January Half-Update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 12:41:41 AM

Hey, everyone. Just posting this to let you all know that I am still waiting on fulfillment quotes from two more companies. Some of these companies took over a month to get back to me, so it's taking wayyyy longer to get these shipping quotes than I expected. I emailed these companies the day I got the weights and dimensions for the game. And I am getting multiple quotes to make sure shipping is as cheap as possible while getting the games to you as reliably as possible.

There are physical copies of the box and game boards on their way to me from the factory, so I should have some cool pictures to post in the next update that will announce the launch of the pledge manager/survey.

For those who have missed it or who have never backed a project and are getting tangled in these weird terms (which are very easy to get tangled in):

The pledge manager is where you will give me your address, add extra copies of the game if you want them,  upgrade your pledge from $1 to a copy of the game if you want to, and pay for shipping for anything you are being sent. 

I have to create an item for each shipping zone/country, and you will then add the item that represents where you live to your cart (i.e. "SPAIN SHIPPING"). It's probably going to be a nightmare, but a way better nightmare than guessing what shipping will be to every country before knowing the weight and dimensions of the thing you are shipping. Underestimating that cost can be so expensive to a creator that the second print and life of the game gets jeopardized. And overestimating shipping takes money from backers with no real way to give it back when you find out you overcharged them.

So I do like this approach, but I don't like the "paying twice" vibe to it. In the future, I could raise the game price and make shipping free after averaging out global shipping costs, but then most backers would be overpaying to make up for the international backers who would be underpaying. This bucket of bees has been an issue since Superfight, and it doesn't look like it will be solved anytime soon. So this is me navigating the mess and trying to find a path that is best for you.

Thank you all for your support and patience, and I hope 2020 isn't being a total jerk to you.

Brb,

Jack

I MESSED UP HERE IS THE REST OF THE UPDATE
over 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 12:30:46 AM

Hey again. I'm so sorry to hit your inbox twice, but in the third typing of yesterday's update, I forgot to talk about the pledge manager, which was obviously a very important topic.

But first: LOOK AT THE SCALE OF THESE THINGS.

Left to right: An official D&D mini that I destroyed with paint, part of a space marine I was about to destroy with paint, and the Brog prototype sent by the factory that I am doing everything in my power not to try to paint because it is Brog Prime.

But yeah. These are big.

OK. LET'S GET RIGHT INTO IT.

PLEDGE MANAGER STUFF

The pledge manager will open next month to get the most recent addresses I can from everyone. I do this because so many people move during this time, and I like to make sure few to no people have stress over tracking information pointed to an old address. Because shipping will be collected then (those costs are still being calculated since the final weight estimate was just sent to them), you can bet I will be absolutely sure to make sure everyone sees and completes the pledge manager stuff. As a backer, I always worry that I will totally miss this part and never get my thing. I won't let that happen to you. Or me. Because I need you to hurry up and get this and play with your friends so they want it.

GROWING THIS NEW COMMUNITY AND GIVING GATEFALL ITS BEST FUTURE

I have been REALLY forgetful about bringing all of you over to my already existing community stuff, and now that we are all excited about this thing together, it's a good time to let you know about my instagram at instagram.com/jack_dire

I make a lot of different things, but if you like Gatefall and things then you'll probably like my account where I talk about these things and show micro-updates. I'm also a Twitch partner, and I stream a lot of weird stuff on twitch.tv/jackdire, including D&D sessions where chat controls the characters. And an RPG video game I made called Talk to Kevin where chat controls the game. That one is literally a long story. I also do some VR sculpting, projector art, and other things. But my instagram is a great starting point.

Thanks sorry again, sorry again, and thanks again!

Jack

DECEMBER UPDATE!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 01:16:23 AM

Hey, everyone! I have a lot to go over since we are in the right-before-clicking-print phase of finalizing things, so like a YouTuber would say seven minutes into a ten minute video: LET'S GET RIGHT INTO IT.

I just came here from the end of this document to put this first, since it's the thing most people want to know:

SHIP DATE

Gatefall has slipped into March for arrival in the US. If you recall, the January estimate was pushed when I switched factories. I realized after typing everything below that the following is really a long list of decisions I made that lost us February. I believe the improvements justify the delay. I think you will too.

Also: I apologize for what will likely be a mountain of typos. This whole thing reset on me twice. I typed all of this three times. I am now seeing things moving in my walls and hearing weird whispers. So I probably his some errant keys.

LET'S GET RIGHT INTO IT.

DICE:

I know I said that these would not be engraved I was wrong about that. I worked with the factory to find a way to make me wrong, and we found one that preserves the green/red system and looks amazing. This picture just arrived a few hours ago. It is one of the things I've been waiting for, and I really love how these look.

FIGURES:

It was always a huge concern of mine that these figures would be a production nightmare. Fortunately, I was almost completely wrong about that. The factory was able to preserve Alexei's sculpts with the following circled modifications:

Lost Boy's wrist rotated a little.

The rope on Randar's spell book is a little thicker in areas than you would expect. But this part broke on every prototype before, so it makes sense.

A couple areas of Firebug's flamethrower are filled in where they usually would be open. We have since poked through on the trigger area because I begged for that to be open (you can't pull the trigger if it's solid, and then this fantasy vs post-apocalypse game would look unrealistic), but there is still that area of plastic along the barrel. If I had known more about molds and all of this, I would have worked with Alexei to change the model. We didn't make it in time unfortunately.

Brog's curved spikes were preventing him from releasing from a mold, so they were bent down.

His cleaver was also creating a similar problem, so the pace between it and him was filled in.

But that change was too much for me. I honestly agonized over that cleaver. Email after email and hour after hour were spent on what I am sure this factory will forever call The Stupid Cleaver Jack Dire Could Not Get Over.

I don't know why this of all things broke me. Well, Fireug's trigger area combined with this cleaver broke me I guess. But I couldn't ship this. I don't know. I obsessed over it. And in the end, I increased my cost and the number of parts required to make Brog just to fix it. As shown below:

I am glad I made the change, because looking at it now makes me happy. So I think you'll feel the same way when painting and looking at this figure.

Exile's shin spike had to be rotated up, but I think that's it. Things were reinforced and improved for production, and now here they are:

These are the final prototypes. The improvements to Brog's cleaver and Firegug's flamethrower previosly mentioned are not reflected in them, as they were changed after these were sent. Now the molds are in actual production.

SELINE SUMMONS GHOSTS NOW

They have little ghost tokens. Because necromancer.

ARENA MODE

I am very happy to announce that the highly experimental and highly volatile Arena Mode for Gatefall was figured out by our amazing team, and WILL actually make it into the core ruleset. 

Arena mode will let up to 8 players play using one figure each in a battle royale fight. In this mode, all characters have a common base set of attributes. These attributes are augmented by the item cards you collect in play. The reverse side of each character card will look just like the one-on-one game, but with each character's Arena Mode stats listed.

Here is the old card design for the 8 item cards. I am waiting on the revised design (same illustrations) from the designer.

RULEBOOK

I had hoped to have the final rulebook ready for this update, but the designer is buried under some end-of-the-year stuff from the other companies to which he lends his amazing talent. So that will come in a future update.

SHIPPING COSTS

One of the things I have been waiting on is a final estimate of weight (Gatefall is just under 5 pounds) to finally get accurate shipping estimates from the multiple fulfillment centers that will ship Gatefall worldwide. I just got that number yesterday, and am waiting on responses from those centers.

So between that, the rulebook, and the item cards, I still have some stuff to wait for. Those things will therefore show up in the January update, since I wanted to get this one posted this week.

I AM TERRIBLE AT PAINTING MINIS

I just started painting minis. I got some Space Marines, and they have let me know in no uncertain terms that I am horrible at painting minis.

BUT.

I started painting Firebug, and it felt like I was painting a barn compared to that space marine. These figures are so welcoming to new and experienced painters. I love that, because painting miniatures is now as close as I get to meditating these days. It's insanely relaxing.

THANK YOU

Thank you all so much for your support and patience. It means the world to me and my team. We are all very grateful for you.

I hope you have a fantastic holiday season, and I can't wait to get this thing to you.

Happy holidays!

Jack

November Update
over 4 years ago – Fri, Nov 01, 2019 at 10:43:25 PM

Hey, everyone!

This is a boring update, but I wanted to post it to let you know about Gatefall's progress.

The factory has spent the last few weeks adapting Alexei's sculpts to make sure they can be manufactured effectively. I am VERY VERY VERY happy to say that their alterations were minor. A few rotated wrists and tiny things that were only noticeable after I looked back and forth at the before and afters a few dozen times. I was really worried about this phase, and I'm glad to have it behind us.

They also made some lighter alterations by deepening scratches and adding battle damage in places (and fur to Penny), but I have asked them to revert to the original models for any cosmetic changes. Alexei's work is perfect in my mind, and changing any of it for cosmetic reasons does not sit well with me.

I am a very beginner miniature painter, so I asked some professionals to choose between the original and revised models. They chose original as well. I also thing if using washes is part of your technique, the deepened and added scratches would have read TOO well and looked like the figure was battered as opposed to the character, if that makes sense.

I worry that these back-and forth steps will really mess up the timeline because of Lunar New Year over there, but the end result is absolutely a better game that I care very much about. Ask anyone who tries to talk to me about it.

I am also being told that if we engrave the dice, we cannot have multiple colors on the sides. I have asked about keeping the colors and not engraving them, because in the ten years that I have been testing this game, I have really grown to love the very visual readout of how much money Brog just made by club-smashing Lost Boy. Engraved dice are cool, but readability and your immediate relationship with your dice results are more important to me. I tested same-color-different-icon dice for this, and it just wasn't the same. That extra second it takes to convert the small icons into meaning was enough to really hurt the experience. I know that's weird. Maybe I'm weird. I'm weird.

What else?

OH YEAH THE SURVEYS. I am still waiting on the factory for estimated dimensions and weights that will let me get accurate shipping information to you, so the surveys haven't gone out yet. I'll post an update when they do.

Other than that, I hope you all are having a great beginning to the holiday season if you live somewhere where it is a holiday season.

SPEAKING OF HOLIDAYS, if you or someone you know is a single parent who needs a little help with gifts this season, here is a link to my Holiday Help thing I do every year: bit.ly/holidayhelp2019.

I think that's all for now. Thank you so much for your time and support. I can't wait for us to get these.

Thanks again,

Jack

Update, Playtesting, and an ARG!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 07:41:03 PM

Hey, everyone!

Here is the latest with what is going on with Gatefall:

We have been working nonstop since the launch of the Kickstarter campaign to make this game as good as it can be. I am very VERY happy with the development process, and all of the progress with the game. A lot of changes have been made to tune the game based on a lot of play testing, and those changes have resulted in some really great improvements to gameplay and to how much fun the game is overall. The game eventually reached a point where, according to the person in charge of playtesting “two people who play a lot of very complicated games finished a long game of Gatefall, loved it, and wanted to play again immediately.”

That’s about the best feedback I could hope for.

The new factory has been pretty good with communication, and is working hard on the production of the figures. They have made suggestions about the sculpts that will improve the durability and overall quality of the final figures. I asked them to go ahead and implement those changes, which added a week or so to the production.

That small delay will push us into the Lunar New Year in China, when a lot of factories shut down for weeks. This factory shuts down for an entire month. Which means the alteration to the figures will push this print into a late February completion, at which point we will be at the mercy of cargo ships and docks to get the product here and ready to ship.

In all, I would guess we have slipped maybe two-to-three and a half months past my original January ship estimate. Which is unfortunate, but very worth it considering what it will add to this game forever. Because I want to use the extra month that just got added to the timeline to open playtesting to all of you who are interested, so we can get even better feedback on every angle of this thing before we print it.

The game is solid. And very fun. But I know that opening the game to a group this size while we have the opportunity could help us catch things that would make it even better.

I had planned on opening testing to backers sooner, but a combination of frequent design updates and Tabletopia disliking Seline’s sculpt (a problem that is still unresolved) got in the way of having something ready for a group this size, as opposed to a smaller group that could be more directly (often through phone calls and voice chats) walked through our team’s ideas and intent.

So here is the invite to the playtesting discord: https://discord.gg/qsbXdwm

Please go easy on us. Discord does a great job of making me feel 107 years old, but I appreciate its usefulness. And I think this could get overwhelming quickly, but we will work hard to catch up if a huge wave of you comes in.

The factory was scheduled to send me sculpt pics last week, but it looks like they need a little more time. I wanted to consolidate updates, but at this point I was anxious to get you all into this game. Please remember that your experience with a virtual version of the game will be greatly diminished compared to holding these sculpts with your actual hands. Tabletopia has a learning curve, and playing a meant-for-the-real-world tabletop game virtually can make the game feel overly complicated. Like you’re drinking coffee with a fork. Just remember that when your actual coffee gets to you, I will have included an actual cup. And now the analogy is stretched.

In other news, I am currently running an ARG called The Crossroads. Come play it here while you wait for your copy of Gatefall: https://discord.gg/thecrossroads.

Thanks for everything, and I look forward to hearing your feedback!