Good day! I hope you are doing well this week. As promised last time, I wanted to get into an update today that gave you a better idea of where we are with all projects. The first thing I want to share is a graphic we've whipped up that will be included in each update:

This gives you a simple view of what stage of production we are in for each project so that you can have a better idea, at a glance, of where your stuff is. Checks are for what is already finished and stars are what we are currently working on. As we make progress, we'll update the chart. But for this update, let's go into more detail on each of these items!

We are in production on Buttons & Bugs! This process began early last week, and so now we wait for the games to come out on the other side. This means we'll be able to begin freight shipping next month and fulfillment will ideally be happening early next year, depending on the availability of our fulfillment partners. As with all of the timelines I'll be sharing with you, everything is of course just an estimate, as there is always a chance of unforeseen delays.

Forgotten Circles has actually already finished production, but because we will be shipping it in wave 1 along with Frosthaven, it is waiting for Frosthaven to be finished before both are shipped out together.

Here again we are in production, with a very similar timeline to Buttons & Bugs above. We just got word that the games will be ship ready in two weeks, so we will be able to start freight shipping next month, with, again, fulfillment ideally happening early next year, depending on the availability of our fulfillment partners.

Same story here. The last piece of this was designing a box to put all the books in, because the books were too big to package any other way. So that is finished, and the play surface books are now in production and will be shipped alongside Frosthaven and Forgotten Circles. These will likely be the last piece to make it out of production, but Chris and Price are working on our shipping plan next week and will be eliminating as much unnecessary waiting and downtime as possible.

Admittedly, this is where we are most behind. Design and development are done, but there is still a lot of outstanding art and graphic design. And while we will be doing some layout and editing this month and next on the project, the rest of the year will be mostly dedicated to finishing putting the systems and infrastructure in place to fulfill all art and design needs we are going to need on both this project and the RPG in the coming year.

To provide a very rough timeline, our goal is to finish all art and design by the end of March next year, then spend April proofing, May-June in production, and June-July in freight shipping. This puts our fulfillment sometime around July or August. Again, I just want to emphasize that these are rough estimates. We're confident that we can meet these goals, but complications can always arise.

I know we haven't communicated much on the timeline of the RPG since the campaign. We wanted to give Danielle a chance to get settled and get everything into place. But with the design done and writing assignments for all the lore deployed, we are finally ready to start talking about this more.

First drafts for all the writing assignments are due in January, and in the meantime, we'll be doing further play testing and development on the rules. Once the drafts come in, we'll also start ramping up artwork for the book.

We will be getting in final drafts of the lore writing in February, by which point we'll also be finishing up any modifications to the rules sections of the book. It will then go into editing in March and layout in April, meaning we should be able to get final files sent off to the printer in June. From there, we can expect ocean freight two months after that in August and fulfillment starting in September.

I just want to stress again that this is an optimistic estimate that assumes everything comes together without delays, which hardly ever happens. But we'll do our best to stick to that schedule, and we'll let you know if anything changes.

With the miniatures, we aren't quite ready to give a more concrete timeline. Progress is certainly being made here as we finish up the sculpting, but there are so many variables with the factory revisions and mold-making process. Plus the production time can be variable, depending on what our final order quantities end up being. We will have more info on this later!

Our friends at Glass Cannon will be streaming a play through of the RPG tonight! Back at Gen Con, they recorded a podcast where the team went through character creation, which you can find here.

But you don't need to have watched that to enjoy them playing the game tonight at 8pm ET on Twitch! Joe O'Brien is Gloom Mastering for Sydney Amanuel, Paula Deming, Skid Maher, and Josephine McAdam, and we are all very excited to check it out!

And if you want more RPG live plays, we will also be doing one at PAXU. This will be on Saturday, Dec. 2 at 11am ET and will be streamed through Penny Arcade's channels. We'll be getting the PA crew that you saw during the campaign back together for another wild mission that will most assuredly involve Winkies. Alexander Theoharis will be Gloom Mastering for myself, Jasmine Bhullar, Jerry Holkins, and Laura Stringer.

You can also come hang out at our booth at PAXU (#2936), where we will be running demos of the RPG, Frosthaven, Gloomhaven Second Edition, and Buttons & Bugs with production samples fresh from the factory. It's gonna be a great time!

Next update will likely be a smaller one, as we'll all be at PAXU, but you can expect another designer diary from Danielle about the RPG, so look forward to that, and I'll catch you then!