Short manufacturing and shipment update
over 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 02:31:55 AM

Good morning everyone

Just a small heads up on the latest developments on the new clips engineering and the setting up for shipment in prep for fulfilment of Wave 1.

New Clips ready to go

Last night I received a couple of images and video of the testing of the new clips in the new upgraded thickness and finishing of the boxes. I have requested the same to test with the punchboard as a final consideration before tooling to ensure the tightness and presure is right in the room-to-room, room-to-walls and clip-to-door. Also, I want to see the effect of the door+clip as I think it can be a bit too long for the pictures I received. But I prefer to make the call once they test the clip with the doors.

Remember these clips will be transparent in their production form.

Wave 1 Fulfilment

While pre-production final tests are happening, I have not received any news or notification of potential delays, so I want to assume that my last forecast is still accurate.

In the meantime, I have been contacting several key distributors across the world and I have the great news to communicate that it seems we will be able to ship locally to you in (so far): US, Australia and New Zealand. I'm still in conversations with a very important Canadian distributor that could take on the sales of TFD in Canada and also ship your pledges locally. This is in lafrge part thank to the re-design of the box set into a retail aspect which favours distributor logistics and set ups and therefore can offer this fulfilment option (basically, your pledge would not be different to a distributor from a store order)

As you may imagine, this should reflect on shipment savings and time reduction as the pledges (alongside the distributor volumes) will be shipped directly from China to distribution, cutting costs and transit times by weeks in the zones where the shipping costs shortfall was more accentuated (US, Australasia and Canada for example)! 

I want to reassure you that I'm working from every corner to ensure the fast turnaround and the maximum saving to minimise any impact on the final stretch of this project. The agreements have not been signed and conversations are still ongoing, but I wanted to share with you what are we focusing our work on at our end.

Thanks

Manufacturing, Contents and Timings
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 07:04:38 AM

- Good day every one.

I have received and answered several emails and PMs regarding the information and confusions caused by my latest update. During this time, I have been working with the manufacturer to cover two fronts: The design files and production technical requirements and the volumes for each product.

I will try to keep this Update very sleek to ensure that it is all info and no fluff.

Manufacturing

In the next 10 days I will be receiving the final production test of the 5 TFD settings: The Castle, The Temple, The Dungeons & Sewers, The Town and The Facility.

If these are approved (so far there is no reasons for not to), the full production will begin, taking 2 months to complete.

This production covers:

All Barebones and Complete Sets for all backers - now consolidated into the same product. So if you pledged for either, Barebones or Full set, you will receive the same product.

Contents:

In these sets, you will receive all the rooms, walls and stairs as indicated in the campaign (no changes). Additionally, you will receive a punchboard with the 'new non-de-luxe doors'. These are included, alongside the new clips to make sure that you can use your sets full on from day one.

The Doors that come in these 'retail friendly' sets are made of one plastic clip and two cardboard door inserts that follow the same principle as the plastic doors you will also receive (see below)

Wave 1

The first shipment to you will be made of all the sets you purchased (remember that to sim plify production and considering the changes, Barebones and complete set are the same.

For thos that may wonder, Barebones receive now a punchboard of doors and effectively a better product. However, the complete set still includes (on a second wave) the plastic doors as for the description in the campaign.

Shipment

I'm now working closely with the fulfilling companies and US and Canada distributors that may take the product to retail thereafter. With their help, we will calculate the accurate shipment costs to make sure we find the best, fastest and cheapest solution.

Backers will only have to pay (top up) their shipment for Wave 1. If a backer underpaid during the pledge manager, yoou will receive an email with the total to complete the shipment cost.

WAVE 2 WILL NOT HAVE A SHIPMENT COST TO IT. IT WILL BE COVERED BY US!
 

Torches and T-Clips

If you still want to enjoy the T-Clips and Torches we designed during the campaign, here is a dropbox link for you to download them all. Also, I will add them into our online store soon for you to download for free should the Dropbox link doesn't work.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n66vfp7xiursdf3/AAA52ic0eq11KlnbCRpDRy93a?dl=0

This also applies to 'The Facility' Mods and T-clips, of course.

Timings

7th August - approval of phisical samples

9th October - finishing the complete production run for Wave 1.

6th November - Consignment arrives to US for fulfilment of US, Canada and South America

20th November - Consignment arrives to EU hub for fulfilment of EU, UK and ROW

Ideally, all fulfilment should be finished by the end of November.

Retail release of TFD in stores for Christmas 2020

All in all we are progressing

I hope I have managed to explain it all clearer this time. As I receive news or updates (either from fulfilling companies, manufacturer or shipping), I will update again. In the meantime, I will continue recording videos as I receive samples so you can all be aware of what to expect, qualities, etc.

Thanks everyone for the awesome support that most of you are showing privately mainling me. Remember if you want to know more or have doubts, simply email me directly: 

[email protected]

I can only be bothered about polite emails, even if they are negative ;-)

A Note on Refunds

I want to remind you that refunds are not part of a KS campaign, we are not offering refunds. Refunds are offered during the first 30 days after campaign as part of the T&Cs to cover backers in  special and often personal and critical circumstances. As you all know, when you pledge on a campaign, you are helping us to produce the best product wwe can possibly imagine. 

Delays and design changes to adapt to production are common and expected (cmon' you know this). I'm still here, working hard every day with your investment to produce and launch TFD so we can all enjoy it for a long time.
 

WHAT A RIDE
over 4 years ago – Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 01:10:37 AM

Good day dungeoneers.

Although we have been very conscious of the need to communicate a lot more with you during the last months, we haven’t done so as often as you needed for two solid reasons:

• The uncertainties and worries of these last months 
• The need on decisions before sharing

This Complex Times

We all have gone through thick these past months; I don’t think there is need to say anything else more about COVID-19 and the impact on this new world that must awake now. Everybody has their own opinion on the technicalities of the mater (social distancing, closure of businesses, lockdowns) and their own personal experiences. What is common is that these accounts have had enormous impacts on everyone (individuals and businesses)

As individuals, we had to decide on securing our families and some sort of "survival condition" getting ready for whatever was to come, as such, there was a point where we all had to leave Room 17 Games dormant and find a side way of living (= regain confidence/feel more secured). While the illustrators and designers had continue working with different conditions (and creating for Room 17 Games and other companies too), Anders and I were lucky enough to be welcomed to work for a well known UK with such good experience that Anders have decided to remain in that company and some of you will probably hear from him from his new position. I wish the best for him and will thank him eternally for the work he has helped me put together and the constant support he has provided me at a personal level throughout these years. Anders and I are neighbours, and we play games together, so we are pretty still in conact but he is no longer part of Room 17 Games. His emails have been forwarded now to me and I will be dealing with them from now trying to catch up.

As for me, it was time to get back to the business of ensuring that Room 17 Games has its chance in this post-COVID new world. Carlos, Andres and many other designers, sculptors and illustrators are just around the corner and will continue working together for what's to come!

__________________

We all have seen a lot of businesses going under and we will see a lot more. Small business like Room 17 Games must double efforts and be VERY creative to make it through, and that is my intention from this point on. I have been in multiple conversations with sales companies, production and manufacturing friends and colleagues to gather as much useful information as possible, to understand the potential of Room 17 Games in a wider industry, where do we sit as a company? where did we fail? where can we strife? 

And so, with a lot of digging done, I have outcomes that I want to share with you and that will affect pledges, operations, feelings… but hopefully will see us all through with a happy ending with one powerful drive pushing us forward, :

1-  R17 is our baby, our dream and our passion.

2-  We have responsibilities towards you that we MUST see through (= we owe you some toys!!).

3-  We have more experience, we have more and new lessons learnt to apply to become better.

So, let’s go to the “Cunning Plan”. Please constructively comment your thoughts and above all, help us with creative thinking and broad understanding. I know some of you won’t like the plan, express it please, but be polite (= we have feelings too!). We want to do good for you, for us and our families and our company.

TENFOLD DUNGEON

 As you can imagine there has been a lot of time to go through the project, the numbers, the tools, the tests, the samples to look again and again at the most effective way to end up with our system if possible in a more solid position than we started it. If anything, these terrible times have given us time to mature and reflect on the company’s mistakes, wins and opportunities.

 What is a solid position?
    TFD is more than a bunch of boxes, is an IP, is a system to be used in many games and many designs. As such we wanted to create it as a financially sustainable product that distributors and retailers would love. This would give the system the space in the world (= perdurablility and sales volume) to make it stay. The way it resolved during the KS campaign wasn’t the right one. Here is the reasons and the changes we will be applying and for which we are already working with the manufacturer:

TOO MUCH STUFF IN ONE BOX
    Although we love to have A LOT of toys, when it comes to a commercial approach, including all the elements in one box would’ve made the box too expensive for a collectable item, too abundant and redundant items that would not add value and which would be too heavy for shipping, etc. A sustainable approach to the retail avenue is the key to make TFD stick, to make it more than what it is now!
    So the design of the contents on the box will change slightly (fear not you will receive MOST of the items you will expect and ALL the items you will actually enjoy.

1-  No doors in the box- the retail box will not have doors on it. Doors will be supplied in a separate collectable pick and choose ever-growing selection of retail packed boxes. At the moment we are looking into:
    ·  Fantasy Doors Set 1 – 5x stone frame doors with their corresponding panels
    ·  Fantasy Doorways – 1x Archway/portcullis + 2x complete sets of Portals (2 blue and two red)
    ·  Fantasy Door Set 2 - 5x wood frame doors with their corresponding panels
    ·  SciFi Doors set 1 - 5x hatch frames with their corresponding panels
    ·  SciFi Doors set 2 (Bio-doors) - 5x hatch infested-frames with their corresponding panels
    ·  Sci-fi Bulkheads – 3x Double Bulkheads with their corresponding panels.

2-  Simplified and better clips (T-clips and torch-clips). We are not going to produce fancy T-Clips and Torches or their counterpart Sci-Fi Mods. Why? It makes no sense!
    As I explained, through this compulsory pause we had multiple opportunities to actually see the elements working and identify the pros and the cons. We managed to finally engineer a door-clip that works like a glove (and that can be manufactured in the way we envision!) but also to realise that other elements didn’t work so well: T-clips and torches were disappointing and frustrating. 

    First their structure makes them very complex to manufacture (= extreme costs of engineering and moulds) and second the price per unit was incredibly high for what they are actually for in the system (clips to keep the boxes together and build up the walls). Plus they had to be stupidly large to sustain pressure while keeping the features.
    So, we have decided to write those off entirely and substitute them with simple corner and T clips (and if we find a reason for it, also Cross-clips.

 
      Additionally, this would allow us to put a good bunch of them in each box set which you will find very useful not only for what they are intended for (walls), but also to protect the corners of the larger boxes (= generating more integrity to the set). These new (yes, agree they are plain and boring) clips also allow for freestanding single walls by clipping them on the base.

We believe with this compromise/change, the clips are now as they should be for what they are intended to be. No more, no less, no faff! 

3-  No furniture (at the moment). Yes, while entertained on the design and re-design and re-re-design of the system, we kept “leaving for tomorrow” the furniture sets. Later on, conversations with certain companies made us understand that, if we get into agreements, partnerships, collaborations or if we simply think deeper, we could come up with a better solution for furniture. So, at the moment, furniture will be the last bit we will devote myself to.
    All these tweaks and compromises will allow for a retail product at a very interesting price point, with a reduction in weight (= shipment costs and logistics reduced for distributors and online retailers) that could help us opening TFD to the retail avenue (= continuity, brand establishment = more TFD designs!). At the same time, it generates a nice range of “complements” to collect at will, while encouraging the collectability aspect (= lower price point = more interest in further purchases) also reinforced by the Dungeon Generator card system.
    If we were to include all doors and clips, etc in every TFD design, a collector of the series would end up with more than 60 doors, 30-40 clips etc. that would never be used! Therefore, producing a negative perceived value for money (= I’m paying for doors that I’ll never use, when all I wanted is more rooms to chose from). During the handling process (= having a good play around time with the samples!), we realised that nobody would ever use that many doors unless you are playing in a football pitch with all your collection at once!
    Finally, the idea of splitting the doors in 5-unit sets, would allow a lower price point and the possibility of buying a sensible amount of a varied designs.

TOO MUCH STUFF IN ONE GO
    So, how are we going to deliver this awesome project/range?
    First of all, be reassured that regardless of the packaging and the retail approach we have explained, and observing the compromisses we had to make, all backers will receive their items, just not all in one fell sweep. Please continue reading.
    One of the lessons learnt these past three years is that In order to make it through, we need the interest of a broader public (considerably more backers and/or the trade avenue). That is why in the last months we had business conversations with distributors and large retailers across the world to gather their interest on looking after the sales of this range. And we believe we have succeeded.
    The interest of the system is general, with well-known companies interested in knowing and seeing more. So we are going to offer the market a sequential release as you receive your product first! We are planning on five waves coming one after the other every two months (or three months max depending on the production/shipment turn around)
    Starting with 4Q 2020 with the most popular set according to your selection of pledges:
 

• The Castle
• Fantasy Doors set 1 (stone frames)
• Fantasy Doorways

 Followed by:

Wave 2

• The Dungeons & Sewers
• Dungeon Generator card system

 Wave 3

• The Town
• Fantasy Doors Set 2 (wood frames)

 Wave 4

• The Temple
• The Swampglade

 Wave 5

• The Facility
• Sci-Fi Doors set 1
• Sci-Fi Bio Doors
• Sci-Fi Bulkheads

 This is the plan, but as you can imagine, as we go onto the Waves, the order may change, and we may even be able to shift your sets together in advance to make up time and safe some pennies! From that point it will all become a logistics exercise in which our business partners and customers may be involved and make a difference. In order to save shipment costs to you, what about pinpointing collection points? Somehow we believe that shipping costs will always be a KS problem and we want to start thinking creatively to overcome this while putting together backers and participating stores as much as this is realistically possible.
 

Shipment Costs
    And talking about shipment, there is a final consideration and in line with wanting to present facts in an honest and open way, we wanted to be clear from this point on the shipping costs of any KS coming from Room. 17 and also TFD.
    Some of you may know that we experienced the nasty consequences of our naivety and miscalculation with the shipment costs for Miremarsh which cost the company to be at the brink of closing down with a downfall of over £60K just in logistics!
    No company can afford this and specially a small company like ours. So, from Wave 1 onwards, each shipment to you will be communicated alongside any short payment for shipment that needs to be settled. We have the exact amount every backer has paid for shipment so we will ensure that those are subtracted from any shipment at the time to inform you.
 

 And the Future?
    Well, we are certainly making amends in past failures to ensure there is a future and the future is bright. In addition to the technical work and the structural changes in the company (basically scaling down to adjust to the reality of our times) we spent the last 12 months developing Dungeon Adventures which with your blessings will be the next campaign coming soon. Dungeon Adventures is an unfolding trilogy introducing this Room 17 Games exclusive IP (Threat of the Errants: dungeon crawler – Hunt of the Necromancer: adventure board game – The Rise of the Lichqueen: dungeon crawler)
https://www.dungeonadventures.games
 

We are preparing a ready set for video recording and streaming so we can communicate with all of you on a more direct and regular basis. The first videos will be showing the unboxings of the different sets explaining the tweaks we will be instructing to make them better still.

I hope you are all keeping safe and healthy and to see you in our comments very soon.

Best regards

Tenfold Dungeon small update
over 4 years ago – Mon, May 25, 2020 at 02:55:28 PM

Hi TFD backers

Sorry for the long quiet! Me and Ricard have been trying to navigate out way around this currently crazy world and its for sure a challenge! I just wanted to let you know that we still exist albeit in a very scaled down form and that we certainly haven't forgot about you! The delivery of Miremarsh has been very long (the games arrived to UK end of last year!) and tough but now we are down to a handful of pledges for GQ to ship and any replacement part orders. As that is done, the process on how to bring your TFD -pledges goes on. I don't predict an easy, smooth or quick ride there, but that is to my experience a lot of KS's at the best of times, how it will be now and for the upcoming future, we will all find out, but we will work on getting there in the end as with Miremarsh.

Cheers

Room 17 Games (Anders & Ricard)

China and the World
over 4 years ago – Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 02:40:59 AM

Good morning Dungeoneers;

You are all provabnly aware that there is a pandemic going on and although we thought boardgaming was above all these real-world problems, unfortunately, everything affects everything these days.

From Room 17 Games, and in conjunction with our beloved manufacturer, Ningbo Eastar, the progress on TFD is concluded. Punchboards, sleeves, box sets, etc have been lined up for production weeks before Chinese New Year, and the plastics have now been tested and apporved in a titanic engineering effort! (and we thought it was just clipping doors in cardboard... )

Here is Vincent, our production manager at Ningbo Eastar testing the friction and correctness of the doors ina finished production The Facility!

So, although we have done everything in our hands to ensure the manufacturing of this product, the tiny viruses have destroyed every possible chance to continue with the production towards a deadline.

Tooling of the plastics has begun and everything will be ready at their end to generate the product, however, there is no official note on possibilities to ship or to receive (at our UK end) goods coming from China.

Additionally, and to make matters worst, China has announced an increase of production costs due to the effects of the virus in the country (part-email received yesterday|): 

"[...] Because of the CoronaVirus, now the raw material price are much expensive than before. And also due to the lack of workers (many works still not back to factory because of the CoronaVirus), the labor costs also increased more than past. Please kindly understand. Thank you."

With this situation hitting us hard, we are balancing the best course of action.  On one hand, we have spent loads of money in the prep work, wages, sampling, tooling, etc. so we cannot afford to look at manufacturing somewhere else. On the other, we don't know how long this situation will take and how the authorities would react to it.

From Room 17 Games, we want to reasure you that we will do everything in our hand to make sure you end up receiving your product. We have received a lot of interest from larger companies to acquire this property and perhaps help us to fulfil this (manufacturing parts of it, re-structuring the product to be retainable ...) 

I'm sure this  won't be the last update on KS you will receive with such complicated news. We are also backers of games and we are receiving similar info to our sadness.

We will keep you updated on any progress at this end.

Please let us know your opinion on this ands above anything else, any ideas or options that we might have not considered yet!

Thanks for your understanding and continuous support.