More Shipping Info, More Monstrum, New Pictures, and Gen Con Info!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 03:39:40 AM

Hi friends!

I hope you've been having a great couple of weeks! 

I intended to have this update out to you all last week, but work on Dawn of Madness kind of eclipsed my world and left everything else by the wayside. Sorry about that. I'll try to make it up to you today. Last update I showed you some pictures of the prototype Monstrum, but I promised we'd have pictures of the final thing coming soon. Well, they're here! Along with a video! We also have some more news about shipping, some pictures of the new finalized minis, more videos, as well as some fun stuff about what's coming up at Gen Con! This might be one of those mega updates, so I'll put the part many of you are likely most interested in right up front. Then you may descend deeper into the madness if you so choose - but do so at your own risk.

Shipping News

The first of the ships bound for the US should have already departed (I haven't heard this for sure, but according to the timetable it should be pretty close at least), while the first ship bound for the EU (the CMA CGM AQUILA 0KN2ZW1PL) should head out of port on the 24th (Yeah. Tomorrow.) and arrive in Le Havre on August 16th. For our Australian/New Zealander friends, the plan currently is to pack the Australian orders before shipping them, while everyone else's will need to be assembled when they arrive at their destination port. Because of this, their ship will be a bit later than everyone else's, but there shouldn't be any real major discrepancy between those deliveries and the rest of the world's. Now, just as a reminder, we will also need to book a second boat for both the US and EU. I haven't heard specifically about the second boats yet, but they should be closer to the end of this month. Which means that it's looking more and more certain that shipping will start in September. There have been four containers loaded thus far (two to the US and two to the EU.) Here's a couple of pictures of the containers:

Now, for those not in the EU, North America, or Australia, we will ship your pledges directly to you from China via airmail. This is about the fastest method we could find to get you your pledges (much faster than the first campaign where most outliers went to the EU first and then were shipped out to the rest of the world from there.) Canadian orders will be included in the shipments to North America, but for those who were in our first campaign, don't fear. We anticipate things to run much smoother this time than last time.  I'll let you know more as soon as we have news to share. 

Monstrum Boxes

I promised you more Monstrum, and we have it in spades! To the pictures!

The number one comment I received after the last update was asking what the bottom of each tray was like. I had actually anticipated this question and had a picture of that all ready to go, but at the last moment I heard that the bottom material may have changed and so had held off on that. Well, I can now confirm that we went with a really tough, resilient foam that hardly bends at all when held in one hand. The factory gave us several options, with a couple of cheaper ones and then the expensive one. We went with the expensive one. 

I hope you're happy with the choices made on Monstrum, and that this makes you even more excited to get yours!

More Pictures!

But those aren't the only pictures we have for you today! No indeed! We have finalized copies of a bunch of the new stuff, including Faces of the Sphere and the Chang Yuan art book! Here we go!

Gen Con

As some of you may be aware, a little shindig called Gen Con will be starting next week! (Which, honestly, I find terrifying. There is still a ton to get done in the next week. =D) We have so much awesome stuff planned for Gen Con, and we really hope you'll be able to stop by and say hi to us. We will be at booth 2149 this year (we're finally not shoved in the literal farthest corner by the bathrooms! Maybe this means we're moving up in the world!) We're right next door to Funko and just North of the Family Fun Pavilion, which sounds like the perfect location for us in all honesty.

All kidding aside, we would absolutely love for you to stop by and see us. I (Byron) will be there, and so will Roger, our lead game designer, creative director, CEO, and fearless leader. (We wear a lot of hats at Diemension. =D) We will also be joined by some of our closest friends and family who we somehow bribed into helping us for another year.  But what all do we have planned? I'm glad you asked that! Tell them what we have for them, Johnny!

Deep Madness

We will have bunches of Deep Madness stuff on display, including many of the new products from this campaign. We will only be selling a few small DM accessories (such as 3D doors and dice bags) at the show, though, because we wanted to make sure you guys got the big stuff first. (We will offer sign-ups for people who missed this campaign and may want a late pledge of the game, but these quantities will be very limited.) What we will have, though, is DM swag! We have a pin and two art prints available, all limited to 100 pieces each. These aren't currently planned to be sold anywhere but Gen Con (though if demand is high enough, who knows?), so be sure to stop by first thing if you're interested. 

Dawn of Madness

We know a lot of you are really interested in learning more about DoM's gameplay, and at Gen Con we are going to deliver! We have prepared a sample/prototype of DoM (including a 25,000-word storybook, which is approximately 1/10 of the total content that will be in the final game - yes, you did read that right. There will be approximately 8 books of content in the final game, if all goes well in the campaign.) The components are not finalized or complete, but we think you will still be able to get a really good feeling of DoM's gameplay, as well as experience what horror can actually be like in a board game. (I am honestly really looking forward to scaring the crap out of at least a couple of people at Gen Con... I mean, not literally, but...)

Not able to make it to Gen Con? No worries. We won't leave you out. I'll be uploading a bunch of pictures and videos to various locations on the interwebs, so you'll get your dose of DoM, too. Be sure to keep an eye on our Facebook page and the Deep Madness Universe group. (I'm even going to do a couple of videos with Roger going over the gameplay and his creative process in designing the game. Shh, don't tell him, though. He doesn't know yet.) 

Also, if you're a fan of DoM's art, we will have a pin, a T-shirt, and four art prints available for you.

Celestial

So, some of you are also probably aware that we are developing another project: a small-scale, low-key little project called Celestial. JK. The only words that can be safely used to describe Celestial are EPIC and MASSIVE. I mean, the average size of the minis are Epic Monsters or bigger in Deep Madness, and that's just the normal figures. (For those who backed Deep Madness, the Lei mini you received is one of the smallest minis in the game. Maybe the smallest.) I often describe Celestial as Game of Thrones meets Lovecraft meets cyberpunk meets Chinese mythology, and that kind of sums it up. Sort of. 

While DoM took up a majority of our time leading up to Gen Con, we have made some really good progress on Celestial, too. This year we'll have a visual feast for you with nearly 50 gorgeously painted models on display. We'll also have a partial demo, though it will unfortunately not be fully functional. Still, you'll get at least a taste of Celestial's gameplay. (This assumes, of course, that I can finish the giant 3D game board in time. As I said, we wear many hats at DG. =D)

We will also still have the Celestial Genesis resin miniatures for sale at the Con, at some sweet, sweet Con prices. We'll also have art posters and a T-shirt available. What's more, if you buy a resin mini you'll get a free art poster, and if you buy three or more then you'll get a free T-shirt! Score!

Twisted Fables

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. Did I just unveil a THIRD game that we're working on?! 

Why, yes. Yes I did. (Mic drop.)

And what's more, this one will be fully playable. 

Twisted Fables is very, very different from the other games mentioned thus far. It is not a plastic-fest: it is, instead, a 1v1 or 2v2 brawling deck-builder. Players fight on a horizontal game mat, building their asymmetric decks with the fairy tale heroines of lore (always assuming, of course, that said heroines lived in a multiverse that collided, unleashing wildly different versions of each character from the ones you're familiar with.)  So will you be Red Riding Hood, the cybernetic sniper assassin? Or will you be the decidedly dark, poisonous Snow White? (Apparently she ended up taking after her step-mom in her adult years.) Regardless, the winner may just be able to win a gift at Gen Con. 

Anyway, that's what we have planned for Gen Con.

So how about that? Information overload yet? (Or did that set in at about the halfway point?)

You will probably be relieved to know that that's all I have for this update. For those of you going to Gen Con, I can't wait to meet you in person. (Or see you again, as the case may be.) I hope you have a good week or two, and we will talk to you again soon!

Updates and Pictures and Shipping, Oh My!
almost 7 years ago – Tue, Jul 02, 2019 at 03:23:33 AM

Hey all! I hope you've had a great week!

Last week we had the first half of my promised update, which focused mainly on Dawn of Madness. This time, though, we will regale you with the promised Deep Madness news!

First of all, we have some fantastic news for our US backers! THE DREADED US TARIFFS HAVE BEEN DROPPED! (We can now all breath a collective sigh of relief.) At least for the present time, the tariffs that would have added what was essentially a 25% manufacturing tax have been tabled, meaning that we can all stop worrying about it. Woohoo!  With that out of the way, let's get onto some pictures!

The Latest Trip to the Factories

Our team took a trip out to our factories this last week to check in on the progress, focusing especially on the reprint items. Here are some of the awesome things they saw: 

The punchboards and room tiles are all ready, and are being flattened until the assembly.  

All the cards are being shrink wrapped before final assembly begins.

The dice are being stored in plastic bags. 

The reprinted miniatures have all been placed in their plastic trays and are now being stored in boxes.

Now, we also got a couple up-close looks at some of the new stuff! Below you will find pictures of the new Another Dawn dice from The Faces of the Sphere, as well as a sneak peek at the almost finished Omega Ravenous! (Epic Ravenous's final name, by the by.) Note: this still isn't the completely finalized Omega Ravenous, but we're getting close on it. We'll be receiving more stuff in the coming weeks, and we'll be sure to show it to you when we do. 

Monstrum Prototype Pictures

You guys have been so patient for this, which we really appreciate. But, today, I can finally give you what you've been asking for: pictures of the Monstrum box! Now, a couple of caveats about these pictures. First of all, this box is quite the world traveler,  and as such it has some damage to the top of it.  Needless to say, yours won't come with this. Next of all, this is the same sample box that I showed you one picture of a while back, and, as such, it is not the absolutely final version of the box. I'm not positive what all is changing with the tweaked box, but I believe that there are some changes to the interior foam. Finally, this is not necessarily the optimal arrangement of minis in these pictures. We had a great guy named Pete (you can find him on Facebook as Gameturners) paint some miniatures for us, and these are exactly the same way he put them in the box for us. I didn't tweak the layout to what it would optimally be, in other words. 

I'll be honest: I'm not really proud of these pictures. But hopefully they give you a good idea about the box.  Like I said, this is not the final version, and there are still some tweaks that will be present there which aren't here. But even right now I'm really impressed with this box. (Man it has a lot of foam in it!)

We didn't want to wait any longer to show you something of the Monstrum since you've been waiting so long, but I have it on good authority that in our next update we'll have pictures of the final one.  In fact, it's supposed to be in our hands within the next week. Want some proof? Well, here's our final Monstrum box sample just waiting to ship to us. 

And now here's a shot of it crushing a miniscule Deep Madness core game box. 

Shipping Update

Thus far we have booked one ship to the US: the CONTI ANNAPURNA-001E. It is set to depart China on July 14th. We have also submitted our request to book our first ship to the EU, though we haven't heard for sure yet if that one is finalized. The ships to other regions should be scheduled before too long, also. 

As mentioned previously, we will book a second ship for both the US and the EU containing all of the new stuff, which will be closer to the end of July. (I believe we also mentioned this before, but just to reiterate, we are booking one ship for the reprinted materials and one for the new items because the factory's warehouse isn't big enough to hold everything at once. As such, we have to split it up.) This does mean, though, that it looks like we will be closer to September than August for delivery. (Darn it.) We'll keep you all updated as we know more.

DoM

Last of all, just in case you missed the last update, we officially have a preview page up for Dawn of Madness. You can see it at http://bit.ly/DoMPreview. And we have also been doing a big crossover with Petersen Games for their game Eternal Adversary. They have a crossover pack of 9 Dawn of Madness sculpts over there, and each of those minis has an awesome turntable video. Whether you're interested in EA or not, you should at least check out those turntables if you're interested in DoM. (The same minis will be in Dawn of Madness - there will just be more copies of several of them in EA, with 19 minis total in the pack.) You can stop by EA's page at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petersengames/eternal-adversary/description to see those videos. (You'll need to look through the updates for the last week to see them, because they're not featured on the main campaign page. But they're pretty cool little videos, so I think they're worth the search. =)

Well that's it for this update! We'll be back with more news as soon as we have it, but have a great week in the meantime! (And happy 4th of July to our US friends! Don't burn down any houses!)

Dawn of Madness Reveals and a Crossover You Don't Want to Miss
almost 7 years ago – Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 01:45:49 AM

Friends! Fellows! Madness lovers! I have some big news for you today regarding Dawn of Madness!

First of all, last week I promised you a major update with lots of news and fun stuff coming before too long. This is half of that update. I haven't gotten the actual Deep Madness pictures and info yet, so the Deep Madness news will be coming soon. But for those of you who have been very eager to hear some more Dawn of Madness news, read on!

The Preview KS Page is up!

The preview KS page is officially up for DoM! This is a very rough page, and it will have a lot more (and different) content by the time we officially launch. But if you want to take a look at it, you can find it at http://bit.ly/DoMPreview! (And be sure to click the "Notify me on launch" button!) 

The BGG page is up!

The Board Game Geek page for Dawn is also live! You can find it at https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/282527/dawn-madness! (And most of the pictures that we've been posting in our Dawn of Madness Fridays on Facebook and Instagram are on there as well!)

A Huge Crossover with Eternal Adversary is Live!

Today we are very pleased to announce that we have just launched a major crossover with our friends at Petersen Games for their game Eternal Adversary! For the next week they will be revealing a new figure from Dawn of Madness every day that will also be available and playable in the Eternal Adversary faction Dawn of Chaos! Here's a sample of what they (and we) have been up to:

Because all of our DoM miniatures are unique, this will be the only way to get multiple copies of these miniatures. (Apart from buying multiple copies of DoM.) 

Speaking of multiple, Eternal Adversary is a team game for 2-5 players that takes place across multiple colliding universes, bringing the dark legions of Chaos against the few remaining humans who represent Order. It features a ton of awesome monsters and asymmetric gameplay that was co-designed by Ben Donges and one of the fathers of modern gaming, Sandy Petersen. (He of Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Wars fame.) They're great folks (I've backed a number of their Kickstarter games myself, so I'm definitely a fanboy) and this looks like a great game. Check it out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petersengames/eternal-adversary/description, and check back on their campaign every day this coming week to see a new miniature from Dawn of Madness! 

Well that's it for this update, friends! We'll be back soon with a bunch more cool Deep Madness stuff (including those pictures from the factory!) 

Where We're At and Where We've Been
almost 7 years ago – Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 03:05:36 AM

Hey guys! 

I feel like the last few updates have all been "short" updates that somehow ended up being pages long. I'm going to try to avoid that this time, and just give you a quick rundown with where we're currently at. (Plus a tiny peek into what happened when!) We'll see if I succeed. I'll divide this into two sections: Reprint Stuff and New Stuff, which is how my team member, Cherry, so kindly supplied the information to me. But basically, the TL;DR is that we are still making good progress, and it is currently looking like, if all goes well, we may be able to book the boats at some point in July.

Cherry sent me the info in kind of a cool timeline, which gives some insight into what happened when, as well as when we anticipate everything else to finish up. I've gone ahead and shared it with you here, just in case you're interested.

Reprint Stuff:

1. Proofreading for all of the printed accessories, including all of the translation packs, was completed as of March. 

2. The miniatures began production and assembly at the end of March, and have now been completed.

3. The factory for our printing materials made the printing plate, double-checking the colors and proofing the materials to maintain the same color as the first edition. This was completed in April.

4. Printing for the paper and cardboard components started in May, and has now completed.

5. We are currently in the midst of quality inspection/control. This means we (and the factory) are examining samples for all of the accessories and components, eliminating any quality problems that we can find cropping up.

6. All of the printed parts are currently being stored at the printing factory. The dice, meanwhile, are being stored in the injection molding plant, and the miniatures are being stored in another factory. Once the quality inspection is passed, we will at long last book the nearest available ship. However, because of the tariff situation in the US and the concern they have created, many Chinese-made goods are currently being shipped to sea in one mass exodus. This means that ships may be very difficult to come by - at least those going to the US. If we run into a delay, this could very likely be where it arises. Once we have determined the schedule, all of the various pieces will be sent to the printing house for assembly. From there the factory can assemble all of the components pretty quickly – up to thousands of boxes a day. The assembled products will then be loaded into containers right away and transported to the terminal. If all goes well, the goods will leave China in early July.

New products (excluding the novel): 

1. In early April the factory produced a prototype of all 12 new models.

2. All printed materials were submitted to the factory (in all five languages) by mid-April.

3. April and May were super busy months. The print factory made a printing plate for color matching and proofing; the mold factory, meanwhile, forged the metal molds and then began debugging and tweaking so that we have the best possible end products for you guys. (A process called tooling.)

4. Currently, printing is in progress. The injection molding plant is making the final preparations prior to shooting plastic into the molds, including debugging the color, temperature, hardness, etc. of the material.

5. It is expected that new products will leave China by this time next month. 

Once the boats are on the water, it will take a month on average for them to reach their destination ports, at which time the shipping partners will have to assemble all of the orders and ship them to your house. Also, just to be clear, even though we may end up taking two different boats to each region, we will still be shipping everything in one wave. The OG stuff may just be sitting there for a short time awaiting their new comrades. 

At this point, it might be best to anticipate a delay of 2-6 weeks. This is not to say that things necessarily will be delayed, but, as we learned with our first campaign, we are currently entering the most volatile part of the campaign when timelines can tend to sail right out the window - no matter how hard we try to catch them. Compounded on top of this is the US situation with the tariffs, which add a whole new layer of uncertainty to the equation. (Though, once again, the only shipments that could be impacted by this are those going to the US. We are looking into the Canadian shipping, too, to see what would be the best option there.)

In the next week or so we’ll have a couple of team members heading to the factory to check the quality of the products. We'll share the photos taken there in an update once we have those, so expect a new update sooner rather than later. 

Oh! Speaking of pictures, if you haven’t been paying attention to our Facebook page, we’ve been posting pictures every Friday from Dawn of Madness. If you’re interested, check them out at https://www.facebook.com/deepmadnessgame!  (I think you should be able to look at the pictures even without a Facebook account.)

Well that's it for this update! We'll be back with another one really soon, and it should be a doozy!

A Quick Progress Update
almost 7 years ago – Thu, May 16, 2019 at 03:18:21 AM

Hey guys! We've just got a quick update for you today to let you know that we're all still alive. There's not a whole lot of pictures or major, earth-shaking news in here, but what news we have is for the most part pretty good. Let's get to it!

First of all, the production of the core games is nearly complete! (Actually, it could be all the way complete, but we're not 100% certain. As such, we're leaving some room for error.) Production is proceeding for all of the other stuff, too, and making good progress. 

Next, I know a lot of you have been wanting to take a look at the Monstrum box. We had a sample briefly, but there were a couple things we needed to adjust on it. As such, we will have one to show you as soon as the next sample arrives with those changes on-board. Hopefully we'll have that in a couple more weeks. 

So why didn't we at least take some pictures of the box before we sent it off, even if it wasn't the final version? Good question. The answer is… We didn't think about it? There is, however, one small consolation: here is a picture I received of the sample Monstrum box chilling in the wild. Kind of a tease? Absolutely. Better than nothing? … Maybe. (And please keep in mind once more that this is not the final box, and is still subject to change!)

On to (potential) release dates! Another thing that a lot of you have been asking about is if we're still on-track for an August release. We can't make any promises. This is Kickstarter, and literally anything could happen - as we learned with our first campaign. However, we can say that things are looking… very promising. Fingers crossed that all continues to go this smoothly.

Now for the one uncertain/leaning toward bad thing of this update. For those who haven't heard, the US and China are currently engaging in a bit of a trade war. Because of this, we're keeping a really close eye on the US tariff situation currently. The word going around is that, if these go through, they will effect board games imported from China (though there is some conflicting information on this, it seems.) If that's the case, it could result in a pretty sizable fee upon importing the games into the US. We're looking into the situation, trying to determine how it will effect us (or if it even will), and also looking at ways we can minimize its potential effects with our partners. 

This is absolutely NOT a certain thing yet, and maybe we'll be able to get the game through customs even before these tariffs are put in place - should they end up being instituted at all. We just wanted to keep you informed of what's going on. As for the other big unknown at this point, Brexit, it looks like we might have dodged a bullet on this one, as it looks like any decision has been postponed until at least the end of October.

Moving on from that possible downer (should it happen), a lot of you have been asking for more info about Dawn of Madness. We don't have a lot more information to share with you today, but we do have another couple of teaser pictures. Here you go: 

Well that's it for today! Have a great day, and we'll be back with more updates as soon as we have them! Talk to you soon!