Pledge Manager Deadline: 48 Hours
over 1 year ago – Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 10:12:15 PM

TL;DR

• Please complete the pledge manager by Friday
• Retail backers requesting custom orders have received emails
• Production continues, largely on track

Pledge Manager Deadline: Friday

Please complete the pledge manager by Friday, October 21.

You should have received an email with a personalized link, but if you didn’t or the dog ate it, you can go to the URL below and enter your email address to get a fresh copy.

http://broken-and-beautiful.backerkit.com/

If you don’t complete your pledge manager by Friday, you can still get your rewards. You have a full year before we convert your pledge into a tip. However, pledge managers completed after October 21 are likely to arrive late, and may be charged at a higher shipping rate.

Retail Backer Custom Order Emails are Away

If you are a retail backer who opted for a custom order, we just sent you an email with instructions. It came from jeff (at) left-justified (dot) com, if you need to search your spam filter for it.

Production Update

Production is almost done, and sample games are currently being safety tested. This timeline is unchanged from previous reports.

We are gearing up to arrange inbound international freight to our three fulfillment hubs. If you are the kind of person to say a prayer or light a candle, now’s the time, as the global supply chains remain a disaster. The worst legs currently appear to be the rail segments within the United States. Our last shipment took more than 70 days to move from Long Beach to Chicago. Fun!

In the UK, HM Revenue & Customs is still processing our VAT application. We are told that this process is currently backed up nationwide. Theoretically, this paperwork could delay the shipping and import of European orders. We’re not to that point yet, but wanted to be transparent about the possibility.

Thanks for backing, everyone!

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Questions? Comments? Concerns? You can always reach us by email ([email protected]) or Kickstarter message. Never hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do for you.

Pledge Manager Launch
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 10:18:23 PM

TL;DR

• A random 5% of backers will receive pledge manager emails imminently
• The rest will receive theirs tomorrow, assuming the first 5% go smoothly
• Local pickup has been added as a fulfillment option
• Please complete your pledge manager by October 21

BackerKit is Live!

There were a number of set-up hiccups, but BackerKit — the pledge manager I’ve selected for this campaign— is now live.

The first step of roll-out is a “smoke test,” where five percent of backers receive their notification emails early. This allows problems to be identified with a smaller group to limit headaches if something is misconfigured.

If all goes well, the rest of the emails will be sent tomorrow.

A Pledge Whatnow?

If you’re newer to Kickstarter campaigns, a pledge manager is online software you use to provide shipping details, pay shipping costs, and purchase additional items if you wish.

There are a number of pledge managers floating around. I’ve used BackerKit a number of times on previous campaigns. It is not the cheapest option, but it’s very robust, offers excellent support (already used several times during setup), and has an intuitive flow.

Some campaigns dispense with a pledge manager in favor of Kickstarter’s native tools. That’s theoretically feasible. You could also theoretically write a dissertation in TextEdit.

Shipping Costs

As promised during the campaign, shipping costs are based on our actual costs to ship your rewards from each fulfillment center. (We pay freight to those centers as a campaign cost. We understand that some creators have started to bake inbound freight into each backer's shipping charge. That doesn't seem fair to us — we don't do that.)

For all destinations and all reward levels, shipping costs wound up being within the ranges we predicted and published during the campaign. For most destinations, charges tended toward the middle and lower ends of their respective bands.

This is the first campaign where I’ve calculated actual weights including all add-ons to determine your actual shipping charge. (In previous campaigns, I’ve added a discrete shipping charge per add-on.) The actual-weight method has the upside that in many cases, your first add-on purchase or two will not increase your shipping charge. This will be especially true for light add-ons like those in the Band or Album line.

Taxes

The pledge manager will charge VAT in the European Union and the UK. This will allow us to ship rewards to those destinations “Delivery Duty Paid,” which should limit headaches, tax payments, and administrative fees when you receive your shipments.

The pledge manager will charge sales tax in Minnesota, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Our company is headquartered in Minnesota, and we attend conventions in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Columbus every year, which means we also need to charges sales tax to buyers in those places.

Metal Teapot First Player Markers

As you recall, we unlocked a premium metal teapot first player marker during the campaign as a stretch goal.

Every copy of the Deluxe Edition includes a metal first player marker inside the box. This is true whether you get the Deluxe Edition as part of your pledge level or buy it as an add-on.

If you pledged for a Standard Edition game, your metal first player marker will be added to your cart separately, automatically, at no additional charge. This is so the factory doesn’t have to pack out two separate versions of Standard Edition games, one for backers and one for long-term retail sales. Only backers get this stretch goal for free.

Be aware that extra Standard Edition copies you buy as add-ons do not come with a free metal first player marker. You can add metal markers as add-ons, if you want extras for other games or you think teapots are pretty much the best thing ever. But only those who backed at a relevant level during the campaign, to show their support, get the metal marker for free.

That said, if you backed at the No Reward level during the campaign and want to get a Standard Edition game with a metal teapot marker, you can change your pledge level at the beginning of the pledge manager. You’ll have to pay the difference between the amount you pledged and the cost of that tier, but if you do, you’ll get all the same rewards as someone who backed at that level during the campaign.

 Questions? Feel free to leave a comment.

Local Pickup

We’re moving Left Justified Studio into a new space on October 1, which has opened up the option for local pickup of rewards in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. Local pickup is free, as long as you’re willing to coordinate a time to come to northeast Minneapolis during general business hours.

To select local pickup, choose that option from the pop-up at the beginning of the pledge manager, instead of the country where you live. 

 You’ll need to enter an address even if you choose local pick up. I don’t know why.

Send Your Friends

The pledge manager also comes with a pre-order store. If you have friends who’d like to order Broken and Beautiful and receive their copies at the time the Kickstarter campaign is fulfilled, please point them at broken-and-beautiful.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders.

Deadline: October 21, 2022

Please plan to complete your pledge manager by October 21. That will help us know how many copies of each game and add-on to ship to each of the three regional fulfillment centers (in the UK, US, and Canada).

If you don’t complete your pledge manager by October 21, you can still get your rewards. You have a full year before we convert your pledge into a tip. However, pledge managers completed after October 21 are likely to arrive late, and may be charged at a higher shipping rate. (For example, if you’re in Germany and we don’t ship enough copies of an add-on you want to the UK fulfillment center because you didn’t complete the pledge manager on time, and that means we have to ship it from the US, we reserve the right to ask you to pay the difference in cost.)

Thanks for backing!

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Questions? Comments? Concerns? You can always reach us by email ([email protected]) or Kickstarter message. Never hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do for you.

Pledge Manager Launch Update
over 1 year ago – Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 10:26:09 PM

TL;DR

• The pledge manager is not yet ready
• The deadline to enter the advance copy giveaway is Sunday

Pledge Manager Timeline

In last week’s update, I projected that the pledge manager would launch this week. We’ve arrived at the end of the week and it’s not ready, so I wanted to be proactive and send a backer update saying as much, instead of leaving you wondering.

If if interests you, the explanation is simply that it was a busier-than-expected week at my primary job. I don’t like to invoke that kind of explanation in a campaign because my time management isn’t your concern, but at the same time, I figured some folks might simply want to know.

The good news is that the launch of the pledge manager isn’t on the critical path to meeting our ship-date commitment, so this delay shouldn’t affect much past the day on which day you fill it out.

Reminder: Advance Copy Giveaway

As announced in last week’s update, we’re giving away three copies of advance physical proofs of the Standard Edition to backers. If you’re interested in being part of the random drawing, let us know by midnight on Sunday, following the directions in last week’s update.

Patrick Rauland — Game Strategy

In his eighth (and final) interview segment, game designer Patrick Rauland talks about the best strategies for playing Broken and Beautiful.

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Questions? Comments? Concerns? You can always reach us by email ([email protected]) or Kickstarter message. Never hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do for you.

Mass Production Underway
over 1 year ago – Sat, Sep 10, 2022 at 09:16:16 PM

TL;DR

• All proofs are approved and mass production is underway
• We’re giving away three advance proof copies! Email to enter
• The pledge manager will launch next week

Digital Proofs are Approved

The last round of digital proofs of the Deluxe Edition tray took a few days longer than expected due to an error with the dieline. But by the end of that discussion, the tray’s substrate had been upgraded to a corrugated material for additional stability, with the base further reinforced by a layer of foam hidden underneath.

Physical Proofs are Approved

As the final proofing stage the factory prepares a hand-assembled, physically accurate but digitally printed version of each edition. The printing process and stocks used do not necessarily match the final editions, but these proofs give everyone an extremely good preview of the final product, so everyone can sign off. There were no issues with these and I was able to approve them immediately.

The tray for the Deluxe Edition feels extremely sturdy, and provides satisfying storage for the deck and metal components. Sometimes there is a hazard that heavy components will tear a flimsy tray in shipping as cartons are jostled. With the final design and materials, I’d be very surprised if that was an issue here.

Advance Copy Giveaway!

One of the advantages of the process for creating hand-assembled physical proofs is that crafting additional copies is easy. These copies are great as advance samples for reviewers, potential translation partners, and other promotional uses. Even more fair would be to send a few of these copies to some of the backers who made the project happen!

If you’d like to be entered in a random drawing to receive one of three physical Standard Edition proofs — each of which is a fully playable copy of the game, exactly as shown above — send an email with your shipping address to trevor at left dash justified dot com by Sunday, September 18 at midnight Central US time.

We’ll pay the first $10 of shipping cost. If you’re in the US, this should more than cover the cost of shipping. If you’re outside the US and would like to be considered, we’ll ask you to pay the balance of the actual shipping cost to your location (assuming that actual cost is more than $10, which is likely for pretty much any international destination).

Winners’ eventual fulfillment of their actual campaign rewards will be unaffected. Since the materials and print method of these advance copies are slightly different than the mass production, this is a straight giveaway, not a super-early fulfillment.

Perhaps obviously, you must be a paid backer in good standing to win.

Mass Production Timeline

Mass production is scheduled to take 30 days from its start on September 4.

Toward the end of that window it will take a bit of time — often two weeks or so — to conduct the product safety tests necessary to certify the games to the American and European consumer protection standards. Sometimes these tests can begin before mass production is over. It depends on the order in which individual components are completed at the factory.

Testing can usually be completed in parallel with our final certification of production run samples.

After testing and sample approval, final assembly and shipping prep each have the potential to take a week or so before the production run leaves the factory to begin its journey to fulfillment centers.

If all goes to plan, everything will be on its way by the end of October.

Although it rarely happens, possibilities for derailment at this point might include a failed safety test or unexpected government restrictions at the factory, such as the Covid lockdowns that delayed our Flapjacks & Sasquatches reprinting earlier in the year.

Pledge Manager Launch

We expect to launch the pledge manger next week. If the preparation process takes all week, it’s possible that you will not receive your welcome emails until the following week because of BackerKit’s (wise) advice that a small subset of backers receive invitations first, to test the system before messages are sent to every backer.

Patrick Rauland — Choosing and Crafting Game Mechanics

In his seventh interview segment, game designer Patrick Rauland talks about how and why he chose the specific game mechanics used in Broken and Beautiful.

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Questions? Comments? Concerns? You can always reach us by email ([email protected]) or Kickstarter message. Never hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do for you.

July Production Update
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 20, 2022 at 09:25:43 PM

TL;DR

• Our first player token is sculpted, approved, and in production
• Print files are with the factory but still in proofing stages after a series of revisions
• We are running perhaps 2–3 weeks behind estimates, but still within the campaign’s estimated final delivery

The First Player Token

Campaign Coins completed the physical sculpt of the first player token unlocked as a stretch goal, shipped two production samples we were able to immediately approve, and are now producing the full production run.

Here’s a photo showing the front and back. (Distressed wood courtsey of High Pines Brewing Company.) 

The coin is 40mm tall from top to bottom — about the same height as a casino poker chip — and about 4mm thick at the thickest point.

Print & Component Production

The early stages of print production have taken longer than they usually do for a game like this. Here’s the blow-by-blow:

When preparing the print files for the factory, I decided I was not happy with the previous physical designs for the box trays. I was concerned that they would tear during shipping, and that they did not present their contents as well as they could. I decided to re-design them, which took a bit of extra time.

Print files first went to the factory on June 7. When digital proofs came back, an incorrect product number and UPC barcode had made it through our six-person proofing process. It happens! The printer also noticed that an errant spot color had made it through the layout process and into the card and rule sheet files, and was causing some technical havoc for them. (The cards and rule sheet will be printed with process colors only.) Revisions to correct these issues were completed over the course of a week or so.

At around the same time, the printer — presumably after doing internal test prints — suggested that we should adapt the Deluxe Edition box to use a process color for the gold-colored elements. They think this will look substantially better than using process colors for those. This is their expertise, so following their advice is a no-brainer. This adaptation also took a week or so, after the correspondence necessary to make sure everyone understood the goal and needs.

As of this morning, all print files are back in the printer’s hands. (Minor exception: We haven’t produced print files for the trays yet, because we’re still waiting on dielines for the new tray designs.) If all goes to plan, they’ll re-send digital proofs in the next few days. If those look good they’ll ship physical proofs after that. If those look good they’ll begin mass production.

In parallel with the above, the factory and I exchanged measurements and specs for the wood and metal ingots for the Standard Edition and Deluxe Edition, respectively, so their subcontractors can begin work producing those.

Because I was receiving another shipment from the factory on an unrelated game (Flapjacks & Sasquatches will finally be back in print in August!) I received an unpolished physical sample of the metal ingots without waiting. These match the specs exactly, and are a very close match for the stock ingots from The Game Crafter that appeared in the advance copies used for preview videos.

Timeline Impacts

Taking all of the above into account, we are running perhaps 2–3 weeks behind our bast-case scenario.

The campaign page’s estimated schedule would have seen games shipping from the factory sometime in August. We are probably now looking at September for that step, with backer shipments probably falling back to December and perhaps January. (The ocean freight step between printing and backer shipments could well be impacted by how negotiations go between the dockworkers union and shipping terminals.)

Even this is still in advance of our February 2023 delivery estimate, of course, so things remain generally on track.

Unless the run-up to Gen Con goes particularly smoothly and creates extra time in our schedule (ha!) we’ll launch the pledge manager in August rather than July. This lets you hang onto your money as long as possible, helps us make sure that the shipping costs we charge you are as close as possible to our eventual actual costs, and eliminates as many missed deliveries to due house moves as we can.

Patrick Rauland — Exciting Moments of Gameplay

In his sixth interview segment, game designer Patrick Rauland talks about the philosophy behind Broken and Beautiful.

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Questions? Comments? Concerns? You can always reach us by email ([email protected]) or Kickstarter message. Never hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do for you.