Post Kickstarter Update #3: First Order In!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 04:01:53 PM

Hey everyone! It’s been another productive week. The first part of the order has been places with the manufacturer. The remaining part of the order will be placed in the next 4-8 days. We are nearly done with the Hero Customs designs. I believe with one exception, every Hero backer has gotten at least a first draft of their tile and I am making revisions to them this week. The makority if designs haves been finalized. More than 80% of you have responded to the pledge manager - thank you so much! Orders that have been placed will be locked and cards charged this Friday. If you have any changes to your shipping address, youll be able to update that for several more weeks until we are just about ready to pack and ship rewards. 

For the packaging, our assembly line has been set up and organized and were ready to begin counting and packaging the magnets once the arrive! It’s looking like the first wave of magnets ahould reach our office the first week of April. Thank you, everyone, and I hope you all have a great week!

Shane

Post Kickstarter Update #2: Big News and Lots of Progress!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 06:46:53 PM

It's been a busy week and this will be a long update so bear with me!

Dungeon Tiles - Limited Release!

First, the big announcement. After a great deal of consideration, we have decided that the Hexplorer Dungeon Tiles Created with this campaign will be a limited release. Unlike our first Kickstarter, we will not order a surplus of these tiles to sell on our website. We will order enough to complete fulfillment for the Kickstarter and a brief window of pre-orders through BackerKit. So if you want to get any of the add-ons or expansions, get them now while you can!

Pledge Manager Live!

MANY of you have already seen - and responded to - the BackerKit survey that we launched yesterday. Thank you so much to the speedy response! You will have plenty of time to update your shipping addresses but knowing how many add-ons to package sooner saves us a ton of guessing - thank you so much to everyone who has already completed it! 

BackerKit Exclusive Add-On Pack

Since Hexplorer Dungeon Tiles will only be around for a brief time, we want to do it right! In that spirit, we've created a curated pack of Hero Customs now available as an add on! This pack contains a big assortment of custom tiles created for our Dungeon Hero backers as well as some extra tiles we REALLY wanted to make. To Hero Backers whose designs aren't included, we made decisions on what to include based on magnet size (3x3 magnets would drive up the cost a lot) and also the tiles that we think would be appealing to the most people. Many of you will also recognize a few runner-up tiles from the community polls. We hope you enjoy!

Progress

We've been bust with three things over the past week: finalizing final tile designs and beginning to format PNG files, setting up and sending out the BackerKit pledge manager, and working with the Dungeon Hero backers on creating their custom tiles.  We've made some great progress on the custom tile designs. Right now, we have gotten requests from nearly all our Hero backers. We've finalized designs for 17 Hero backers and have made at least a first draft design for 8 more. We should be able to send first drafts to the rest of the hero backers in the next few days. 

Revised Timeline

Since we will not be ordering a surplus of tile packs, we are going to wait a few days longer before placing our order with the manufacturer so as to get the most accurate count possible. Our new goal is to place the order with the manufacturer one week from today rather than than later this week. We don't anticipate this having much of an impact on our overall timeline.

Thanks everyone!

~Shane

Post Kickstarter Update #1: Progress and Timeline
over 3 years ago – Tue, Mar 09, 2021 at 07:08:38 AM

Hey Everyone! 

I hope you're all having a great start to the week. First I wanted to layout a timeline for what you can all expect for this project and then to provide a quick progress update. 

TODAY

We are currently working with our Dungeon Hero backers to create custom artwork for the tile they want to see. We may create a Custom Hero Assortment Pack that will become available in the pledge manager though we aren't sure at this time. Stay Tuned. We have gotten requests from about 70% of our Hero Backers and I'm already in the early stages of the design process. My goal is to receive a request from all Hero backers by the end of the week. Hero backers who have already sent your request, I will try to email you the first draft of your tile within the next few days - some will here from me this afternoon!

3/11/2021

Kickstarter fund collection will finalize. Almost all of the funding has been collected though there are still a handful of backers who need to double-check their payment info. 

3/15/2021

I am also working on finalizing the BackerKit Pledge Manager. This will go live (hopefully) one week from today. Once it goes live, it will be up at least 3 weeks before we lock it. During that time, you will be able to add any add-ons you would like. We will make an announcement one week before we lock orders.

3/18/2021

Kickstarter Funding arrives to our account and we will order the first wave of magnets that same day. We will be placing the order for all of the Core Sets in this wave. The designs for this Kickstarter are more complicated than the original Kickstarter but we are working closely with the manufacturer and their design team. The biggest challenge will be the Cave & Tunnel Set and we are almost done finalizing the designs with the manufacturer. 

4/1/2021 

Wave 1 of the magnets should arrive! No joke. We already have a team of pick-and-packers from our first Kickstarter (thank you Lily and Makayla!) who are experienced with our product, our system, and are eager to get back to work packaging! As soon as the magnets arrive, we will get to work sorting and packaging them. 

Mid April

Once we finalize add-ons through BackerKit, we will place the second (or possibly third) wave of orders with the manufacturer. 

Late May

If everything goes according to plan, we will finalize packaging all of the Hexplorer packs and can then begin shipping out rewards!

For our Dungeon Caster backers, we should be able to finalize all of the core designs and can then send them to Ana for formatting in about a week. Ana will need some time to do her magic. We hope to get the core set of PNG files to backers by the end of April and the Hero Custom PNGs sometime in May.

Thank you everyone and we're excited to see this project come to life! We'll be back with a shorter progress update next week and if any disruptions affect this timeline, we promise to let you know here as soon as possible.

~Shane

Update #12: Stretch Goal Reached, 25 Hours Left!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 08:47:12 PM

Woohoo! A big thank you to everyone who has backed the project! You amazing people have just unlocked another stretch goal, a reward tile. This one is of the Open Trapdoor! Explorers will get one, adventurers will get two, and Heroes get five!

With just under 26 hours to go, we are now on to the last Stretch Goal. The Dungeon Expansion pack, a supplement to the core set, will unlock if we can hit $25,000. Right now, we are on pace to hit that, though it will be close. A big thank you to everyone who has helped spread the word about this Kickstarter. It’s been such an amazing experience seeing the project posted on Facebook and various forums by you awesome people! This has been an incredible journey and we’re so excited to see what the final leg of the journey holds.

Shane

Update #13: Finale!!!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 08:12:41 PM

Woohoo! Weve come to the the end of the campaign and now to the beginning of the real work! Thank you so much to everyone who backed the project. This has been an awesome campaign and we’re so excited to begin fulfilling it. Beginning in a few days, we will post weekly updates every Monday to let you know how the project is progressing. The first development is that Dungeon Heroes will be contacted in a couple of days with information about how to aubmit their custom tile requests. 

However, now it‘s time to catch our breath and celebrate. Thank you everyone, and have a great weekend! 

Cheers!

Shane

PS~ Here is an awesome project to check out for people who play D&D. This is a multimedia project inspired by the US National Parks that is LOADED with awesome content perfect for those of us playing our games remotely right now. John Lemay is a supporter and good friend of Headless Hydra Press. Take a look and see for yourself!