Hey folks

I'm very pleased to say that we now have some shipping dates.

Here's the plan:

Thanks for your patience - the above timeline is later than we'd estimated at the start, but still a pretty brisk delivery timetable for a TTRPG crowdfunding campaign. Our next update will be in mid-November when I hope we can confirm the product shipped as planned.

While I have your attention, there's a few other things to mention:

Happy spooky season!

Josh and Becky

Hi folks

Last month's update felt a bit doomy - we'd had a ton of problems with the UV flashlights, and I was beginning to think we might have to drop them from the product altogether. Thank you to everyone who gave supportive comments in response - it was a big help, emotionally. Thankfully, after some hairy negotiations with our manufacturer over regulatory compliance and price, I've managed to get things moving - and we get to keep the flashlight. At some point I'll do a write-up of what exactly happened here and why - but for now, the main message is: the problem is fixed.

I didn't want to let September go by without an update, but right now it's a national holiday in China, so I don't have details of when the product will ship as yet. I'm expecting to hear during the second week in October. I'll update again when I know more.

This also means that shipping will be charged soon. I'm told by the experts at Backerkit that we should overcommunicate this fact so nobody is surprised when it happens. In fact I would say the word "overcommunicate" has been mentioned to us so many times that it's begun to sound like a dalek talking. They've overcommunicated the need to overcommunicate. But anyway, this is your reminder that there will be a separate charge for shipping. I will mention this again soon! You will be overcommunicated to! Overcommunicate!!!

Also: we got the mass production sample and it looks great! Worth the wait. We're gonna make some proper product pics and I'll share those when we have them. In the meantime I've taken a quick and dirty one, see below.

Nearly there!

Yours

Josh (and Becky)

Hi folks

I wanted to let you know that we are currently dealing with some problems with the UV/blacklight flashlight that we had planned to include with Lovecraftesque, and this is causing a delay to the delivery of the physical game.

We'll come back to you when we've got everything resolved, but right now it looks as though the flashlight may cost us a great deal more than what we were originally quoted. We're discussing it with the manufacturer and we still hope to find a solution. However, given the cost increase, one option we're looking at is to removing the flashlight from the game, which would mean you would need to source your own flashlight if you want to view the hidden art included in the game.

The UV/blacklight flashlight isn't needed to play the game, and the hidden art isn't part of gameplay - it's just a cool decoration on the rulebook, box and board.

We're really sorry about this. If you have strong views about the flashlight now is the time to let us know!

We've had to suspend the manufacturing process while we resolve this problem. Once we've completed our discussions with the manufacturer, we'll move to complete manufacturing as quickly as possible - and we think the game will still ship before the end of November.

Again, we're really sorry about the problem with the flashlights, and for the delay this is causing. We'll come back to you in September and hopefully by then things will be much clearer.
Best wishes

Josh and Becky

Hey folks

Another quick update as we're mostly waiting on our manufacturer to do their thing.

Production of the "mass sample" - the final sample copy of the game, made to the same standard as the eventual mass produced game, commenced in early July. In theory that would put us on track to receive the sample around the end of August, meaning the finished product should ship out to our warehouses some time in September. We would therefore likely ship the product to backers in October.

A small (I hope!) snag has arisen in the last few weeks, however. Just as we were about to move to the next step of the project, our manufacturer (Longpack Games) raised the need for "safety testing"[1] of the UV/blacklight flashlight included with the game. I'm in the process of researching and discussing the requirements with them, to make sure that we're compliant with regulations. Although I'm told that it shouldn't add to the production time, it's clearly a risk.

I'll update again in late August, by which time we should have a much clearer picture on both the sample timeline and the safety testing issue.

Josh

[1] Actually appears to be primarily testing in relation to environmental regulations.