Fair winds and following seas, Captains. A short one this time. It's only been a few short weeks since our last update, but we promised you one for September, so here it is!

We had a live stream with Micah playing Creatures of the Deep (Mariana Swarm) and Nick on the Azteca. We played fast and loose and got THWOMPED pretty hard, but we had a good time. Thanks to everyone who joined!

If you missed it: Live Stream

We're still very active with LongPack and believe we've wrapped up all design. Since our last update, some other folks in the industry have reached out to discuss our experience, and I'm happy to say those discussions have been positive. They've increased our confidence, but we'll remain vigilant.

We have a production schedule estimate we were given in the backer-only portion for those that are interested.

We're expecting LongPack's next update before tomorrow. (Tried to wait but I'm gonna hit that deadline, darn it!) If we get news, we'll send out as an addendum.

We're thinking about solo mode for the next stream since we've never streamed it. The other option is starting from Act II so you can see the Pirate Lords and how the mid-game start works. Please vote below!

May the winds of manufacturing fill our sales and push us forward!
-Nick and Micah

We'll be streaming the Tabletopia version of the game at 3:00PM eastern.

Nick and Micah play Red Tides and talk about stuff as requested by y'all:

-What the heck happened with the manufacturer?
-Gameplay
-Strategy
-Behind the scenes

https://youtube.com/live/sc4BYdY7Hug?feature=share

Hey @everyone,

Quick manufacturing update, plus a live stream date.

Manufacturing is taking longer than we expected. Our manufacturer has gone through a restructuring after being acquired, and that has slowed our project down considerably. We are working through it with them now and we have the full details in the backer update below.

In the meantime, we are going live on September 27th at 3:00pm Eastern. Come watch us play, ask questions, and get a look at where things stand.

Fair winds and following seas, Captains.

-Nick and Micah

Fair winds and following seas, Captains!

We've got news on the fulfillment side, plus a few updates on where things stand.

Thanks to everyone who filled out their fulfillment surveys! Red Tides is heading to 28 different countries around the world! We've got backers scattered across the globe, and we're working diligently with our partners at Hive for our global fulfillment plan (I feel like that's the most "business-y" thing I've ever said).

Here's the shape of our fleet:

United States: 78%

EU (across 17 member states): 8.5%

Canada: 6%

United Kingdom: 3%

Australia: 3%

Rest of world (New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Mexico, Korea, China, Indonesia): 1.5%

That's a lot of coastlines (let's imagine Switzerland's borders are shores) to reach, and Hive is going to help us get this game into hands no matter where those hands are. For a small outfit like ours, it's a challenge to move the game around the world, but there are some cool ways to make it work, like consolidated freight. That lets a bunch of us smaller publishers act like we're a big publisher, filling up whole containers on ships instead of paying for fractions.

Everyone warned us that the process to get everything just right takes a while, but it's still a shock how many little details there are in the manufacturing process. For our two person team, it's taking time we didn't plan for. All 11 items from the campaign are 98%-99% done. What's left is final items like regional safety approvals, nothing actually about the games and products themselves.

We're also still tweaking a few manufacturing niggles. Nothing dramatic, just the last round of small adjustments before everything starts printing en mass and not the one-off production samples.

For those who want to play sooner rather than later, there's an "unofficial, definitely not supported" version of Red Tides live on Tabletopia. Details are in Discord if you want to give it a spin.

https://discord.gg/2pPfMNsY2s

Here's our mega disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This DOES NOT meet our expectation of the quality of thing we want to put out in the world. However, we are choosing sharing over perfection because we need to stop fiddling and just get going!

If you want to check it out, feel free to use at your own risk. :slight_smile:

As much as we're hedging, we have had good feedback so far: "I ran a game with a friend completely brand new to both Tabletopia and Red Tides last night and the reviews for the game were definitely positive."

Micah and I are at GenCon in for a couple of days. No booth until we have games in hand (omg, please soon). We're going to use the Con to meet with all our partners face to face. If you're at GenCon and spot us, come say hello. If you want to see the prototype that we launched, we'll have 2 copies to paw through. Maybe we can even play?! Reach out on Discord if you want to connect!

Why do we keep pushing Discord? Honestly, it's just the best place to have conversations. There's no "engagement strategy" or marketing thing that makes it the place to go. It's just a place we fully control and a lot of fans of the game wanted it. Also, we won't be on Backerkit forever.

https://discord.gg/2pPfMNsY2s

We know some folks really don't want to have to go there. That's okay. While we almost certainly won't be as responsive, you can always email us at [email protected].

Nick and Micah

Fair winds and following seas yet again!

The deadline for any Late Pledges is tomorrow, June 19th. There's a little note about the card charges in the Backer Only section below. 

We'll be back with updates soon with real updates.

-Nick and Micah, Tortugas Games