Production Has Begun
11 months ago – Wed, May 31, 2023 at 12:29:18 PM

Hey Crew!

First and foremost, Mass production has begun! 🥳 The dice and ship parts went into production two weeks ago. The rest of the components should be starting within the next few weeks. Once we receive a printed test copy of the game and it clears quality review we can green-light the full production.

Box Insert Test

Meanwhile, we are working on testing the box insert with blank "test" components. Here is a video from Boda Games as they test out the box insert: 

A few things we found out from the test, we need to lower the walls of the card dividers because the vacuum form mold process was causing them to be too brittle. Second, the dial area needs to be a little wider to allow the dials to sit flush below the dice and enemy sheet container.  Third, the First Mate token indent shape needs to be a little deeper. Four, the Permanent Breach token insert needs to be wider to make it easier for the vacuum-forming process. These changes have been fixed! We are currently waiting for the next insert prototype to be made.

Question for our Pirate community! 

I am including a guide on the side of the box that helps explain how to organize cards into sections. The rest of the box has apparent shaped holes for specific tokens, dice, and various bits. 

Do you think it’s necessary to include a “storage diagram" for every component? We'd love your (Note: There are empty spaces on the bottom and top container. These were intentionally placed to hold expansion components. They will hold the Swords and Souls expansion tokens.  There's plenty of room for future expansions too)

Origins Game Fair

We’ll be heading to the Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio, June 21-25! We’ll be showcasing the latest build of We’re Sinking with demos as well as taking pre-orders for anyone who missed the campaign. If you plan on attending, we'd love to meet you so please stop by booth #1421 and say hi!

Looking for Volunteers
We are looking for a few volunteers to help me demo during Origins. I have a couple of Exhibitor badges up for grabs for anyone who can assist with 8+ hours throughout the 5 days with flexible hours. Please reach out to [email protected] if you would like to volunteer.

Addressing the Timeline
Some of you have noticed that the original timeline is a bit behind where we planned to be at this point. We've received thoughtful questions from you wondering how it affects the delivery. You're correct that the original timeline has passed the current state of the game. It was hard for us to foresee how long the iteration process for the plastic molds would be. Every time we received samples and wanted to fix issues, that meant the molds had to be redesigned and recast. We also underestimated the anxiety that comes from saying "Okay everything is DONE!" and pressing that big final print button. The slightest error will be forever printed on thousands of games. We've literally had nightmares about it. 😬 While the manufacturer has been working on the plastic molds, We've been using the time to put extra polish on everything. Card text, rulebook text, artwork, etc. We are extremely happy with the way the game has shaped up to be even better over the past several months and we're actually thankful that we had the extra time to polish. Luckily we did pad a few months into the timeline so as long as production, freight shipping, and fulfillment goes smoothly, we should still be in a September window for fulfillment.

Pledge Manager
I know a lot of you have been waiting for the Pledge Manager, and I appreciate your patience. Now that things are coming to a close with the start of production, I have been able to start talks with my distributor and start to gather numbers from the manufacturer such as the number of games per carton and the number of cartons per pallet. The manufacturer is working on getting us the estimated weight of the game boxes. All of this information is necessary to accurately estimate freight and fulfillment shipping. Therefore, I am more comfortable waiting until we have those numbers verified instead of putting out the pledge manager with the wrong shipping costs, which could end up putting me out of business fast. I'm not worried about using the pledge manager for tracking extra purchases of the game or add-ons, because we are already printing a larger quantity of games to go into retail after fulfillment. I'm still hopeful to get the Pledge Manager up before the end of June and have it open for at least 30 days.
 

Whew! There was a lot to talk about this month. There should be just as many updates next month. See you then!
 

Cheers,

Joseph

 

Nearing Production
12 months ago – Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 07:53:21 PM

Hey Everyone,

We have a new crew member to welcome aboard. My daughter Mira was born last week. She is perfect in every way. My wife and I are overjoyed and ready to give our full hearts and souls to her. Our days and nights have become one long strand of consciousness every 2 hours for feeding and diaper changes. Sleep eludes us even though its siren song calls out to me. "Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep"

Our baby girl arrived earlier than expected and I wasn't able to finalize all the files in the time I'd hoped. However, during nap times, I've been able to continue making progress.

Rulebook

The rulebook is 98% complete thanks to our editor Matthew Hocker and our amazing community on Facebook and Discord. It just needs a final editor pass. Here's the latest copy.

Expansion Box

The artwork for the expansion box is almost complete. I need to finalize the back design. Keep in mind that this box will be a simple tuck box design. The intent is for this and future expansion components to fit snugly inside the base game box.

What's next?

I have a few things left to do before I hand over all the files to the manufacturer:

1. Put polish on the base game box, expansion box, and box sleeve

2. Create a 1-page rule sheet for the Swords & Souls Expansion

3. Final editor review of Rulebook, cards and all text

Once I finalize these things I will be packaging all the files to the manufacturer so they can start the process of developing a pre-production copy. Once I approve that copy we will move into mass production!

Pledge Manager

Once the files have been sent over I can start focusing on the Pledge Manager and getting that out.  I'm still targeting May or June.

Origins Game Fair

I’ll be attending the Origins Game Fair again in Columbus Ohio, June 21-25. 

This year we’ll be taking pre-orders and running We’re Sinking demos as well as demos for our next game in the pipeline, Toppings. If you plan to be in attendance be sure to swing by booth #1421 and say hey!

Next Month I really hope to give you the update we've all be waiting for as production begins on the manufacturing side.

Cheers,

Joseph

The Ship is Here!
about 1 year ago – Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 10:57:38 PM

Hey Crew!

Lots to share this month as we near mass production. So let’s start off with the big one. . .

The Ship

The ship is here! There is one spot we are going to work on to see if we can minimize a minor mold seam. But other than that, I am beyond thrilled with the final ship mold and the color.

The sails are made of a very durable and flexible pvc plastic.

The Dice

The dice photos I shared with you last month made their way to me so I could look them over in person. They look great! The only exception is the Siren dice. I received blank dice in various shades of purple so that I could pinpoint the right color. You can see the final purple I chose below. I’m sure it will look even better once it’s embossed with the icons.

The Timeline

The longer production timeline to get the plastic molds done was unexpected but it did allow me some time to continue playtesting the game, make tweaks to the balance, and polish the rulebook. All this means that there have been some changes to the game, specifically to some of the components:

• 9 Cannon Dice instead of 12 (I realized during playtesting that 4 dice for each cannon type was redundant and would never actually be played at once. Now each cannon type has 3 dice instead of 4)
• 9 Cannon Cards instead of 12 (Since the dice correspond to a card there was no need for extra cards either)
• 3 Permanent Breach tokens instead of 4 (4th was redundant)
• 4 Threshold Sheets instead of 2 (Having 1 threshold sheet for each player count really helps balance the rate of sinking.
• Punch Board tokens in Expansion (After several playtests I decided to make some of the enemy abilities into tokens instead of cards)
• Extra Water Cards Totalling 95 Water Deck Cards instead of 85 (Extra water for 5 and 6 player games)
• 1 Extra Monster Breach card totaling 15 Breach cards instead of 14

I’m confident that these changes are the right choice for the game but it does mean that I am later submitting all the files than I originally had hoped.  I plan to submit the rest of the files over by the middle of April. The good news is that this will still put us near the original August/September timeline for fulfillment. The bad news is, I ate into all the extra buffer time I allotted for during the campaign. So if any issues arise during production, shipping or distribution it could indeed impact the fulfillment times. My best estimate for the pledge manager is now May or June.

Life Changes

The next time you hear from me I'll be a Dad! As some of you may already know, my wife and I are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our first child, due in the last week of April. While I am filled with excitement, I'm also extremely nervous. Nonetheless, I cannot wait to embark on this new chapter in my life and welcome our bundle of joy with open arms. On the off chance that she decides to come early, my above estimate for delivering the final files mid-April might be delayed unfortunately while we adjust to things at home for the first few weeks. I appreciate all your patients during this crazy time. See you all next month!

Cheers,

Joseph

Plastic Mold Progress
about 1 year ago – Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 01:07:55 PM

Hey Crew!

I wish I had more exciting news this month but the molding process is taking a little longer than I'd expected. That being said I have some new photos from the team at Boda.

Dice

We're ironing out the color of the dice. As you can see, they are looking much better and closer to the desired colors, except for some reason the Siren dice came out light blue instead or purple here. Boda will be taking another pass on the Sirens. Also, you may have noticed that the cannon dice are a darker color than presented during the campaign. I made the decision to have them match the color on the cannon cards so that they color-match like the rest of the dice in the game. I think we are close to that color but it’s been tricky matching it perfectly from CMYK to Pantone colors.

Dial Fasteners

Last month we ran tests on the plastic molds for the Dial Fasteners. This month Boda did tests on the silk-screen icons that will help distinguish each character's dial beyond the colors. I’m really happy with how the tests turned out!

The Ship

Boda is finishing up the molding process and is about to begin testing the molds. I’m hopeful that the tests will go well. But we may end up needing to adjust the tolerance so that each piece fits perfectly.

Pledge Manager

Apologies for the delay, but I’m continuing to hold off on the Pledge Manager until we are closer to production. I’m considering holding off until during production so that we will have a closer shipping estimate based on the window of fulfillment.

Even though the pre-production process is taking a little longer than I’d hoped, I did add in a few buffer months into the timeline to account for any hiccups so right now we should still be on schedule for our August/September fulfillment window.

I hope to have all the finalized components by next month.

Cheers,

Joseph

Dice Samples and More
about 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 06:35:46 PM

Hey Crew!

Happy new year!

Our Manufacturer, Boda Games, started coming back from Lunar New Year this past week. Here are the updates they had to share for this month.

Dice

Progress on the dice molds are coming along, we received a few photos of proofs. The final dice will be made of resin, 16mm, and embossed with white icons. There are a few dice sets that I need to adjust the colors on but I was still really excited to see these!

Dial Fasteners

The dial fastener test molds were completed. We got some photos of the proofs. Boda Games is helping us adjust the tolerance on the two connecting pieces, I was very pleased with how the colors came out. The next step will be getting samples with the character logos print screened onto them.

Box Insert

Boyd of Black Magic Inserts has also done a fantastic job with our revised box insert that will hold all the components snuggly as well as hold cards in sleeves. There is room for future expansion content too. We’re waiting to begin the mold process for the box insert until we have proofs for all the components so that we can make sure everything fits perfectly.

Pledge Manager

I’ve decided to hold off on the Pledge Manager. This month I have been primarily focused on getting the rest of the files ready for manufacturing. I’ve been refining the rulebook and doing some minor tweaks to balance the game. The new pledge Manager timeline is going to be closer to the end of February or March.

That's if for January, see you all next month! 

Cheers, 

Joseph