Happy New Year - Are you ready to play?
over 5 years ago – Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 08:54:29 PM

Shipping Status: Shipping has started, estimated completion date 21st January

Hey everyone!

Happy New Year to you all, I hope you've all had a fantastic holiday season and are ready to start 2019 with The City of Kings and Vadoran Gardens!

I have some good news, fulfilment has started!

The Goal

The goal is simple: To ship every game within the next 17 days.

Right now all of our fulfilment centres have everything they need and are working on making this happen, they have all confirmed they will have shipped everything by the 21st January.

When will I get my game?

To be clear, the games will leave the fulfilment centres by the 21st, this means some of you will get your game as early as next week, and some of you might not receive them until the end of the month. This really depends on where you live in the world and how long the game takes to travel to you. You will get a notification when your game has been processed by your fulfilment centre.

Who is shipping my game?

America - Quartermaster Logistics
QML will begin shipping later today and should process the bulk of the orders next week.

Once your game has been shipped, you will receive a tracking code from QML and it should take up to 6 working days (typically 2 - 3) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

Asia - VFI
VFI have already started processing orders for those of you who live in the more distant regions and will continue shipping games now until fulfilment is completed.

Once your game has been shipped, you will receive a tracking code from VFI and it should take up to 7 working days (typically 4 - 5) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

Australia/New Zealand - Unicorn Games
 Unicorn Games will begin shipping games early next week.

Once your game has been shipped, you will receive a tracking code from Unicorn Games and it should take up to 10 working days (typically 2 - 3) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

Canada - Starlit
Starlit will be starting shortly and will process all orders fairly quickly once they begin.

Once your game has been shipped, you will receive a tracking code from Starlit and it should take up to 10 working days (typically 4 - 5) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

Europe and everyone else - Gamesquest
Gamesquest will begin processing orders next week and will send out the first games on the 11th.

Once your game has been shipped, you will receive a tracking code from Gamesquest.

Europe: It should take up to 10 working days (typically 3 - 4) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

Rest of the world: It should take up to 12 working days (typically 7 - 8) for your game to arrive from the moment it has been dispatched.

What about the damages mentioned in the last update?

There's no need to worry about those, I have put them to one side and will deal with them alongside fulfilment.

Everyone will be shipped a game in perfect condition.

Thank you to everyone who offered your support in the last update, it was truly appreciated and as always I am greatful for all of you helping to make this happen.

What's next?

I'll be sending out more updates in the coming weeks keeping you all posted of the shipping progress.

I hope you all have a fantastic 2019 and look forward to seeing your photos of the games as they arrive.

Shipping update: The final hurdle
over 5 years ago – Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 01:09:17 AM

I will be going live on Facebook at 15:00 UK time, just under 1 hour from now. I will discuss everything mentioned in this update and answer any questions.

https://www.facebook.com/CityofGamesHQ/

Unfortunately due to the house move I'm currently going through, I can't stream to YouTube.

Hey everyone,

Unfortunately this last week has added one final hurdle to the delivery of the Kickstarter and I wanted to share the problem and update you all on the situation.

On Monday the first of our 5 containers arrived with our UK fulfilment partner Gamesquest and upon opening the container they discovered the pallets had fallen, damaging the contents inside.

 This was of course devastating news, but with the rest of the containers due over the next 24 hours I decided to wait before assessing the damage in case we had further problems with the other containers.

As it was, an estimated 40 cartons (120 games) were reported damaged, and if this did repeat through all 5 containers that could be 600 games lost.

The next day our next 2 containers arrived, the first was fine but the second? It was also a mess.

 To add further complications, the other 2 containers got delayed due to trucks breaking down and electrical faults in the port.

On Wednesday our 4th container arrived, it was also filled with fallen pallets and again, the 5th and final container got delayed to Thursday.

Yesterday came and the 5th container was once again delayed, apparently, we suffered several broken trucks and electrical faults in the port - Luck was not on our side!

This morning the 5th container finally arrived, again, it was in a bad state. In total 4 of the 5 containers arrived with damaged games and left hours of work for Gamesquest to manually unload the containers.

With all the containers unloaded, Gamesquest set to work going through the boxes and games.

 The final report is 72 cartons, and about 215 games have been crushed and damaged in some way. This is luckily a lot less than the original 600 we had estimated, but still a big problem.

Right now I'm discussing next steps with the shipping company and my manufacturers to see if we can identify the cause of the problem, and also what steps we can take moving forward.

I know at this point there are going to be a lot of questions, so I will try to summarise as many of them as possible.

Questions and Answers

Will I still get my game?

Yes. The reported numbers mean we do still have enough games to fulfil all our orders.

What about the US, Canada, Asia, Australia and everyone else?

Your containers all arrived without issue. The only damaged games are those which were scheduled for Europe.

If it wont impact any of us, why are you telling us?

It is still early days and we may discover further problems. We've now spent several days assessing the situation and I believe I have all the facts, but it is possible we will discover another problem moving forward. Whilst I believe this wont be the case, I want to make sure everyone is aware of the situation.

What impact will this have?

Currently, this is what I'm working on figuring out. Financially speaking, I've got £25,000 worth of damaged stock. This is a big part of the stock I hoped to sell in 2019, and as such I will need to re-plan to make sure I have the finances to continue developing new games.

Last year the shipping damages cost us nearly £30,000 and I had hoped this project would help us recuperate some of those costs. Now, with further problems I will have to spend the next week understanding what this means for me.

Didn't this happen last time?

No. Last time around we had problems in shipping world wide, primarily caused by the design of the game boxes. This time around I spent £10,000's designing and manufacturing much bigger, stronger boxes. We also made sure to load the pallets in a different way to reduce the strain on the games in the bottom rows. This resulted in using more pallets and an increase of importing costs by around 20%.

However, even with these extras in place we have found a way to experience a different problem. My current belief is the pallets were spaced too much without being tied down enough, and perhaps with some rough weather on the sea for this particular boat it left enough room for the pallets to tip. As I say, it didn't happen with the other containers on the other ships.

Gamesquest

I wanted to add a note about Gamesquest, as I know their reputation hasn't been the best in recent times. The last week has been incredibly stressful for me, but also for them, as Christmas shipments have been endless. Despite this, they stepped up and worked with me to get the details I needed.

Each container that arrived required a team of people to manually unload as they couldn't use forklifts. Each container was documented with photos and the damages were counted and reported. While they were snowed under with work they still found a way to give countless hours of time to help me with this issue. We spoke on the phone and via email multiple times everyday and I am thankful for that.

Next Steps

With it being Christmas in 4 days it's going to be hard to get much more done over the next week. I expect it wont be until the New Year now that anything else will happen.

I can confirm all of your addresses and details have been sent to all of our fulfilment partners and I am confident we will start shipping at the start of January.

As I say, I will be live on Facebook in just under an hour and will happily answer any questions.

I am truly sorry that once again we have to go through this, and as I did last time, I promise I will solve this in the best possible way and will deliver everything I have promised.

Frank

Final chance: Addresses will lock in 24 hours
over 5 years ago – Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 01:30:42 AM

Hey everyone,  

This is it, just 24 hours until I lock your addresses in BackerKit! I thought I'd send out one more reminder just to be safe!

Last chance to confirm your address

At midnight tomorrow your BackerKit account will be locked and you will no longer be able to update your address or complete your survey.  

We will begin shipping your items directly to your home in less than 3 weeks, this is your final chance to make sure your address is completely up-to-date. You can confirm your address by looking in BackerKit, if you have forgotten your login details for BackerKit then you can get a reminder here:

https://the-city-of-kings-and-vadoran-gardens.backerkit.com/

Warning

It is your responsibility to make sure your address is correct in BackerKit!

If we do not have the correct address when we ship your game, then we may have to charge you again to reship your items, or worse, they may get lost entirely. To avoid this, please please please check your address is correct in BackerKit!

Just one more time, please check your address is correct in BackerKit!

Would you like to add something?

A few people have messaged me this week asking if it is still possible to add extra items such as the Art Book or Vadoran Gardens to their pledge?

This is still possible for the next 24 hours but will also be closed tomorrow.

If you would like to add an item, please message me directly on Kickstarter letting me know which items you wish to add. I will then manually add these to your BackerKit survey and make sure you get them at the same time as your original items.

I promise the next update won't be about confirming shipping addresses, I think we've all had enough of these by now, right?

Have a fantastic week and I'll update you all again soon!

- Frank

Last chance to confirm your address!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Dec 08, 2018 at 01:14:23 AM

Expected delivery: January

Hey everyone,

I just got back from the US and what a fantastic experience that was, I got to see some amazing parts of NYC and Philly and had a wonderful few days at Pax Unplugged. 

Thank you to everyone who came and said hello!

Last chance to confirm your address

At midnight on Friday 14th December your BackerKit account will be locked and you will no longer be able to update your address or complete your survey.

The Dice Tower have released the first review for Vadoran Gardens, giving it the Seal of Approval! 

You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwkFHqs-jg

If you are looking forward to Vadoran Gardens, you can vote for it as one of your most anticipated games of 2019 here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/248375/item/6553188#item6553188

General Update

Anything Else?

As some of you may know, for the past few months I have been in the process of moving to a new house. I finally have the keys to my new home and will be moving over the next week, this is great news as it means I should be moved in with plenty of time left to manage the fulfilment of the Kickstarter in January.

I've recently started using Instagram on a daily basis to showcase some of the things I'm doing in life (both game and non-game related). I'll be using this platform to share previews of things I'm working on and to generally discuss things happening in my life. I know some people have been asking about this so if you'd like to follow along you can find it here: http://instagram.com/tcokfrank - Just please keep in mind this wont be 100% focussed on The City of Kings.

Until next time, I hope you have a fantastic week and I'll update you all again soon!

- Frank

Please confirm your address and Pax Unplugged!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 10:34:42 PM