The Red Dragon Inn 8 - Pub Crawl!

Various Updates
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 29, 2021 at 07:31:02 PM

Hi, folks! We have a bunch of little things to report today, so here goes!

The slow movement of games around the world is proceeding in fits and starts. Product going to regional shipping partners is still on its way. Unfortunately, the US and Canadian product is still on a cargo ship, and that ship has been parked in a holding area just outside of the port of Long Beach for over a week now. We do not have an estimate of when it will actually get a berth at the port. (Those of you who are veterans of our campaigns know that unknowns like this one are precisely why we pad our estimates!)

However, since progress is...progressing, albeit slowly, we will be locking addresses in BackerKit on October 6. If you've recently moved, please change your address in BackerKit. (If you don't know how to do that, contact us at [email protected] and we can help!)

Speaking of BackerKit, there are about 50 of you out there who still haven't filled out your survey! Without that information, we can't send you your rewards! If you received an email from BackerKit about this project, and filled out the survey, then great! You're all set. If you didn't fill out your survey, or (more importantly) if you never received an email from BackerKit about this project, then please contact us at [email protected].

Who likes RDI world fiction? (We do!) We're in the midst of a six-part series of stories about how the original party members Zot, Deirdre, Gerki and Fiona met and started adventuring together. Part one went up last week, and part two was released earlier today. Check 'em out!

And last, but certainly not least, our new Kickstarter campaign launches tomorrow!

Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is a cooperative dungeon crawl adventure board game for 1-4 players. You'll work as a team to defeat the bad guys and progress to the next encounter in a 20+ scenario campaign. As you follow the epic storyline and gather more victories under your belt, each hero will unlock new abilities, and the party's shared armory of items will grow, allowing you to take on the next challenge!

If you've ever wanted to follow our heroes out of the tavern and into their actual adventuring day jobs, then this game is for you!

The campaign launches tomorrow, September 30, at noon Pacific time, and you can join us on Twitch starting at 4 PM Pacific to follow the start of the campaign and see how the game is played. We hope to see you all there!

An Update and a Preview!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 03:18:02 PM

First, a shipping update: As we mentioned in the comments, US product has now left China and is on the Pacific. European product is also starting its journey (new stuff from China, add-ons from the US). We are cautiously optimistic that we might be a little bit ahead of schedule, but there is still a LOT that can go wrong. We think it's quite unlikely that we'll deliver later than our self-imposed deadline of January. It is also fairly unlikely that we will be sending any games out before November. Thanks for your patience, and we'll keep you posted.

Next up: we're launching a new Kickstarter campaign on September 30! Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is a brand-new cooperative dungeon crawl board game, and we are very excited about it! We've been working on this project for quite a long time now, so we're stoked to finally show it off to our fans. Check out the campaign to learn more, or tune in to our Twitch channel tomorrow (9/9) at 4 PM Pacific time to see the game in action!

Finally: there was a request to update the campaign to show the final art for all those "Art in Progress" images. Kickstarter disallows any changes to a campaign after it closes, but here are all of those final arts for your scrolling pleasure. Enjoy!

Progress Report, August 16
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 02:45:00 AM

Hi, folks. As a backer pointed out in the comments, it's about time for another update. There's not too much to report beyond our last update, but a bit of progress has been made. Manufacturing is finished, which was the easy part. Now our games are in a long line of products waiting to make the journey across the ocean, along with many other products from many other companies across many industries.

We have contracted with various shipping partners to get product from China to local regions, as well as from the US to those regions (for add-ons). Those efforts are all in the early stages, but are making progress.

For the main container shipment of games to the US, we have been told that we may be able to get on a ship next week. However, given the recent issues we've had with shipping containers across the Pacific, we believe that it is quite likely that we will get pushed to a later ship (as has happened to our containers numerous times in the past 8 months or so). We will keep you posted on that.

And here's another reminder that if you haven't filled out your survey to complete your order in BackerKit, there's still time to do so! If you haven't received any messages from BackerKit linking to your survey, please contact us at [email protected].

And if you have already filled out your information in BackerKit, thank you! Remember that you can still go in to BackerKit if you need to change your address. As usual, please contact us if you have any issues with your order.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. Things are proceeding, albeit slowly.

BackerKit: Credit Cards Charged Later Today
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 12:12:06 PM

Hi again, folks. Later today, we'll be charging cards in BackerKit. If you haven't logged in to BackerKit yet to fill out your survey, now would be an excellent time to do so! If you haven't received any notification AT ALL yet from BackerKit related to this project, it means that something along the way is getting spam-filtered. Contact us at [email protected] to get that sorted out.

So, what happens when we charge cards? Well, for most of you, BackerKit will simply charge your credit card for the amount of the difference between your Kickstarter pledge and your total order (which includes shipping and add-ons, plus applicable taxes if you are in the EU or the UK and you ordered add-ons).

Some of you may get a notice from BackerKit about some kind of snag like a declined credit card. If you happen to get such a notice, don't panic! There's still plenty of time to get any issues resolved. The email from BackerKit will include instructions about how to resolve the issue (for example, by providing a different credit card number). If you have any issues with the BackerKit instructions you receive, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Speaking of "plenty of time", there's not too much to report on the manufacturing front. We will likely be on the later end of our previous manufacturing estimates, which means that we expect manufacturing to be complete around mid-July. However, serious issues continue to plague pretty much every industry that relies on ocean freight, and that includes tabletop games. We will keep you posted as we have more information, but for right now, the message is "things are about as bad as we expected, which is why the delivery dates for this project were padded more than normal".

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for your support!

Progress Report and Important Dates
about 3 years ago – Tue, May 04, 2021 at 01:33:18 AM

Hi, backers! Here's the latest on RDI 8!

TL;DR: The BackerKit add-on store will close on June 7, and credit cards will be charged for shipping and add-ons on July 1. Manufacturing is underway, but we are not yet estimating a delivery date, since ocean freight is still highly unpredictable.

Want more details? Read on!

Manufacturing: The manufacturing process has begun, and we have been told to expect color proofs sometime this week. These proofs give us one last chance to make sure that everything looks right and to fix any last-minute typos we find. And last week, we got this kick-butt prototype:

(Disclaimer: the final figure will be the same shape and size, but may be a lighter color of plastic.) For scale, that figure on the right is the Cragheart from Gloomhaven. So yeah, this thing is big and amazing, and it comes in every Collector's Edition, to use on the awesome oversize tavern cards, like these:

Timeline: There are still many question marks ahead of us, so we aren't giving strict time estimates yet. We expect manufacturing to be done somewhere between late May and mid July. After that comes getting all the games across the ocean, and that's where the timeline gets impossibly hazy. If ocean freight were operating normally, we'd say that this project was nicely ahead of schedule. But ocean freight is very much NOT operating normally right now. To give you an example, we have a reprint of RDI 4 that has been waiting to get on a ship in the Beijing area for some time. It recently got bumped again - this time by nearly a full month. So, unfortunately, while we have a good amount of confidence in our manufacturers to make the games in a reasonable amount of time, we have no visibility beyond that and are therefore not announcing anything specific.

BackerKit: We'd like to thank the many backers who have already filled out their survey in BackerKit. We'd like to also give a shout out to all the folks who decided to order the metal Coins of the World - the response to that add-on has been astounding, and we can't wait to send you these things, because they're so freakin' cool.

To the 900-ish of you who haven't gone to BackerKit yet, please remember that your order is not complete and your backer rewards cannot be sent to you until you go to BackerKit and enter your address and credit card information. You should have received email from BackerKit telling you what to do next. If you have not received such an email, please contact us at [email protected] and we can help you.

On June 7, orders will be locked and the add-on store will close. On July 1, we will charge credit cards for shipping and any other items that you may have added.

As we stated above, we don't know for sure yet exactly when games will ship. Don't worry if you're planning a move, though, because you'll be able to go in to BackerKit and change your shipping address right up until we get very close to shipping time.

As usual, if you have questions, post them here or send them to [email protected]. Thanks again for your support!