Hello! Hope you all had a happy holidays! :) Underleaf is long overdue for an update - thanks for sticking with me everyone. Board game manufacturing is a new thing for me and I am learning lots, haha. 

In early December I jumped on an opportunity to move Frog Tree (and me) into a larger space but needed to make sure Black Friday/Christmas orders went out first before I could start packing as well as take some time off to spend with family over the Holidays. This is super exciting but has taken up a lot of time.  
This combined with the slow progress and back-and-forth communication with the factory I have committed to continues to drag things along. Particularly with safety testing and certification processes - this is very new to me as an artist.

Some good news though - I have partnered with a US fulfillment warehouse for my pin club and plan on using them for this project to. This should bring down US shipping fees quite a bit as well as speed up shipping when the time comes. 

All that to say, things are getting there and I'm very grateful for your patience and support as I figure things out. Laura

Here's some photos of the box proof!! 

Hello everyone - I figured I owed you another update! Unfortunately there isn't much big news. :<
TLDR: Last update I said I was expecting copies before the end of the year, and I think that's still true but shipping will get pushed until after the New Year.
It seems like a lot of little things keep pushing back shipping the whole sample by a week or two and it's really adding up. I finally got photos of the cards a while back and they needed to be resubmitted, reproofed and reprinted with the new files - takes time unfortunately! I am expecting more photos of the wooden tokens, rulebook and the box next week! These aren't the best photos, haha but here they are!

US Shipping
On this front I have made some progress and am shipping US orders out with relative ease! I'm hoping things keep stable!!

Thanks so much for all your patience!! I really appreciate it. 
Laura

Hello!! Thanks so much for your patience - Underleaf is long overdue an update! Thanks to everyone for filling out the surveys!

TLDR: Progress is ongoing but slowed down a bit following some hiccups with the manufacturer. Copies are expected before the end of the year. (Depending on how tariffs play out.)
Through Frog Tree I've had the chance to work with a lot of different kinds of manufacturers for a lot of different kinds of products. Tabletop games however are new and I didn't have the experience or relationship with a factory to follow through on a very speedy production. Before I launched Underleaf I collected a handful of quotes and ended up placing a deposit on mass production before I was ready with the files - committing to this one factory. Since then I've been bounced between factory reps - literally four or five people now and communication has been slow. I've raised this issue with them and been connected with someone who's been very responsive and progress right now is progressing. It's very important to me to get the samples perfect before mass production. It hasn't helped that I've been going full throttle on conventions and events over the summer to supplement lost online income from the tariff madness.
So I apologize for the delay and for the delay in updating you all! All of the add-on merch has been designed and sampled - some of it ordered so when the games are ready that won't hold me back!

US Shipping
Again, it's hard for me to comment on this right now but I am looking more at hiring a US fulfillment warehouse if tariffs/de minimis charges aren't reasonable when I'm ready to ship out. 

I'll share a video showing off the sample when I receive it! Shouldn't be too much longer.

Thank you all again, I am so grateful for your support. 
Laura

Hi! Quick update: I mentioned previously that surveys would be coming this week but I'm going to push that to next week.
There's a beta Backerkit feature that might let me postpone making a decision on the shipping fees while still getting surveys out for item counts for manufacturing. This would be useful for my American backers, given all the madness described in update 2.1.

I'll need a bit of time to see if this will work for Underleaf, how it will work for me for fulfillment and how it will work for you as a backer! If it's straightforward I'll likely go ahead with that, either way I'll update you all next week! 

Have a good weekend! Laura

I want to start off this update with a huge thank you!! We were not only able to make a board game, but unlock all the stretch goals and fund all the add-ons!! I'm sincerely grateful for not only your support but your trust in me as a creator to bring Underleaf to life.

We also achieved the community goal of 500 backers on the last day which means every game pledge will include a nice art print of the box art! ♥

Backerkit Surveys
Surveys are on schedule for being sent out late this week! :)

US Tariffs
Okay so whether you're from the art community or the board game community I am sure you have heard about all of the turbulence for businesses regarding tariffs - specifically on Chinese manufactured goods. Even in the last few days tariffs have gone from 20% to 54% to now potentially over 100%, it's super unstable right now.

The good news is that I should be able to proceed with production and shipping to me without any extra costs as I am based in Canada. The extra charges would occur for me when I try to ship over the Canadian/US border. It's too soon to say exactly how things will play out but there are a few possibilities:

1) If things settle down, I can wait it out and ship American pledges during a pause or following removal of the tariffs. I handle all fulfillment in house (literally) so I can be fairly quick to get these out at the right time. I am prepared to wait it out a bit, and I expect American backers would prefer to wait and see before looking at extra charges.
2) If things don't resolve, or don't appear to be likely to resolve soon, then I'd have to look at adding an extra charge on shipping for American backers. It doesn't make sense to speculate on these numbers right now but I would prefer to split the tariff fees with you vs. pushing them all onto you. Especially as Underleaf is a smaller game and the charges shouldn't be massive. 

I want to wrap up production and fulfillment in a timely manner of course, but I want to avoid rushing into anything that incurs huge extra costs for both you and me.

Production Timeline
Getting all of the artwork and design files together has proven to be a bit too much to do while actively running the campaign (and speed-fulfilling my previous campaign ahead of tariffs) so production will likely be pushed into May but should be wrapped up by the end of Summer like I listed on the campaign page. The manufacturing process also includes approving a final sample so as soon as that arrives I'll probably make a video or at least an update to share that with you! : )

Thank you all so much again and have a great rest of your week!
Laura