a bit of a shorter update this month, as expected, with both our RPG and Miniature factories just now returning from the Lunar New Year break,  We have re-engaged with both factories this week and will briefly summarize below the current and next steps!

We’ve just heard back from our Miniature factory that they have returned to office and are eager to pick up where we left off! Price and our production team are actually currently in Kentucky attending GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association) and met with our factory team to align on next steps and set expectations that mold production is kicking off to high gear ASAP. Good conversations were had and clear goals set for packaging, production, and our intended involvement in quality assurance. We really look forward to providing you insights, photos, and video of the mass production process once it’s formally underway.

Our internal production team has been spending the entirety of this Lunar New Year window making sure all final efforts on the RPG book are accounted for and underway for a quick kick-off with our factory. As mentioned above, Price (& Arch, & Layne) flew out early to Kentucky for a full week of in-person co-working and collaboration on the project to make sure that continued conversations with our manufacturers will be productive and effective.

Tomorrow, they have a scheduled meeting with our factory to make sure all formalities are out of the way, contracts are signed, deposits are made, and pre-press is ready to begin.

Barring any emergencies, we anticipate this is the month we will finally begin pre-press and begin reviewing/approving digital proofs!

One of the fun last steps of the project this window has allowed us time to finalize direction for our own deck of Gloomhaven playing cards! These will not only serve as a fully functional set of playing cards, but include beautiful artwork from Alexander Eilichev & Dat Phan, as well as optional graphical elements that will support Gloomhaven: RPG gameplay should you choose to use them instead of the Deluxe Card Set. (Although, ANY standard deck of 52 cards + Jokers will work!)

This deck of Gloomhaven: Playing cards will be available both with the RPG pledge manager and later on www.cephalofair.com.

This month I am giving a huge shout-out to Youtuber UcGXanathos21, who posts videos of him playing Frosthaven and Gloomhaven digital at very hard difficulty. Most impressive to me is his recent video with the world record speedrun for completing Gloomhaven Digital on +2 difficulty. You know how it took you and your group over a year to play through Gloomhaven? This guy did it in an hour and 21 minutes, and, just to reiterate, he did it on +2 difficulty.

I know how much time and dedication goes into perfecting a speed run—way, way, way more than what you see in the actual video—so stuff like this completely blows me away. If nothing else, at least watch the first two scenarios (or the Slave Pens at 1:07:15, which is just wild) and marvel at the expertise.

And that is the update for you. Like I said, we’ll have much more for you next  month once we get into molding on the miniatures and proofing on the RPG. Catch you then!

Good day! I hope you’ve had a good month, because we’ve been hard at work moving this project closer to completion! We don’t have any big updates or reveals for you this time around, but are happy to share our usual progress reports on where things are.

Let’s get to it!

On the miniatures front, we saw completion of Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Summons pre-production steps, pushing those SKUs into mold ready status! Only a few models remain on the Frosthaven & Frosthaven: Summons front, but the required revisions are known and in progress with our factory so we anticipate completion there any day now.

As our factory heads into their Lunar New Year break, we have been taking parallel steps with them to make sure we're set up for success to officially begin/continue molding across all SKUs on their return.

One of these necessary steps was the production of white wax samples of every miniature in their full quantities (I.e. groups of x4, x6, x10, etc) for the physical layout configuration of the vac trays in which these models will be packaged.

Another step has been auditing our final production quantities, product dimensions, and mold counts to validate our final production costs on the complete project. While we worked closely with our factory to price these products back at their inception, several variables are dependent on us reaching this final phase were we know the final parts-per-model, molds per projects, packaging dimensions, tray+lid quantities, etc. (This doesn't impact the price tag applied to this project, but has impacts on final retail and distribution pricing.)

We recognize this project has taken significantly more time than intended and estimated, and that a timeline for delivery is something we owe our backers, and we intend to shore up our final production timelines upon their return from their Lunar New Year break. There have been multiple surprises and lessons learned along the way, and challenges working with a new-to-us manufacturer and their workflow requirements, and for all the above we take full ownership.

Given the scale of this project, and the number of multi-piece models that will require sub-assembly, there are still a few too many variables in front of us to calculate our tentative fulfillment window, but we feel confident we're close to doing that with our factory partner and are putting pressure on them to help us make those commitments.

Things continue to move along at a good pace on the RPG. At this point, we are out of the trenches on page-to-page tinkering on the book. We’ve implemented all changes from the latest editing pass and are finishing up the final art integration, which was a gigantic lift from Arch. By the end of the week we will begin finalizing all page referencing efforts, which includes the table of contents and index.

We have also been finishing up graphic design on all other outstanding components of the deluxe box, such as the box itself, character sheets, and modifier cards.

All in all, if everything goes well getting the final quote from the manufacturer, we are still on track to start proofing and production on the other side of the Lunar New Year, which is very exciting. Once we can get into that, we can start getting you more concrete timeline information on the pledge manager opening and fulfillment windows.

This month I wanted to give a shout-out to Reddit user mremm3000 for their truly amazing MagHex scenario builds. I can’t imagine the work that goes into printing, painting, and assembling all of these layouts, but as they say in their post, the hobby “easily becomes a never-ending story.” I wish them all the good will in their continued endeavors, and know that we are all very impressed!

And that’s what we have for February. Have a great month, and we’ll catch you again in March!