January update - Pledge Manager starting to close up
over 1 year ago – Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 09:23:55 AM

Hi cadets!

Today we have one simple update for you - we are starting to close down certain aspects of the pledge manager. If you already completed your survey, there's nothing new for you here. But if you have been holding out, and you are within the US, Canada, or Europe, you may want to read on...  Cheers!

Certain products will no longer be available in 1 week

If you were planning to add ANY legacy Dungeon Drop products to your Drop Drive pledge (only available to US, Canada, and European backers), then you MUST get in this week to add those items to your pledge. This includes the "3x Half-cube Game Trays" add-on, which are designed to fit perfectly inside your new Drop Drive: Strange Signals box (assuming you have that coming). We need to move existing inventory between warehouses, and so we need exact counts for all these legacy items. 

You have until Friday this week (January 27, 2023) to add any Dungeon Drop related items to your pledge, which will insure that you will receive those items as part of your single shipment. Note that this does not mean we are ready to add shipping charges and charge your credit cards - that will come over the next couple months. 

If you need to recover your pledge manager survey go here: https://drop-drive.backerkit.com/

That's it for now. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Jan 08, 2023 at 11:44:41 PM

Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a great holiday season and start to the new year!

As we mentioned in our last update, we are now at the starts of the manufacturing process. As our manufacturer takes on their part of the project, we'll continue to give you periodic updates showing off various aspects of the project. We'll start with the main game boxes, which you may have seen earlier:

...but what you haven't seen yet are the finished boxes for all the add-ons, so here they are!

We've put so much work and love into this project, and we simply can't wait to get the result of all that work into your hands!

Ongoing topics & questions

• Pledge Manager: We are often asked when we will close the Pledge Manager. Our consistent answer has been, and still remains, we will leave it open until we get closer to actual delivery timeframe. This is because it allows you the most time to plan your purchases, and it also means we can add/charge the most accurate shipping prices. As we predicted some time ago, freight prices have DROPPED significantly as each month passes, and so the longer we wait, the further we are from that previous "shipping crisis" nightmare. At this point, I would expect the pledge manager to remain open for another 2-3 months. If you want to re-check your order, and/or add anything else to your pledge, you can recover your pledge manager survey here: https://drop-drive.backerkit.com/.
• Delivery timeframe: Once our manufacturer gets through all the digital files and proofs are approved, then we will be able to give a firm delivery timeframe. I believe it will be early summer, but that's as specific as I can be at the moment.
• Others? If you have specific questions or topics you would like addressed in our future updates, please  let us know in the comments below.

"Life finds its way in this quiet meadow..."

Now that the majority of our part for Drop Drive is behind us, we turn to our next campaign! We are super proud to announce that we will launch Flutter on BackerKit on March 21st! 

Flutter is a new tile laying game with unique, geometric-shaped pieces. With its simple ruleset and strategic depth, alongside an adorable theme with stylistic art, Flutter is aimed at a wide audience who loves casual gameplay for 2 to 5 players. 

We are also super proud to be partnered with SaveOurMonarchs Foundation for this project! For every copy of Flutter sold through our campaign we will donate $1 to help save the endangered monarch butterflies!!

Here's a quick interview I did while at PaxUnplugged this past December:

Closing out!

That's it for today. We hope you will have a wonderful year, and of course we'll look forward to talking with you quite a bit throughout. Cheers!

We're DONE!... and Happy Holidays!!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 03:24:06 AM

Happy Holidays!

We are super proud to announce the COMPLETION of this amazing project!! Yes, the project took notably longer than anticipated, directly because the game is simply BIGGER (and much better!) than anticipated. At every step of the process, we made sure to make the absolute best decision for the GAME, rather than cutting corners in the interest if time/speed. We trust you appreciate that this represented keeping our backers' best interests at heart - for us, there was no other acceptable approach, and the final product will certainly speak for itself! 

Here's a sneak peak:

What you are seeing above, on the left side, is the new base game box size, which is 10 x 10 x 2.5 inches (about the size of King of Tokyo). For those of you who've been following along over the months, you know we went through many iterations of the box size and shape - we are confident this newest approach is the right one, for many reasons. And, of course, you are seeing the box nestled atop our gorgeous Space Mats and Space Walls products.

To the right, you can also see the Strange Signals expansion box. That box is 10 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches. That may seem like an odd size, but this format was chosen for good reason: The box is designed to hold all 18 anomalies (assuming you ordered EVERYTHING we offered for Drop Drive thus far), each with their own holder envelope standing up, back to back. There's additional space allocated for future anomalies, and/or several "half cube game trays" which you can optionally use to hold the larger bits included with some of the anomaly packs (the same trays that were originally included in our Dungeon Drop Treasure Trunk, which are available for purchase separately, $3.99 for a 3-pack, within your BackerKit pledge manager survey):

What's next?

Now the primary work effort shifts over to our manufacturer. We are sending them all the master digital files, and then they start their full process. Once we reach a certain point with them, we will be able to re-establish and publicize a reasonable final delivery timeframe. Right now I will say late spring / early summer is the target.

While our manufacturer is working through their end, we will continue to send out regular updates, keeping you up to date, and we will take that opportunity to start spotlighting various aspects of the game and its anomalies. It will be great for you to really see in-depth all the hard work we've put in over the past year!

When will the pledge manager close?

We continue to have no reason to force the pledge manager to close immediately, so we will keep it open for a couple months longer. But there will soon come a point when we will let you know that we're preparing to finalize orders and close the pledge manager. At that time, we will work to solidify the actual shipping costs and then let you know exactly when we plan to charge your credit cards for any add-ons you added in BackerKit and the actual shipping/VAT costs. The good news is shipping costs have continued to decrease over the past year, which is what we hoped and expected to see, and precisely why we waited so long to finalize this part of the campaign.

Wrapping up

That's it for now folks. We are simply THRILLED to have finally made it to this point. We apologize the project turned out to be significantly larger (and therefore longer) than we originally expected, but that only means you will be getting MUCH MORE for your money once you get your hands on your pledges!

For those in the US, have a fantastic Thanksgiving, and for everyone around the globe...  peace and good-will as you enter this holiday season. Cheers!!

Halloween update!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Nov 01, 2022 at 01:54:26 AM

Happy Halloween!

Hope you stay safe from all the spookies! Here's a quick update for you...

Overall project status

Check out our progress - we are SO close now!! 

Basically the remaining outstanding items are because we changed the box size, as explained in a previous update. But we really are just about done with everything now, and I expect our next update will be about that completion status and updated fulfillment timeframe. So much excite!

Kickstarter Exclusive Crossover pack and Shipping Shenanigans

We wanted to take a moment to show you the NON-Drop Drive aspects of the KS Exclusive Crossover pack and the Shipping Shenanigans pack, which until now have not been visualized. Both of these packs also come with Drop Drive contents, of course, but we have shown those aspects off previously (namely, the Cosmic Boblin captain tile and Dark Jellies anomaly in the crossover pack, and the Wreck of the Everstar and Galactic Shipping Hub anomalies in Shipping Shenanigans).

KS EXCLUSIVE CROSSOVER PACK: So let's talk about the Dungeon Drop goodies that are in each of these packs! First, in the crossover pack, we have the Dark Jelly huge monster for use with Dungeon Drop: Dropped Too Deep:

How cool is that! It's essentially a hybrid of the Giant Gelatinous Cube and Dark Matter...  SPACE SSLORP!! :D

SHIPPING SHENANIGANS: Shipping Shenanigans has a ton of content, for both games! In addition to the 2 anomalies for Drop Drive, we added 2 new classes for Dungeon Drop and another huge monster for Dropped Too Deep. 

The classes were entirely community created, and they can simply be added right into your main Classes deck:

And then we have the most fearsome huge monster every conceived!! Yet again, this content was entirely community created, and we absolutely love it:

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Everyone who pledged for Drop Drive will automatically get a copy of the KS Exclusive Crossover pack, but the Shipping Shenanigans pack was NOT part of any pledge tier - you needed to manually add it to your pledge if you want it (or if you pre-pledged for it during our Dropped Too Deep campaign, then we added it to your pledge for you). You can check your pledge and even update it for a little while longer - just use the original survey link you were sent from BackerKit, or if you need to you can recover your survey link here: https://drop-drive.backerkit.com/ 

Candy-time

That's it for today...  enjoy the holiday, eat tons of candy, and maybe play some spooky board games tonight!

Cheers! 

September update - BIG news for a BIG game!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 02:24:14 AM

Greetings!

We've got some great updates for you today, so let's get right into it!

Project Status

First, here's our updated project status tracker:

What you may notice here is MASSIVE progress on the rulebook layout from our previous update, and also the space walls - two of the primary items we still needed to tackle. The item with the lowest progress at this point is the box design, and there's a specific reason for that...  keep reading!

Rulebook

We are extremely proud to show you all the release candidate for the game's rulebook! This was a colossal effort, as will become clear when you check it out and continue reading this update below...

Let us know what you think, and certainly let us know if you find any typos or errors!! We do have a pro editor doing a final pass as we speak, but in general we feel this is pretty solid!

Space Walls & Mats

Another huge task for us has been nailing down the exact right art and graphic design for the Space Walls and Space Mats. We wanted art that would pop, art that would be vibrant and enticing...  but we also needed to make sure it would not be distracting during gameplay. We worked through over 10 major revisions, complete with (expensive) physical proofs, and until recently we were just not satisfied. 

Now that has all changed...  we are super proud to finally present to you, the SPACE ARENA!

As a reminder, the base game will come with card-stock thickness folding space walls (unlike Dungeon Drop, which did not include them in the base box), and of course most of you also upgraded to the awesome punchboard Space Walls product during the campaign. One thing that's hard to see in renders like this is that the separate Space Walls product will include specialty effects, such as spot UV and embossing, making those walls an incredible set of eye candy!

You will also notice that we've decided to make the Space Mats hexagonal in shape, so the Space Walls will perfectly hug the outsides of the mats, just as the Dungeon Walls do in Dungeon Drop!

A Bigger Box for a Bigger Game!

So, Drop Drive represents an incredible game experience, with a lot of depth...  much more depth than we originally gave it credit for. As you may recall, it was originally intended to be in the same cube box size that Dungeon Drop comes in. Then, during the campaign, we decided to upgrade to a box size that was 50% taller than the cube box, since we knew the cube alone would not fit everything that was added to this game. 

As time went on, and our "cone of confidence" narrowed further, it became clear that even that new box size would not be enough to justify all that this game contains. And so we have made the tough decision to depart from our cubical roots entirely, and move to an ever larger and more industry standard box size/shape:

A few important points about what you are seeing here...

First and foremost, the artwork in the above image is PLACEHOLDER only. We are commissioning professional art for the cover that will represent an EPIC space scene! We'll show you that in a future update.

The new box size will be approximately 10x10x2.5 inches, which is about the size of King of Tokyo and countless other game boxes. With this change comes a few great side-effects: 

• The rulebook is also much larger now. The rulebook linked above has been painstakingly reformatted from the smaller size (previously amounting to 32 pages!!), to this new size (now just 16 pages). 
• The walls that are included in the base game will now have longer individual "segments," resulting in far fewer folds. In other words, they will feel much less like a giant accordion.
• We will look into what it would take to design and construct a nice insert for the box, so all the game's components will have a proper "home." This is TBD, as we have only recently made this box size switch, and there are many details still to work through.

The bottom line is this game is big, and so the game's box also deserves (and in many ways NEEDS) to be big. In fact, we now anticipate that the MSRP for Drop Drive will be $39.99, which is notably higher than what we thought during the campaign. Best of all, despite the higher MSRP and higher quality box and components, your pledge amount stays the same. 

Note that the Strange Signals expansion box will also be reformatted, and will also highlight an epic space scene! We believe that box will be approximately 10x4.5x4.5 inches...  essentially a long rectangular box. This shape will allow that box to be the anomaly storage solution that it was always intended to be. 

Wrapping up...

So that's it for today. We still have a bit more work to do to get everything finalized for our manufacturer, but with these last few changes out of the way, we are really just in the final refinement stages now. 

Please let us know in the comments what your favorite part of this update is! Cheers!