Onward, to the next step!

So there's a bunch of good news, and a tiny bit of bad news that is inherently tied to one of the bits of the good news.

First, we obtained and are nearly finished calibrating the machines.  These machines are super durable, and will likely *very* rarely require more than minimal maintenance.  This is important because of the number of tiles we intend to put out now and in the future.

The one bit of bad news: This machine's impressive durability is due to it being slow and steady, like the noble tortoise.  This means the end shipping date will be pushed back, (probably) until September.  If we manage to stick with the August date, we will have a tiny party, but we want to brace people for realistic possibilities.  We aren't happy about it, either, of course. :)  But we are more concerned with getting it done *right* than we are getting it done *fast*, and we get the sense that most of you feel the same way.

Another big advantage of this machine is that it will be able to handle future projects, like our smaller tiles that can be used for other games (keep your eyes peeled for a future blog post about that project!).

So this will save a ton of time in the future, but will cause a small delay in the short term.

Second, we have some artwork of the stickers for people to check out!  There are a few things to note about the stickers: in order for them to print properly, they have to be 3 colors (or less).  We think our resident artist has done a great job working within that constraint, and we want feedback and thoughts! Most of our stickers will be scaled to a single 1" space, but some will be obviously far larger.

The stencil seems to be in the final stages of design; go back and read earlier posts if you want to weigh in on it.

We try to answer everyone's messages as soon as we get them.  Sometimes we get backed up, though!  Don't worry if it takes us a little bit of time to get to you.  We are just trying to make sure we answer everyone's concerns! (Sometimes we get caught up, and those times are precious to us.)

For those wondering: we will be missing GenCon this year, sadly.  But we do plan on coming *next* year, with the mats, stickers, and a whole lot more. :)  Keep an eye on the blog for all the details!

We will post more pictures as they become available.  Thanks for all your patience!  We are really excited about the future, and look forward to lots of adventures.  And thanks for backing us!

Almost ready for an actually interesting update!

We've been silent for quite a while, not because anything was wrong, but because everything was going right, but it was rather boring.

But, to help allay any fears, we will go ahead and convey those boring details to you in this post, and if there are questions, we will try to edit this post to answer those questions.

Soon, though, we expect a post with some exciting details (like pictures of the machine and stuff).

1. How's that machine coming along?

Perfectly fine!  The challenge is in tweaking it to do not only the magnets for the two boards we have now, but also for smaller tiles for use in other tabletop games in the (near!) future.  This means making it capable of handling multiple magnet configurations, and for multiple sized mats.  It's not terribly complicated, but it is time consuming.

2. How is it with the timeline?

One of the reasons we haven't updated yet is because everything was on time.  And as of this writing, there are still no delays.  However, something could go crazy at any minute, and we do plan to alert people (via this blog) the moment we anticipate a delay.

3. What all have you been doing during this time?

Well, there's lawyer stuff, insurance stuff (those two take more time than we'd ever thought necessary), artwork stuff, production stuff, website stuff, distribution stuff...many, many boring paperwork-y things. Another reason we haven't really posted about that is we thought it might make people nervous to hear about such boring things.

4. How do those stickers look?

In the next few days we will make a separate post here about the stickers, and get some feedback about them.  You'll see plenty ahead of time!

We will try to answer all the questions we can on this blog.  We'll just try to answer questions in an edited post, rather than making people chase down our answers in the comments.  (So that means we won't post answers to individual comments, we will answer them here in this text.)

Hopefully this shows that we haven't fallen off the face of the planet---far from it, we're working hard to make sure that this is the first of many projects from GameNightLife!

Production Timeline

Here's the standing Production Timeline:

Here's the dates & details:

1. Recieving Backer Responses 

       (please respond before May 22 to ensure that you get the shapes & colors of tiles you want)

We are actually holding off on machine selection until we get 75% of our backers to respond to the new survey.  There's two reasons for that: 

First, we will be able to make sure we print all the colors & shapes that all our initial backers want.  We think we have a pretty good idea right now, but we want to make certain that we print everything in the right proportions.  So if you haven't filled out your survey yet, and you want to make sure you get the colors and shapes that you want, you need to fill it out as soon as you can!

Second, we will be able to more accurately select the machine that we will be using in the future.  We don't plan to make just the mats you've already seen!  Which leads into...

2. Machine Tweaking        (45 days after Recieving Backer Responses)

For those who don't know already, we are working closely with one production facility, and we will be having a new machine made for these mats, and future projects.  

One of our near-future plans is to produce smaller tiles for use in other tabletop games, but with our tiles' drawing surface, stickers, and magnetic awesomeness.    

Right now it (tentatively) looks like squares are twice (or more) as popular as hexes, for tabletop RPGs.  But we would like to make sure of that before we move forward.  And hence, step 1.

During the machine tweaking, we try to make sure that this thing will last as long as possible, and easily adjust to different shapes and sizes of mat.

3. Production        (Immediately after Machine Tweaking)

The day that Machine Tweaking stops, Production starts.

Jerry will personally be at the factory for quality assurance purposes.  He will also be getting prototypes of future projects nailed down (like terrain stickers, smaller tiles for other tabletop games, and more).  

This step will probably take about 2 weeks to a month.

4. Shipping to GameNightLife (from the factory)

       (Immediately after Production)

This boring but necessary step takes place after everything has been produced.  

Some people have asked if there's any way we can start shipping to them immediately after production starts.  

Unfortunately, no.  Jerry won't be at the factory for the entire production process, and he can't carry that many mats with him anyway.  

It would be possible, of course, since this is the real world.  But it would also significantly increase the shipping costs involved on our end, so we're planning on just getting it all in one shipment.

5. Shipping from GameNightLife (to you!)

        (Immediately after we get the stuff from the factory)

This is what you care about most, of course!  Us, too.

We are planning on shipping from us to you in August (probably the latter part of August, to be safe in our estimate).  

We are currently on schedule for that delivery date, but you never know what will happen in the meantime.  However, barring serious disaster, we should be able to ship on time. :)

We hope this was informative, and if you have questions, post a comment here!  It'll help people who have the same questions you do about this timeline.  

Chibi PSenet

Bonus: PSenet's plug!

PSenet made sure that we hit the $175,000 mark in our Kickstarter by buying a huge number of tiles.

He talked with us, and we wanted to do a small favor for him as a "thank you."  And so, he asked us to mention to everyone a completely different & not-GNL project that he cares about: Dot & Dash: The Mystery of the Red Dot

Dot & Dash:  not a game about Morse code

Not only does PSenet like this enough to back it, he cared enough about it to get involved, and is part of the creative team for the project!

It's a cute li'l game about a cat & a laser pointer.

If you're interested in checking it out, I won't try to present it any better than the creators.  But you ought to hurry if you like it too! It's in the last week of its backing.

Post-Kickstarter Survey is READY!

EDIT:  THE KICKSTARTER SURVEY GLITCHED OUT!  WE ARE DOING SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT NOW!

CLICK HERE FOR THE REPLACEMENT SURVEY!

Stencil

We are still designing the stencil.  But here's our current mockup, where there is a big chunk of space where we are trying to think of other common, useful shapes to draw.  (Shapes that are hard for most of us to make, like perfectly straight lines or squares or something.)

We considered a 1" octagon, but it REALLY looks like a circle when we try to actually use it.  We thought we'd see everyone else's ideas, but we thought the only "good" way to do the hexagon was to make it 3" and put it where we did, so you also get that nice "arrow" as well.

Here's the basic idea of what we have here:

• 8" straightedge 
• 8" arc edge (blast radius)
• Large (4") stairwell
• Small (2") stairwell
• Cone AoE blast (45 degree)
• Cone AoE blast (90 degree)
• 1" circle (huge columns, pits)
• 1" square (tables, traps, walls)
• 1" triangle
• 1/2" circle (stools, 
• 1/2" square (support beams, footstools)
• 1/2" triangle
• All of this fits nicely over a 7"x7" square tile (so it will fit nicely over any stack of tiles!)

And lots of room, still!

Of course this may suck, and may be the totally wrong direction from what you guys want. 

Be aware that this is a *mockup!*  Not a final version by any means.  We've been busy with the website as of late, but we thought we'd share our initial design thoughts.

One big list of news & updates for GameNightLife

This blog is where we will put a running progress update about everything we are doing. 

This way, there is one easily-searchable way everyone can see where we are on every project!  We'll just name the updates accordingly.  Like "Stickers!" or "GNL Mats!"  That way you can see where we are with production, shipping, &c.