Dawn of Madness

The Latest with Shipping
3 days ago – Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 11:43:07 PM

Hi guys! We just got a new shipping update, so here's what's happening. 

Shipping Progress

Europe

Two containers previously scheduled to clear customs last Monday spent the week waiting in Hungary instead. Because there were so many goods waiting for Hungarian customs to clear, only one container cleared last Friday and was delivered to the Polish warehouse over the weekend. Customs should clear the other container today (April 22). It should then arrive at the warehouse tomorrow (April 23). After counting all the goods, the warehouse will make a delivery plan. We will continue to follow up with them and pass what we learn along to you.

The US

The ships to the East and West US are currently at sea. (Yay!) We'll keep you updated as they arrive and clear customs. As a reminder, the West Coast Vessel/Voyage is the COSCO ENGLAND/062E, and the East Coast Vessel/Voyage is the GERDA MAERSK/19/W.

Canada

Our shipping partner loaded the Canadian orders onto a ship last week. The Vessel/Voyage is the NAVIOS AMAROLL/52E, which will leave the Yantian port on April 23 and arrive in Vancouver on May 11.

Australia

Our shipping partner also loaded the Australian orders onto a ship last week. The Vessel/Voyage is the WIDE HOTEL/0032S. It will leave Shenzhen port on May 2 and arrive in Sydney on May 14. Due to the small quantity of Australian orders, we couldn't fill an entire container and had to combine our orders with other goods. This fact limited our options, making this ship the best choice we could get.

Other Regions

Our shipping partner also packed other regions' orders last week. Those are being dispatched directly from China in short order. 

Tracking Numbers

• If you're a backer in the US, Australia, or New Zealand, you can now see your tracking number information on your pledge's Backerkit page. Since the goods are still at sea, you won't see much movement from them until May.
• We've learned that Canadian orders must be affixed with a waybill once they arrive at the Canadian warehouse. Thus, we unfortunately won't be able to provide these tracking numbers until mid-May after the ship arrives.
• Our partner is currently sorting the tracking information for other regions' orders. We'll upload them by the end of this month.

Finally, some better news! We'll keep you guys informed as soon as we hear more. Also, I'll have a fun video for you in our next update...

Okay, we'll talk to you again soon, my friend! Have a great week!

April Shipping Update
14 days ago – Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 09:35:51 PM

Hey, guys. I have good news and bad news today. The bad news is that there was another delay—this time caused by Deep Madness rather than this game. The good news is that things are finally moving again. 

What Happened with Deep Madness

A few days after we sent out the last update, we received a complete set of every Deep Madness product from the factory. We were supposed to receive these products before the Chinese New Year holiday to confirm that all items were in order before shipping, but that couldn't happen in the time allotted. However, because we were eager to get some of that game's products on boats before the CNY holiday, we agreed to the factory's proposal to ship immediately after production without them waiting for our final confirmation.

This was a mistake. 

Upon opening every product, we inspected each component and found that the Deep Madness core game rulebook had several pages with color distortion. We immediately requested the factory to reprint this rulebook. The factory completed this reprint and replacement work on March 17th. However, this unexpected episode caused more than a week's delay, teaching us a valuable lesson: don't ship anything before you've checked it, no matter how tight your timeframe.

Because the most recent plan was for these two projects to ship together, Dawn also suffered from this new delay, in addition to its own reprint woes. 

Since this most recent snafu, we have urged the factory and the packaging warehouse to expedite the process and compensate for lost time. Finally, they responded, allowing us to pass on the latest progress to you. I wish it were better news, but at least there's movement.

Shipping Progress

Europe

The train carrying the DoM goods will arrive at the station on April 15th, and then they'll be transferred to our shipping partner's warehouse. The team will begin packaging and shipping products once all the goods have reached the warehouse. We are communicating with Green Logistics regarding the follow-up plan, which we'll relay to you in future updates.

Everywhere Else

The warehouse in China began packaging games on March 20th, proceeding in the order of East Coast US, West Coast US, Canada, Australia, Asia, and finally, other regions. Orders going everywhere besides the EU are being packaged in China rather than at a local fulfillment partner. Once they make it through customs, they will be delivered directly by a local courier.

The initial week of packaging did not go as smoothly as planned. Our partner found that the planned machine-automated packing process had a higher error rate than expected due to Deep Madness having 50+ SKUs, leading to a switch to entirely manual packaging. This change significantly slowed the process compared to our partner's initial expectations. 

Here are the latest developments:

• East Coast US: The shipment was loaded onto the vessel on March 29th. The Vessel/Voyage is the GERDA MAERSK/19/W. It departed from the Yantian port on April 4th, heading for New York. The estimated arrival date is May 4th.
• West Coast US: The West Coast orders are nearly finished being packaged. The shipping facility has scheduled the shipment to be loaded onto the ship on April 12th. The Vessel/Voyage is the COSCO ENGLAND/062E. It will depart from the Yantian port on April 18th, heading for Los Angeles, CA. The estimated arrival date is April 28th.
• Other Regions: All remaining orders are expected to be packaged by April 18th. They will then either be shipped by boat or dispatched directly from China. We will update you with the specific vessel details and any new progress as soon as we receive the information from our partner.

Tracking Numbers

The domestic courier service has begun assigning tracking numbers to the orders packaged in the Chinese warehouse as they're completed. Thus, we have received all the tracking numbers for orders going to the East Coast of the United States, and by next week, we will receive all the tracking numbers for the West Coast orders. We are working to enter these tracking numbers into the BackerKit system to send out notifications to you all. (We're still figuring out this process, so please bear with us.)

I'm sorry that I don't have better news for you once again. I thought we'd be giving some final updates on the shipping process here, so I find this incredibly frustrating - as I'm sure you do, too. (Those of you who've been around for some of our previous campaigns know how much I hate the shipping process, so I suppose I should have expected more of this than I did. LOL!) But, barring some further minor catastrophe, it looks like we're truly on the journey's final leg now. (Knock on wood.)

I hope we will have significantly better news for you next time—i.e., the ships have arrived, and the games are on their way. (We'll also have more info on translation progress in the coming updates.) We'll send another update as soon as we have something to report (hopefully good). Have a great week, and we'll talk with you again soon.

DoM Shipping & Translation Update
about 2 months ago – Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 10:29:09 AM

Hey guys! We have some new shipping and translation news for DoM, so let's get right into it.

Delivery Update

After thoroughly inspecting the entire DoM core game inventory, the factory discovered that the cards in approximately 1,300 sets exhibited minor signs of moisture damage. So, we removed the affected cards and are printing new ones to replace them. However, this task has progressed much slower than anticipated. Most of the managerial staff concluded their Chinese New Year holidays by February 19th as promised, but most workers only returned to the factory this week - something we weren't aware would be the case. Consequently, both the factory and warehouse operations have essentially resumed this week. 

Ultimately, we received a response from the factory stating that the printing of new cards and reassembly work is now expected to be completed by March 10th. Based on this timeline, we have collaborated with freight forwarders and the warehouse to devise a new delivery plan. Here's a look at where we currently stand:

Sheesh. We're really sorry for this additional delay. At least we're still moving forward, even if it's at a crawl.

For the Eastern US, you may have noticed we decided to go with a separate boat there after all. We went back and forth on this, but ultimately, it seemed like this would be the quickest method. However, Eastern US orders will still be packaged in China. Then, they will ship out directly to you once they've cleared customs rather than waiting to be processed and packed by another shipping partner in the States.

Translation Progress

Many of you have been eagerly awaiting news about translation progress, so let's dive into where everything's at.

• French version: All the files in the French version have been translated. We want to thank our two translators for their herculean efforts in translating the core game. The layout work for the French version is expected to be completed within 1-2 weeks; then, it will enter the proofreading stage. Once everything's proofread, the files will be submitted to the factory.
• German version: The translation work for the four storybooks' stories has been completed. The rulebook, cards, and all rules-related parts are expected to be completed by the end of March, after which the layout work will begin.
• Spanish version: The only incomplete parts of the Spanish version's translation work are the components related to Lynas's story. These are expected to take 1-2 weeks to complete, after which the layout work will begin.

We have hired three graphic designers to carry out the layout work for all three versions simultaneously, striving to complete them within three months. (Or sooner if we can.)

Addresses

Not all of the addresses are locked yet, but most are. If you need to change your address and find it locked, email me at [email protected], and I'll change it for you. As I've said before, this is the ONLY WAY I can guarantee your email will be received and acted on in a timely manner. If you message us through Kickstarter, Backerkit, Facebook, or another email address, the chances are high that I may miss it. So please email me directly to ensure I see it and can get you taken care of.

I currently have around twenty emails I still need to reply to that were sent in February. If you're one of them, don't worry. I see you there, and I'll get back to you. If you sent your email before February 5th, I encourage you to send it to me again.  

Okay, that's it for this update. I wish I could say everything was already on the water, but at least we have firm dates for when everything will get out. We'll talk to you guys again soon!

A Problem and a Solution
3 months ago – Tue, Feb 06, 2024 at 06:44:55 PM

Hey, guys! So, I have some good news and some bad news for this update.

Here's the good news: the manufacturing process is finally finished. Hurray! 

Here's the bad news: as our partners were loading everything up into containers, they randomly pulled out a few products to check them and came across several blemished cards, perhaps from not having dried enough before they were laid atop each other, making them stick together. (This was likely caused by the constant rain falling while these cards were being printed, causing unusually high levels of humidity.) But this raised the question: how many cards had this problem that QC missed?

In the end, this led to the decision to take all the products back to the factory. The factory will open every box and check the cards. Then, they'll reprint all the affected cards. 

On the plus side, we are very glad to have caught this problem now, before these compromised components reached you guys and caused disappointment - or worse, a major reprint down the line. On the negative side, this will affect our timeline. 

We had boats scheduled for every region on the 10th. However, we will no longer be able to get the game on those ships. This is extremely unfortunate, but we have a plan that we're putting into place to try to catch the previous schedule, which I'll explain below.

Two other points: first, before we get into the new shipping plan, I want to show what this update WAS going to be before this new information came in. (Seriously, this thing was almost written before I learned about this newest development.) We had a bunch of pictures showing the manufacturing process finishing, and I want to go ahead and show those to you now.

Second, for those of you who backed Deep Madness, this problem did NOT affect that game as far as we know. However, due to that campaign's complexity, its schedule was already shaping up to be similar to this new one, anyway. (This one has far fewer possible combinations in wave one, so it's faster to ship.)

With that said, let's take a look at the manufacturing pictures.  

Manufacturing 

So, here is a last look at what we expected to be the final production update for DoM, moving from finishing the final components into packaging and loading products into the container. Let's take a look. 

And now, here's a cool little video showing the core box coming together.

Delivery Plans

Okay, let's discuss the new delivery plan mentioned earlier in the update. As I mentioned, we had ships heading out from every port on the 10th. But now, we will not be able to catch those ships, and must give up our spots on them. This means we will not be able to ship before Chinese New Year. 

However, not everything is as dark as it may appear, and we are putting together a plan.

PHASE ONE: First, the factory is going to go through all of the boxes and double-check the cards. They will get a count of all of the problem cards. Then, they will break for the Chinese New Year celebrations. When they come back, they will reprint the affected cards, which should finish before the end of February. (They will come back to work on the 19th.)

PHASE TWO: We are working with a shipping partner in China who provides a one-stop solution. Initially, we were going to divide the North American orders into two orders, one for the West Coast and one for the East Coast. The West Coast games were going to be prepackaged in China and then shipped out, while the East Coast orders would have been packaged in the States. Now, we are cancelling that plan. Instead, we are prepackaging all of the orders in China and shipping them out from there. We will then hire the fastest ships we can to expedite the shipping process.

THE UPSIDE: Because this is still the busiest season in the shipping industry, we were unable to secure the fastest boats to leave China on February 10th. However, by the time we are able to ship now, we are hoping we will be able to secure space on these faster vessels. Also, by shipping everything to the West Coast, we will cut a couple of weeks (perhaps longer) off of the voyage. Our shipping partner is confident they can package and ship everything within a couple of days for Wave One, even with the increased volume from the East Coast orders. This should hopefully prove to be faster than waiting for our previous partner to clear a space in their schedule to pack and ship these orders. 

For Europe, we will still have the orders packaged and shipped out of Green Logistics in Poland. However, our initial boat was going to have to go around Africa to avoid the conflict in the Middle East, adding on 15 days. We are now looking at faster options, including potentially shipping the games by train.

At the end of CNY, we will immediately book faster ships and/or trains for March. After our planning adjustments, we expect the products to still arrive at the US and EU warehouses and begin delivery within March, around a week later than our initial plan.

For the rest of the world, the plan was always to package everything in China and then ship it out from there, so that hasn't changed. It'll just be a bit later than we were hoping.

For all regions, we will let you know more as soon as we do. Our hope is that we will still be able to catch our previous schedule even with this delay, using the faster transit methods that should open up once CNY is behind us. 

TLDR: The factory is checking all of the cards for errors. They will finish this by the end of February. Then, we are working to secure fast shipping methods to still deliver the games in mid- to late-March, as we had originally planned.

Locking Addresses

We already locked some of the addresses before we learned about this problem, but we will leave the rest of the addresses unlocked for now. You can feel free to change your addresses for a while longer yet. We will lock them down as we move closer to getting the new boats, probably toward the end of February.  (If you need to see how to change your address, see our last update here.) If your address is already locked or you otherwise need assistance, then the best way is to email me at [email protected]. I cannot guarantee any other method will be seen, but I've been checking that inbox regularly.

This is not the update I thought I'd be writing. In fact, it's NOT the update I wrote before learning about this problem. But if there's an issue, we would prefer to catch it now rather than when you receive your games. You've waited long enough, and we want to make sure what you get is the best quality possible, rather than having to wait for reprints to arrive after you open your package. 

I'm very sorry for this additional delay, but we're hopeful we'll still be able to catch up to our previous schedule. Have a great week, and happy Lunar New Year/Spring Festival to our friends in Asia. We'll be back with more info as soon as it comes our way. 

IMPORTANT: Production is Wrapping Up! Address Lockdown Imminent!
3 months ago – Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 10:23:01 PM

Hey, guys! I've got some exciting news today. We've received word from the factory that they will finish production on Dawn of Madness before the end of the month. Hurrah! That means we will be locking down addresses soon in preparation for shipping. 

Progress Update

The factory has been slammed with projects recently, many of which they have been working on simultaneously. However, the process for DoM is finally wrapping up, and they are getting ready to move this project on to the next step.  

Here are a few pictures from the factory as they start the final push:

They're going to send us more soon, which we'll hopefully have in the next update. We just didn't want to delay this update any longer for them.

The factory's current flow has resulted in an interesting side effect. If you also backed Deep Madness, you'll get that game simultaneously with this one. Over the last few months, it seemed to go back and forth on whether these projects would ship together or not. However, the factory has informed us they will finish both games by the end of the month as they have been printing the last few components for both together. This was not planned on our part, but it does make sense why they would do this. And we are, of course, thrilled to be getting both games out. 

We will discuss the shipping process more in our next update, though we can say we're already working to schedule boats for the regions that need them. What matters more now, though, is that we need to lock down addresses ASAP to start preparing shipments. As such, we will lock addresses on Monday, January 30th. 

How to Change Your Address

Moving soon or moved recently? There's still time to lock in your new address. You can access your survey through your Backerkit account here:

Once you're in Backerkit, click on the picture in the upper-righthand corner, then click Your Pledges & Surveys.

Then navigate to Your Surveys and find Dawn of Madness. (Yes, I'm aware these images are for Deep Madness. But it's the same principle.) 

Then, on the next screen, click to edit your address.

Next, put in your new address, then click Next.

And lastly, be sure to click Place Your Order, and you're done.

If you don't have a Backerkit account, you can also look up your survey here: 

And if you're still having problems, you can email me, and I'll help you. Speaking of which...

Emails

I have been working through emails again, but if you're concerned that I haven't gotten back to you yet (or you contacted us through a different avenue), email me at [email protected]. I'm working to get to everyone, but it doesn't hurt to make sure I see your request (especially if it's been a while since you sent it.) 

Next Steps

We will try to put out one last-call update before officially locking everything down. Then, following this (or perhaps in this update), we'll provide information about the shipping progress and, hopefully, boats. 

I'm sure some of you will now wonder if we'll beat the Chinese New Year celebrations. There is a chance that one or two of the boats will be delayed by the holiday. However, the majority should get out before that happens. Our current goal is to get everything out before the ports close down, and our factory thinks that's still attainable. 

Once we have shipping well underway, we'll tell you about the next steps for the second wave and our plans for the year. I don't want to say too much yet, but I think you'll find it to be better news than some may assume. (I will give you a tease: I'm currently doing the final edit on one of the wave-two wanderers' stories.)  

We're entering wave one's final stretch, guys! Thanks for your incredible patience, and we'll talk with you again soon.