Hello everyone! Winter is approaching, so we hope everyone has a cozy blanket and a hot cup of tea on hand to keep them warm. I'm popping in for a quick update before things ...
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Snowbright Studio
about 2 months ago
Tea Pets Shipping and Fulfillment Update
Hello everyone! We’re taking a quick break from hiding the Halloween candy from the cats to pop in with an update for you all!
Coziness in a Cup
For all our tea connoisseurs...
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Snowbright Studio
4 months ago
PDF fullfilment Begins!
We have three exciting updates for you today…
First, it’s digital fulfillment day!
PDFs will begin shipping out to backers today to the email address that you used on your bac...
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Snowbright Studio
5 months ago
July Production Update!
Woooooooo! Okay, so we promised an update in July and here it is!
EVERYTHING is at the manufacturers!!!!
This deserves a celebratory Winged Lobster!
Thank you all for your su...
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Snowbright Studio
7 months ago
Production Update
Hello Tea Pets backers!
We are popping in with a more in-depth production update for Tea Pets! Read on for an update on each item and for the project overall including an on-ti...
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Snowbright Studio
8 months ago
Meet the Tiger Lily and Fluff Bear
Hello everyone! Popping in for a quick Teatime Adventures: Tea Pets update! We have some exciting news to share with you...two new Tea Pets are ready to make their way into the ...
Hello everyone! Winter is approaching, so we hope everyone has a cozy blanket and a hot cup of tea on hand to keep them warm. I'm popping in for a quick update before things get busy with the pre-holiday rush.
Shipping Fees Update
We are getting ready for fulfillment!!! The last piece is charging shipping fees. You should be seeing an email from BackerKit soon letting you know that shipping fees are being collected. This is also a great time to check on your survey to make sure you have filled it out and that your shipping address is up to date. We know a few people have moved since they have backed, and addresses may need to change. As always, if you need help with anything related to your survey, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].
Fulfillment update
All our Teatime Adventures and Tea Pets items are on a boat at this very moment and are making their way to us. We expect them to land in the U.S. and make their way to our warehouse right around Christmas. Of course, the ports and mail systems are quite busy during the holidays! So first shipments should start going out by the first week of January to help ensure your rewards have a safer journey to your door. I will pop back in an update when shipments begin so you can keep an eye out for your packages!
New Tea Pet
The holiday issue of Cozy Companion is here and it has a new Tea Pet! Check the pages of our cozy games and fiction magazine to find the Soot Quail, easily spotted in the snow in the Teatime Adventures mystery featured in Cozy Companion: Home for the Holidays. Subscribers can find the PDF of the new adventure on Cozy Library today and back issues should go up for sale soon.
Next Expected Update
Between our team recovering from the wonderful PAX Unplugged Convention earlier in December and our office being closed for winter break at the end of the month, you most likely won't hear from us until early January once shipping has started. Until then, we hope that everyone has a great winter break!
Hello everyone! We’re taking a quick break from hiding the Halloween candy from the cats to pop in with an update for you all!
Coziness in a Cup
For all our tea connoisseurs, we had a chance to chat with Friday from Friday Afternoon Tea in the latest volume of Cozy Companion, Fearsome Fossils! You can catch the interview in the magazine or online in the Cozy Library.
We can't wait for her Teatime Adventures blends to get made and sent to the studio. If you ordered tea with your pledge, you will get to try out some of her blends yourself!
Pledge Manager Shipping and Address Locks
We are wrapping up the final calculations on shipping fees and will soon update those in the pledge manager through BackerKit. Addresses will be collected in the updated pledge manager, and we’ll be sure to let you know when those lock! As always, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you are having issues with your survey.
Unexpected Shipping Delay Resolved
Tea Pets fulfillment has unfortunately hit a six week delay. Of all the books leaving China this fall, Tea Pets was selected by the Chinese government for additional review. We hope that the Chinese government officials enjoyed reading about the wholesome tea pets of the Verdant Isles and that the Fanged Ferrets behaved themselves during the review process. We are happy to say that the Chinese government has informed us that they have released the hold on the primary Tea Pets shipment and it is now being prepared to be loaded onto a freighter to cross the Pacific Ocean. This additional screening is something that can happen at any time with any products passing through China, and we have been lucky that it's never happened before.
Our shipping contractor and customs agent have charted a course for Tea Pets that will take your books and plushes up to Korea, down past Hawaii, through the Panama Canal, around Florida, and up to Savannah, Georgia where they will be unloaded onto a train, then loaded onto a truck, and then finally unloaded and inventoried at our Atlanta-area warehouse.
From there, the books, boxes, and other components will be packed and shipped to your door. This is a long journey for these tea pets, and currently the estimates are that they will arrive in Savannah in mid-December and then get a holiday ride through Georgia. Given Christmas holiday hours and capacity at the warehouse, we expect that packages will begin shipping and arriving to some backers starting in January. Of course, there can always be freighter delays and delays at customs, but we are fingers crossed that there will be only smooth sailing ahead. We know that delays are never exciting, but we will continue to update you on any other information as we get updates from our shipping partners. So, plan for hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies for your first game session.
PDFs will begin shipping out to backers today to the email address that you used on your backerkit survey. All PDFs will arrive from DriveThruRPG. If you don't see your PDFs, please check your spam folder as sometimes emails like to hide there. If you can't find them there feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] and we will gladly help you with the issue.
We are so excited to be getting these PDFs over to you. We hope that you enjoy them and hope to see you on our Discord to chat with other Tea Pets backers!
Second, the print proofs have arrived from the manufacturer! I've included some pics below so you can see it all. We even set out a little picnic spread to lure over some Fluff Bears. Mass production is underway at the factory, and if our freight estimate is correct then we are expecting items to arrive in our warehouse and begin shipping to you between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
And there's more! We have added a new Harmony dice roller to the Snowbright App as well as a tea steeping timer! If you haven't checked out the Snowbright App yet, you can find it on the Google Play Store and Apple Store under Snowbright App!
Woooooooo! Okay, so we promised an update in July and here it is!
EVERYTHING is at the manufacturers!!!!
This deserves a celebratory Winged Lobster!
Thank you all for your support as we went all hands on deck for the final edits and reviews of all four books. We even had our programmer going over all of the books looking for missing punctuation and issues with the documents (programmers can be great editors!). We are happy to say that we wrapped up work and now all our files are at the printer and have started the manufacturing process.
We are also excited to let you know that the covers of the Teatime Adventures Core Rulebook, Tales from Oakenbend, and Tea Pets books have been upgraded to now come with gold debossing. So smooth! And the Teatime Crafts & Journals books now has perforation on each page to make it even more “rippable” when you use it for crafts and journaling in your Teatime Adventures and Tea Pets games!
What about all of the other bits and bobs, like the new “venti-sized” D20 tea dice and the Rose Possum plush? Those are also with their manufacturers and are being worked on as I write this! And for our 21 wonderful Snowbright Star backers, we can’t wait to get that extremely exclusive Art & Lore of the Verdant Isles hand-signed collector’s book over to you, which was only available through this campaign. Can you believe there actually used to be humans in the Verdant Isles?! Here’s a peek at some of the earliest WIP sketches from the world of Teatime Adventures, many of which will be included in the Art & Lore book.
The last item that will go into production will be the tea blends. That waits until the last step to ensure it is fresh and tasty when our backers receive their orders in the mail.
What’s the print book timeline? Our ocean freight logistics show that there is a possibility that we may have everything in our warehouse by Halloween, but ocean travel can be fickle so we are anticipating a November fulfillment period for printed books and boxes. We will keep you all updated as we hear more from our manufacturing and shipping partners. Our goal is to get you all playing Tea Pets as soon as we can!
What about digital fulfillment? We have just one more step for the PDF versions of each of the four books. Every book at Snowbright goes through a rigorous accessibility checking process for screen readers and other features. Those checks should be wrapping up in the next few weeks, so we will have PDF versions out to backers in line with the original timeline of August!
We will continue to pop in with updates every so often when we get news from our manufacturers and will share progress pics as we get them. As always, feel free to email us any time with questions or reach out via our fan Discord.
Coming to Gen Con? Be sure to stop by our booth (#2134) and give our prototype Rose Possum plush a pat on the head. They’ll have quite a few cousins here pretty soon!
We are popping in with a more in-depth production update for Tea Pets! Read on for an update on each item and for the project overall including an on-time deadline for digital fulfillment and a slightly delayed timeline for print fulfillment. You’re also always welcome to email us or jump in our Discord for questions, comments, feedback, or just to hang out!
Core Rulebook
All creative work on the Teatime Adventures Core Rulebook is done! The digital version of the PDF went through its final accessibility checks over the past few weeks, and we are happy with how the book and new adventure have come together. Check out some of the new art below!
Tea Pets
The Tea Pets book has taken our team a little longer than expected due to extra playtesting. Tea Pets has been designed for both solo and group play, and required some adjustments to ensure quality play in both settings. The additional playtesting wrapped up last month and the book is in final layout. Here are some of the new tea pets you can expect to find in the game as well as one of the habitat maps! Player’s Craft Book
The Player’s Craft Book (aka the Player’s Pack) has a majority of the content completed, including journal prompts, trackers, maps, and more. You can see one of the new forms below. We are adding a few more craft pages to give you more options to celebrate Verdant Isles holidays, and then that book will be wrapped up as well.
Tales from Oakenbend
The Tales from Oakenbend adventure pack has had new content added, including a history of Oakenbend, a listing of mayors, and new seasonal maps for all of your holiday needs. See the cherry blossoms blooming in the springtime map below! You’ll notice a few new locations marked on the new maps as well.
Now that the Tea Pets book has finished being balanced, the four adventures inside are being revised to match the updated Tea Pets rules. Those revisions should be finished in the next two weeks.
Other Fun Stuff
Of course, you’ve already seen our Rose Possum plush, and if you’ve stopped by our booth this year you’ve likely had a chance to roll some of our new Astra dice as well for the new Harmony magic system! Sticker sheets, box art, and the field guide poster are also prepped and ready.
Cozy Companion
We hope that those of you have already accessed your Cozy Companion subscriptions have been enjoying them! We were thrilled to include some early Tea Pets content in April’s New Beginnings volume. We are super excited for the in-depth look at the city of Starsong in June’s Constellations volume. Check out a sneak peek of the cover below! Also, if you have not logged into your Cozy Library subscription recently, you should hop on by to find more Teatime Adventures content set in Starsong and elsewhere in the Verdant Isles!
Bonus App!!!
We did NOT include this in our original timeline, because we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to pull it off… but the development team was on a roll (wooo, Danielle!) and so we are super excited to introduce you to the new Snowbright app which includes a Teatime Adventures dice roller, character generator, quick references for players, and more!
We hope that the new app makes it even easier for you and your players to get up and running with Teatime Adventures right away! Look for this free app to be live on the App Store and Google Play by the end of the month. Overall Timeline
While the digital pieces of the project are on time for fulfillment, the print components are running behind schedule. Based on current progress and the three month delay around the Tea Pets book, we are now expecting creative development to finish this month. Once the files are all in the hands of the printer, we expect* a 90 day turnaround to get from the printer to our warehouse. (*Depending on customs and freight.) That means that if we have files to the printer by July 1, then 90 days after that would be about October 1st for shipments to start being sent out from our warehouse. Our warehouse processes orders quickly, so once packages start to ship they should all be in the mail within a week.
We have had some requests to fulfill PDFs to all backers first before the physical components ship out. We think that is a great idea too, and so we plan to complete digital fulfillment by August.
This has been our biggest project to date, both in terms of crowdfunding and in terms of scope. The four books and other components have been a real joy to work on, and we are really looking forward to getting them to you. Thanks again for your patience, and expect another backer update from us here by the 4th of July!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us a [email protected] or join our Fan Discord where we post frequent updates on our work.
