Ready for some Treasure hunting?
over 5 years ago – Sat, Sep 08, 2018 at 01:46:16 AM

Awesome backers,

some of you have asked us for information on the vessels to follow their path while your Monster Lands copy is getting closer to your destination. But rather than have you look for each vessel yourself, we have prepared this information in our backer map for you.

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Click on the interactive map, which already has 14.500+ views and is a real phenomenon since its inception a few months back. We have added info and location of the vessels (missing the Australian one, which will be defined next week).

But not only that, we have also enriched the map with lots of little "info treasures", with curious facts around the game. Be sure you don't only look for yourself (don't worry, no personal information, street address or names are stored in this map, it is JUST postal code level), but also look for the many icons that lead you to videos, articles or interesting info. Make sure to click the icons on the map!

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And we invite you to comment and discuss, but let's do this on boardgamegeek under this post rather than here, so that non-backers can participate and we create a little movement on the page.

Let's see what you find! And let us know your ideas for more stuff to put, if you like.

Cheers,
Second Gate Games

Progress update #8
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 11:46:42 PM

Fellow Mercenaries!

We are getting closer and closer to your pledge fulfillment and we have more info to share with you, with some product arriving a little earlier than expected and other arriving a little later. We also have two unpacking videos of the final production copies of the Monster and the Leader Editions to show you. Beautiful stuff.

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LAST CHANCE FOR SHIPPING ADDRESS CHANGES

In the last weeks, many of you have requested address changes which we carried out on your behalf. Please note that we will have to LOCK ADDRESSES very soon, depending on your shipping region. Exact dates in the next chapter. If you need to change your address, send us a mail to [email protected]. Before the address lock date, there won't be a problem in implementing it, afterwards there hopefully won't be either, but it will depend on the status of the fulfillment at the logistics center and might incur additional cost.

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SHIPPING AND DELIVERY TIME INFO

Almost all of the KS product is packed and either at port waiting to be picked up or already on a vessel on the way to the various fulfillment centers. 

Unfortunately, we have had an issue with a small number of boxes, because the dice manufacturer supplying LongPack had to produce a new batch of engraved dice, after LongPack's quality control team rejected a particular batch. They simply "ran out of dice" at the end of the production. This affects 84 English Monster+Expansion and all French Monster+Expansion copies in the Europe & ROW shipping region, which will likely suffer a 2-week delay. More information below in the Europe & ROW region (other regions are not affected).

So let's take this by region:

US

Your product is sea-borne, on the way to our fulfillment partner Quartermaster Logistics, ETA (expected time of arrival) September 19th in Florida. Add about a week for customs clearance and another for picking and shipping, so you should receive your product around beginning of October. Your address lock date: September 10th.

CANADA

Your product is on the way to our fulfillment partner Snakes & Lattes, ETA September 19th in Toronto port. As in the US, you should receive your product about 2-3 weeks later, beginning October. Your address lock date: September 10th.

AUSTRALIA & NZ

Your product is waiting at Shanghai port to be picked up and shipped to our Australian fulfillment partner, Aetherworks. We don't have confirmation of the shipping schedule yet, but since distance is much shorter than US/Canada, we are confident that you will get your product beginning October as well. NZ shipments from Australia might take a little additional time, we are waiting for estimates. Address lock date: September 10th.

CHINA, KOREA, JAPAN & SOUTH EAST ASIA

Your product is going to be picked up at factory this Friday by our Chinese fulfillment partner, VFI. We will not artificially hold back delivery to any of our backers but rather deliver each box to every backer as fast as possible, which means that you guys are going to be the first to receive your games, 2nd half of September. Your address lock date: September 3rd (careful, this is very soon, if you move, let us know now).

EUROPE AND REST OF WORLD (Countries not previously listed)

Almost all of your product will be loaded September 2nd on a vessel with ETA October 4th in Barcelona. From there we will have to send it to our fulfillment partners, Cantarero for Spain and Happy Shops for the rest of Europe and rest of world. Between customs clearance and inner-European truck transport, we count 10 days approximately. Happy Shops and Cantarero will then start forwarding your packages within days so you should receive your product starting second half of October. Address lock date: October 4th.

Note: if you are in Europe or Rest of World and have pledged for an English or French Monster+Expansion copy, your delivery window extends from mid October to mid November, because of the dice problem described before. 

We are sorry about this issue, it is something we couldn't foresee, but quality control took precedence over delivery time here. 

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UNBOXING OF PRODUCTION COPIES

We received a batch of production copies by airmail and share the unboxing of the Monster+Expansion and the Leader+Expansion copies with you. As up until now, we are very impressed with the quality LongPack has produced. Enjoy these videos.

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THANK YOU, KEEP IT UP!

Finally, a Thank You for those of you having looked at the Essen preview list in BGG and giving us a thumbs up and "must have", there is a tough race for positions 4 of the hotness and we are in it thanks to you. This has already sparked interest by various reviewers asking for review copies. Keep it up (if you haven't already done so)!

Greets from Barcelona!

Second Gate Games

You will love this...
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 09:24:01 PM

... we are pretty sure you will, fellow Mercenaries!

We are in the last 2 days of production and will start shipping soon, your pledge is one step closer to being fulfilled!

In this update we will share some pictures and videos of the production process. We also ask for your help in generating buzz for the game in the New Releases list of Essen 2018, your "thumbs up" in this BGG list can make a real difference for us, even if you don't attend Essen. If you don't have time to go through this update right now, please consider to at least leave your thumbs up here.

PRODUCTION ALMOST FINISHED

In our last updates we shared pictures of our components which were coming out of LongPack's boardgame factory, they looked awesome. But now it is time to share some images of the assembly, another one of the critical steps in the fulfilment of your pledge. 

With all the components ready, the last 2 weeks have been used to assemble your more than 3.000 Kickstarter copies of Monster Lands, with more than 2.300 expansions. But not only that, we also produced another 9.000 core games and 2.000 expansions for retail. Thank you for making this possible, it is only because of you backers that we got this far.

We would have loved to show you the same assembly line videos for the Monster edition instead of the French retail version, but once our friends at LongPack noticed they had to shoot some footage, the Monster edition was already done and packed :)

So what's next? The shipping agents for the various fulfilment center destinations around the world are currently booking the next possible cargo vessels. In our next update, we will be able to tell you approximate shipping times for each region and the vessels your product will travel on. 

For Canada, for example, we already know that the product is scheduled to arrive in Toronto on September 17th. Add to this customs clearance and fulfilment center work as well as the shipping from the fulfilment center to you, and you will receive your product end September / beginning October. Back on track!

YOUR HELP NEEDED

The Essen New Releases list has been posted on BGG some days ago. Even if you don't go, you could do us a big favour by entering the list here and giving the game a thumbs up, this will help create hotness for the game and generate interest. Marketing reach remains our big competitive weakness versus established publishers, so we have to count on the proven helpfulness of you backers to be noticed among so many new games. Btw, reviewing the list is something you should do anyway, it gives a great feel of what's new this year, many exciting titles... and Monster Lands should be among the top ones ;)

Thanks a lot and we will be back with more news on shipping shortly!

Cheers,

Second Gate Games

Production update and Essen Spiel
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 01:07:17 AM

Fellow Mercenaries,

PRODUCTION UPDATE

we just got off another skype conference with LongPack, our manufacturer in China, and it looks like we are indeed facing a very slight delay of about 2 weeks versus late September delivery. We already announced this as probable in our last update. Not so big of a deal compared to KS delivery schedules in general, but never-the-less something we are sorry for, we had hoped to "be 100% punctual" . Asian and Australian/NZ backers might still get their pledges end September, but for North America, Europe and rest of world we are looking early to mid October.

We had first hoped that we could recover lost time fully, but then our key account manager at LongPack left unexpectedly and suddenly, which has thrown us back again.

While this is a small piece of negative news, we also have good ones :). The production of all paper material has finished! This means that all components are now ready, except a grey die from the expansion which is expected early August. This week LongPack is sending us production samples of all SKUs (we will share them in another update) and next week assembly can start. Mid August it should all be done and on its way to your fulfillment centers by sea freight.

HAND-SIGNED PROMO CARD SETS

This is an item we are producing mostly in Barcelona (the cards were printed in China). They turn out to be quite the hour-drainer, because EVERYTHING in the process of preparing them is manual... signing them, sorting them, fitting them into a leaflet and the leaflet into a zip-lock back, getting them ready to be shipped to the various fulfillment centers... so you get something very personal and non-mass-produced with this add-on.

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ESSEN SPIEL 2018

Unfortunately the following will only affect a limited number of "chosen ones" among you, those who are lucky enough to go to the...

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With GenCon being impossible due to our production schedule, we are once again betting on the world's biggest games fair, the Spiel, to promote our game. The event will coincide with our retail launch in Europe, which is nice timing.

Are you going to Essen by any chance? Then you HAVE TO come by and greet us in Hall 4, booth D123. We are preparing a 36 sqm booth (quite big for a small start-up publisher like ourselves) with plenty of demo tables and an oversized XXL prototype.

And if you go, why don't you come and work for us at our booth? Play alongside the designers, craft your strategies while demoing the game to newbies, have an invigorating experience in a fun environment. Check out our post at BGG which describes what we are looking for and what we offer.

Here a little sneak preview of the XXL prototype we are creating, we will show you more before the fair. 

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So much for now, we will be back with more news shortly.

Cheers,

Second Gate Games

Progress update #5
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 09:42:09 PM

Fellow Mercenaries,

time for another update, we are sure you will want to know how things are going.

NEW SAMPLES

Mass production for the wooden tokens and dice has finalized and mass production for all print material has started. We just received the mass production samples of the wooden tokens and they are looking AWESOME!

Mind you, unlike previously shown samples, these are taken from the actual mass production, so they are 1:1 what you are going to get, and we are delighted, they are even better than pre-production samples. Here a few more photos.

TIMING

We are going through unexpected iterations with some of the materials, including a reprint of some tokens which came out the wrong color. This takes time and we are using up the buffer of "incidence time" we had initially built in. 

We will now receive mass production samples of the fully finished product in 10-15 days, and then it is another 7-10 days for assembly, if everything works out as planned.

All in all, this means we are slightly behind schedule, we are probably looking at early October delivery rather than late September. It is not much of a slip, thanks to having calculated with buffer time, but never-the-less we are sorry for it, if it really happens. We "might" still make it just in time, though, will depend on how smooth sea travel goes :)

We hope you understand that we are prioritizing having the product 100% top notch over a few days of potential delay.

MONSTER LANDS GOES RETAIL 

We are happy to announce that we have reached several exclusive distribution agreements that will ensure Monster Lands' presence in retail around the globe. We have signed with 

- Southern Hobby Supply for the US 

- Snakes & Lattes for Canada 

 - Aetherworks for Australia/NZ 

 - Games Warehouse & Mr. Dexker for China and SEA

 - Intrafin for France/Belgium

 - BNW Distribution for Germany 

 - Cantarero Coca (the distribution arm of Maldito Games) for Spain 

 - REXport for the Czech Republic 

There are further ongoing talks with companies in other countries, but in any case we are happy that we already completely sold our first print run into distribution. Much of the success of sell-in may have to do with how happy you lot have been throughout the campaign, and the fact that you voiced this in comments and in the voting for the most anticipated game on BGG. So THANK YOU!

The good news for you as a backer is that retail success increases the longevity of the product, it will be more likely that expansions will be released, and your Premium   components are even more exclusive and valuable from a comparative point of view.

MONSTER LANDS MAKES YOU HAPPY

We have seen many happy faces of playtesters over the last years, but we now have visual proof that the game itself, the pure touch & feel of it, makes you happy.

See this lady in Shanghai producing our traps bags, can you be any happier?

 So much for now, we will be back with more very soon.

Cheers,

Second Gate Games