Manufacturing Update & Survey Summary
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 11:51:22 PM

Hello backers!

First, we want to give a huge thank you to everyone who filled out the survey from our last update. We’ll have more info on that below, but first, an update from our manufacturer LongPack!

Manufacturing Update

Last week, we received great news: our printing is underway. We learned that the games could finish by the end of this week, which is faster than originally predicted! They've actually finished printing all 20,000 meeples, and sent us some samples from the final batch:

 While the image we took is a little blurry, you can see they look very similar to the first meeples we received, and we’re happy with the quality. We had asked for the yellow bear to look more golden than neon, and we believe it does. The brown bear is still a touch dark, but the image is definitely visible (and quite cute).

Survey Insights

To catch anyone up who missed it - last update, we shared that there's a chance Ursa Miner will not make the Christmas deadline due to a timeline oversight on our part. We sent out a survey to judge how many people are depending on that deadline and to collect feedback. Your responses have been overwhelmingly supportive. We were moved by every message that encouraged us or thanked us for our honesty. Eli may have cried more than once...

In the survey responses, many of you expressed sentiments similar to this backer's comment: "If my copy is delayed until January so that someone else can get it for Christmas, that is okay with me." Before the survey, we were concerned that sending expedited copies to only some backers might seem unfair. However, seeing thoughtful messages like this one make us confident that you will understand if we decide to put in extra work to arrange for expedited shipping for those backers who need the game sooner, even if we cannot offer that to everyone.

With LongPack’s recent update that manufacturing is ahead of schedule, things could go either way. If the games are completed by the end of October, and there are no problems with freight shipping or customs, we could make Christmas. However, we don’t feel comfortable making a promise at this point because any holdup would cause us to be late. We fully understand that your holiday purchases depend on knowing whether or not you can gift Ursa Miner and we want to give you all the information we can to make those decisions. Once the games are printed and headed to the US, we will give an updated estimate!

For people who do rely on our delivery date, we continue to look into contingency plans to best serve you. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with questions, we’re here to help!

Bear hugs, 

Mike & Eli

Mass Production & Christmas Shipping Updates
over 6 years ago – Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 06:50:08 PM

Hello Backers-

We've had another few exciting weeks here at Room and Board Games! Since our last update, we received the production sample of Ursa Miner and it looks GOOD. The bear meeples are adorable, the tiles are nice and chunky, and the box is beautiful. This is the Ursa Miner we have wanted for over four years, and it is so rewarding to have it in our hands. Check out the full "unboxing" video we made below, and some extra pictures!

As you can tell, we are pleased with the sample, and, with some minor tweaks, were able to approve it for mass production. This means Ursa Miner has officially hit the press!

Christmas Delivery Outlook

This news is tougher to share - let's start by taking a look at the schedule we posted back in Update #11:

As you can see, we are ahead of our original plan, with everything approved before the end of September! We worked hard on the art and files to make this happen.

If you take another look, you'll see something wrong, which we were disappointed to realize in the last couple weeks. Somehow, manufacturing is missing from our original schedule. Despite spending hours staring at our schedule, showing it to many Kickstarted game designers and all 581 backers, we managed to forget to account for the time it takes to manufacture the game.

What does this mean? Simply put, there is a good chance we will not be able to get Ursa Miner to you by Christmas with our current plan. Here is a more realistic timeline:

• Mid-September to Early November: LongPack manufactures 1,000 copies of Ursa Miner
• Early November to Mid-December: FunAgain ships all games to port in California
• Mid-December to Early January: We pack and ship games to domestic and international backers

Even with this updated timeline, it is possible that the games will make it to your door before Christmas! We are sharing this update with you in the interest of transparency; we want to provide you all the information we can to make you feel comfortable about placing your trust in us. We promise to keep you as up-to-date as we are!

We feel bad, and at least a little embarrassed by this mistake. Despite the fact that 75% of Kickstarter projects ship late, we were and are committed to being held responsible for our deadlines. This is especially hard for us as first-time creators, and we are so thankful for your patience with us.

Christmas Delivery Survey

All of that said, all hope for Christmas shipping is not lost! We know that many of our backers planned on giving Ursa Miner as a gift in the month of December, and we would like to be able to help. There are some expedited options on the table we could use to get the game to you by the end of December, which we have to weigh against the need and additional cost. Despite over-funding, most of our extra margins were put back into increasing component quality as promised (like our awesome meeples!), so we don't have much of a buffer to work with.

So, this is where you come in backers! We need your help to figure out how many of you intend to give Ursa Miner as a gift in December, and how important it is to you that this is possible. If you would be able to fill out this survey, we can figure out how to best serve you with the resources we have. We can't make any promises at this time, but it's important for us to learn about your needs.

Thank You!

Thank you for bearing with us through this lengthy update, and again for your support! Please, let us know what we can do to best serve you, either in the comments below, or our messages! We read and appreciate everything you write :)

-Eli and Mike

Production Sample & MEEPLES!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 01:05:50 AM

Hello backers-

We are so excited to share our update with you this week! After two weeks of production, LongPack was able to send us pictures of the first sample of Ursa Miner. We were most curious to see how the meeples turned out, and...we'll let you see how cute they are for yourself: 

Looking closely, you can see that small printing offsets cause certain features to miss the meeple, like paws and ears. LongPack's error margin seems in line with other high-quality meeple manufacturers we've seen, so this is a side-effect we have to accept for filling the bears with so much detail. Overall, we're thrilled with the pieces and can't wait to get them to you :)

But that's not all! We were also given a picture of all components in the box. It's so rewarding to see everything coming together and looking so real:

By the end of the week, we should have this sample sent to us in the States, at which point we'll take more photos to share with you!

GenCon

It's tough to top news about meeples, but we did have a great time at GenCon since our last update! We got a chance to meet our representatives at LongPack, who flew in all the way from Shanghai. We also connected with our contacts at BackerKit and our distribution partner, Funagain Games. Improving these relationships makes us confident that we will have the support we need to get you the game you deserve.

We also saw a ton of friends, played some amazing new games, and took home a giant haul. Here is just a small piece of what Mike took home - you can see his top ten highlights over on his Twitter:

 As always, we are so appreciative of the support and trust you've given us to get here. Let us know your thoughts below!

Ursa Miner at GenCon50 + Art and Graphic Design Complete
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 06:15:07 PM

Hello backers, we hope everyone has been having a great summer! 

One of our favorite parts of the year is attending GenCon, the best four days in gaming. This will be our third trip to the biggest tabletop gaming convention in the country. 2017 is also GenCon's 50th anniversary and the event is sold out for the first time in its history, so there are sure to be tons of people to meet and games to play!

Thanks to all of you helping us realize the success of this campaign, we're looking forward to demoing prototypes of Ursa Miner with the wide array of publishers, designers, and gamers attending the event. Reach out if you will be in attendance as we'd love to meet up with the people who made all this possible!

Now back to what you really want to hear about, Ursa Miner! Thanks to the hard work of our graphic designer Anthony Amato and proofreader Nicole Kline, all of our major assets and copy are complete. We have already gone through one round of review with our manufacturer, LongPack, and just submitted all of our materials once more with some changes based on their feedback. If we have successfully addressed some minor formatting and layout issues, we should be good to go and expect to receive a sample copy of Ursa Miner to share by next month at the latest. That would put us right on track with our original schedule!

To wet your whistle while we wait for the sample, we wanted to share with you all a digital version of the stunning rulebook that will accompany the game when we ship it out later this year. Take a look here!

With that, we're off to Gencon! As always, let us know if you have any questions, and we'll be in touch soon :)

Mike and Eli

Complete Cards and Prep for Proofs!
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 06:57:36 PM

Hello backers!

We've spent the last two weeks in art and rules land, working to get everything templated and off to LongPack by the end of the month. And, thanks to our artist and graphic designer, we're on track! In fact, for the first time today, we're pleased to reveal the full set of cards for Ursa Miner:

Details are still subject to change, but we're really happy with how they all came out :) We've even got our unlocked player aid cards together, where you can spot some edits to the meeples based on backer feedback:

All that's left is finalizing the text of the rules! Fortunately, we've got help from the other half of Cardboard Fortress and Greatest Person of All Time: Nicole Kline. She's lending a professional eye to make sure our rules are totally clear and correct. Once they're finished, we'll be able to kick off the process of printing a proof, which should take another few weeks to produce and ship from China.

That's all we've got for now! As always, let us know if you have any questions, and we'll be in touch soon :)

Eli and Mike