US CAN Fulfillment, EU + Int'l Freight, Replacement Bits
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 09:30:56 AM

Hi all,

The final stretch! Games are finally landing in backers hands and so many more packages are going to be sent out over the next few weeks. It's almost here! I'm thrilled for all of the people that will get to open and witness the amount of stuff we got to put in this box. I'll keep saying it, but thank you all so much for helping us bring this game to life.

Fulfillment News

I am relieved and excited to finally share that all addresses have been locked and uploaded to our fulfillment partners, and the end is in sight! All pledge info is now in the hands of our shipping friends and they will be communicating with you tracking information when your pledge has been packed and ready for fulfillment. 

If you have any questions about your pledge or shipping issues, please reach out to us over email [email protected] and we will be happy to help as always. I'll continue to thank you all for your patience and understanding as we try to get these games to you as best and safe as possible. 

US CAN Update

The big milestone is that our shipment has landed at our US fulfillment partner warehouse in Oregon! This shipment contains all our rewards for our for US and CAN backers. We're going to be trucking the CAN pledges to Pick N Pack Logistics in about a week, so it will be a bit longer for CAN folks still. US/CA Backers can expect confirmation and communication regarding their shipping notification and tracking number from Funagain Logistics. There are many packages to work through so it will likely take a few weeks for them to work through all of the pledges, but we have what we need to get the ball rolling on US fulfillment!

EU, RoW Update

EU + International orders will be shipped out of Fulfillment Europe. The games will be landing at port very soon, and we are scheduled for our customs inspection next week. Once inspection clears, the shipment will be ready to be dispatched to the Fulfillment Europe warehouse. There has been a lot of congestion and delays in this shipping lane lately, and routine customs inspections shouldn't hold us at port beyond next week. We've sent Fulfillment Europe all their pledge/delivery information and will be sending out shipping confirmations soon. We're close to receiving that container and moving to fulfillment! I suspect we have another 2 weeks or so before we see movement with EU + International orders and we'll see EU shipping confirmations being sent out to backers by the end of the month. I'll likely post a comment with any small EU only updates over the next week or so.

SEA region, AUS/NZ Update

We are nearing the end of fulfillment in these regions. Aetherworks has shipped all AUS/NZ copies, and VFI is working through their combined shipments to their partners for the local shipping plan. lf you have not received your pledge or a shipping confirmation for your pledge, please reach out. Some countries are still a few weeks away from receiving their shipment

Replacement Parts

There is always going to be some weirdness that happens occasionally in the assembly stage, especially with a game with this many unique components. If there is anything missing specifically that absolutely needs replaced, please fill out this replacement request and we'll get to shipping a replacement when we can. I'll keep asking for your patience for replacement part orders too, because we won't be getting to them for maybe several weeks, but we'll certainly be working through request for components after fulfillment is complete.

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Okay, let us know if you have any questions outstanding in the comments below and we'll answer them as soon as we can. I hope everyone feeling good. Shipping confirmation emails are right around the corner. Hang tight!

-Drew

Freight News, Heavy Cardboard Video, and Gen Con Events!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 10:52:48 PM

Hey everyone!

Drew here with another update about John Company and some exciting plans for Gen Con.

Shipping Update🚢

John Company has left the building! I am thrilled to share the news that John Company has officially departed the manufacturer and is currently in the process of being freighted to our different fulfillment hubs around the world. Some of the containers are at the port about to be loaded on to the vessels and others are currently on their way, but we're steadily getting closer to fulfillment.  If you are like me and want to know where exactly in the world John Company is during this stage of the project, here is the list of the vessels that are carrying / scheduled to carry John Company.

US-bound (APL SANTIAGO) 

EU-Bound (HMM HANBADA) 

AU-bound (COSCO FELIXSTOWE)

Our US sailing schedule was revised recently, putting John Company on a later vessel than we had planned. Though this is a bummer, this is very par for the course for international freight right now, and I'll take it in stride. I suspect US fulfillment won't get started until mid/late Sept at the earliest. If there are any more changes I'll certainly let y'all know below in the comments and in future updates. As long as these shipments can get on the water and move through the ports at a somewhat average speed, we are generally on track for the bulk of fulfillment to happen in September for EU and AU, and hopefully US at the tail end of the month into early October.  We won't have fully accurate fulfillment dates for each region until the games get through ocean freight and land at the warehouses safely, so stay tuned. 

Backers in the SEA region have had their addresses confirmed and VFI Asia is beginning to roll out those shipments over the coming weeks. SEA backers will receive tracking info over email from VFI or the local shipping partner they work within your country. AU/NZ backers will be next up after VFI.

Also, you will likely be getting an email later this week confirming your shipping address if you have not already. As we keep rolling through different shipping zones, we'll be confirming addresses as we are now only several weeks away from fulfillment. If you have any questions about the shipping timeline and your delivery address, please reach out over email to [email protected] and we'll get it sorted out.

Heavy Cardboard Teach and Full Game

If you haven't caught this video yet, you're in for a treat. Cole joined the Heavy Cardboard folks in studio for this wonderful, live-edited teach and play-though of John Company.  HC did an amazing job with the production of the recording and we're really happy that this video might serve as a resource for anyone interested in John Company. I'm sure seeing the final components in this video will get you pretty excited to have JoCo in your hands soon!

We're going to Gen Con!!!

Cole and I will be at Gen Con all next week, so if you are going to be in Indy for the convention, come say hey! We'll be repping both Leder Games and Wehrlegig during the con, so you may catch us working the Leder Booth (#1337) or running a few fun Wehrlegig events too! 

I just listed a couple John Company Preview games, so if you want to get a ticket to have a seat at the table for a teach and short play-thru with me, Gen Con convention goers can grab a ticket here for our John Company Preview Events. Players require a ticket and get a seat at the table, but more are welcome. The 2-hour previews are scheduled for Fri 1pm & Sat 1pm (Exhibit Hall A : Blue : Table 10). If you don't want a seat at the table, you are still welcome to swing by and see a final production copy of a game you helped create : )

Want to spend some time hanging out with Cole and get a chance to check out every component of John Company? Come join us for a small John Company Celebration @ The Omni Severin Cardinal Boardroom, Fri 7pm-8pm(ish). It is on the main floor of the Omni tucked away behind the registration desk, so feel free to check out their floor plan to help navigate yourself there. I won't have John Company for sale or anything, but I'll have some copies of Pamir and hopefully some shirts! A little Wehrlegig pop-up! 

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Okay, that's all for now. We'll have another update in a few weeks when we hopefully get confirmation about the next stage of the freight process, but it is back to waiting for now.  As always, feel free to leave a comment below or if you have any questions about your pledge or shipping, [email protected] is your best place to go.

Drew

An Unboxing Video + Production News
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 05:05:36 AM

Hiya backers! 

Drew here today. I hope everyone has been finding a good way to pass the time until John Company arrives. We're still several weeks away, but we are getting closer to fulfillment day by day. I am going to keep this June update relatively brief and start it with this wonderfully long unboxing video Cole recorded yesterday morning. If you want a thorough walkthrough of every component in John Company, you're gonna love this:

If there was ever a moment you thought John Company did have enough content in this box for you, I hope this video convinces you otherwise. We've said it many times before, but we are so happy with how the physical production turned out.

📦Production News📦

Currently, each copy of John Company is being assembled, shrink wrapped, packed into cartons, and cartons loaded on pallets. The assembly and ship preparation stage takes weeks, but we're on track for the games leaving the factory around this time next month. This means that estimated fulfillment dates are still generally on target.  

VFI Asia: Southeast Asia orders being sent from VFI Asia will start up later next month and roll out to VFI's partner fulfillment centers through September. You'll be some of the first people to receive tracking information from John Company, but sometimes it will be coming from different sources depending on the fulfillment partner VFI is connecting through, so keep a close eye on your email!

AUS/NZ: You'll likely be next in fulfillment timeline with the games estimated to arrive in August and fulfillment hopefully starting before August is out. Again, you'll get address confirmations on a rolling basis. 

EU/US/CA/Rest of world: For most of our other backers, you can estimate you'll receive tracking information for your pledge in September and some in October. Address confirmations will continue to be sent out on a rolling basis. 

Like we've done in the past, I'll share the freight info when I get it from our logistics partners, so for those shipping vessel heads out there, you can watch along at home! That'll come in the next update. Also, if ever you cannot access your pledge or need help with whatever reason, please reach out directly to us at [email protected] as soon as you can so we can make sure we can safely plan delivery for you! 

Okay that's all for now. Our next update will come after the games leave the factory, so expect to hear from us again at the end of July. Until then, happy gaming!

Drew

--Oh! Before I go, I figured I should let you know that we are working on something new. We haven't announced what the game is or when it will come exactly, but know we are brewing up an exciting project. There are a lot of details we have to suss out still, but I cannot wait to tell y'all about it soon. We put up a teaser email sign up here but know we'll be sending you another update all about it when we officially announce the project later this year.

Steady on! John Company continues mass production.
almost 2 years ago – Tue, May 03, 2022 at 02:27:19 PM

Hello everyone.

It’s been a month or so since our last update and I am happy to say we are still chugging along through mass production! The punchboard sheets are printed and drying. Wood pieces have had their portrait designs applied. The Resin elephants have been cast from their molds. There are a lot of unique pieces in this box, and this has been quite the production for our team at Panda Manufacturing.

In today’s update, I wanted to go over the timeline, as well as remind folks of the coming address confirmation, as well as share some news about the game's MSRP and PnP.

Shipping Timeline

John Company will be in its mass production stage for another 4 weeks or so and then will move into a few weeks of assembly and palletization at the end of May. We expect all of the games will be ready to leave the factory in mid to late June in which they will then start their voyage to our different international shipping hubs.

Our Southeast Asia Fulfillment partner, VFI Asia, will be the first to receive John Company and the earliest orders will be fulfilled by VFI starting as soon as the first week of July, and then throughout the SEA region through all of July- September. VFI works with other crowdfunding campaign and sends large shipments to partner game stores/shippers in the SEA region to help with fulfillment, so SEA fulfillment times will vary and they will have regional updates for our project listed soon on their website: http://vfi.asia/hubs/

While late June and July will see fulfillment starting up, the bulk of the containers with John Company will still be traveling across the ocean as they move through their freight phase. We’re planning most of the shipments will arrive throughout August and will be able to reach the fulfillment stage for US/CAN/EU/AUS/INT’L orders at the end of August and into September. In the last few years, there have been so much uncertainty with shipping timelines, as as I’m sure you’ve heard about, but our timeline estimations are generous and should well accommodate this project. At the latest, we could have nearly all orders sent out by the beginning of October, but there is a very good chance we will be done in September. I know this isn’t March like we initially guessed when we launched in 2021, but we know you are going to love the extra work we put into the game with this added time

More Dates

We’ve already locked and charged Backerkit balances, so the next important email to look out for is when we will send address verifications. Those will start rolling out final starting address confirmation emails on the week of May 23 for Southeast Asia backers. We don’t confirm shipping addresses for backers until we are about 3-4 weeks away from shipping your pledge, so US/CAN/EU/INT’L folks can expect addresses to be confirmed in late July (first confirmation emails for US/CA/EU during the week of July 18) while the games on the cargo vessel. If you are moving countries, that address change has to be done manually, so please send an email to [email protected] with your request. All addresses will be locked by July 25 so we can organize the remaining shipping lists. We want to make sure we hit fulfillment with a running start!

For pre-order folks, we’re going to push back our pre-order window again to keep things open through May. We wrote that pre-orders were closing down in April but that was when were expecting mass production to be complete in May. We’ll shut down the Backerkit late-pledge pre-order store on May 27th. The games will be leaving the factory in early/mid-June so that will give us a couple of weeks to collect addresses before the first wave of orders is sent out. After we close the Backerkit pre-order store down, we will no longer be selling John Company at the pre-order price $90, though we plan to have John Company still open for purchase again later this year. Like Pax Pamir, our overflow/remaining JoCo stock will be available but will have limited shipping options through our webstore moving forward.

Acronyms! MSRP and PnPs

I want to take a moment thank you for brining this massive project into existence. You cannot be reminded enough that we couldn’t have don’t this without your support. The production value and increased shipping cost of this project, even since we crowd funded a year ago, has continually increased and we have not updated the John Company's MSRP (manufacturer suggested retail price) to reflect the production stamp. We initially estimated this would be a $100 MSRP production, but we’ve starting to communicate to retailers ahead of its international release this should be listed at $125 to accommodate for the significantly higher production costs of the title. This will not affect any Backerkit or Kickstarter pledges. It's worth noting that Cole and I price our games somewhat aggressively. If a more traditional publisher were to have published this game, it would easily be priced at $150 or more. There is just so much stuff in this box. 

The PnP (print-and-play) files will be coming soon. As a general practice, we try to wait until mass production is complete to make sure they completely align with the printed game. So, expect an update from us sometime in June with access to those. Cole will probably update the digital tabletop mod around that time as well. 

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Alright, that’s the update. Feel free to comment and let me know if you have any questions, but otherwise May should be relatively quiet until the games start assembled and packed at the end of the month. Another update will come in June with a detailed fulfillment plan and more news. As always, reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions about your pledge or anything else.

Drew

Tray Design
about 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 06:27:56 AM

Hello everyone,

I don't have any big production updates for you today. Everything has been well underway for several weeks. We're starting to get a sense of what our timeline for the game will be, but it's too early to say much more than we've already said. Our next update will include some dates for regional address locking and an approximate fulfillment schedule. 

Today's update is just for those of you who want to learn about tray design. If you're not interested, I'd encourage you to skip this update. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. 

Design Goals

Both Drew and I like small boxes that don't contain much air. I suspect this has to do with the fact that we both routinely bike to our gaming nights and have never had much space in our homes or little apartments for a game collection. Of course, we still find ways to stuff them into every nook and cranny.

Though it is straightforward in some regards, figuring out a game's box size and designing a sensible insert is one of the trickiest parts of a game's product design. The core problem is simple: inserts have to do different things for different people. 

For the factory, the insert needs help the game be assembled easily. Nearly every board game is loaded by hand, and a smart insert can go a long way in helping factory workers avoid errors. Inserts need to protect the games components (mostly from each other) as they cross the ocean as well as protect the game as it moves through whatever domestic mail service will be handling final delivery. 

This is a very different demand than the one players put on their game's insert. For a player, an insert should help store a game and, if possible, make set up and tear down as seamless as possible. Of course, here we begin to get into trouble. Some players will want to toss minis in a bin (that's me and my copy of Heroquest). Other players will want to an insert to carefully cradle each and every piece so they don't get broken. 

And of course there is the issue of sleeves. Sleeves tend to be about 5mm taller and wider than a card. Worse still, they tend to be 40-100% thicker! Now if they have weight on them they will compress to the lower end of that range but this is a huge difference. Designing an insert that works perfectly for everyone is impossible. You have to go into the process expecting to make some compromises. 

My general philosophy is to design a tray first for the non-sleeved player but to provide space for sleeved cards so players with them can still use the insert. The primary goal is two fold: I want an insert to speed up setup and teardown (keep it simple!) and to potentially have some function within the game. This often leads me to create very simple inserts that prize that functionality over pretty much anything else. 

Making the Insert

I start by spending a little time in Adobe Illustrator, blocking out the components and coming up with a rough plan. One of the most important parts of this process is to figure out what the box's internal "stack" is going to look like. I knew there would be three layers. At the top, there would be bags of the player pieces. Beneath that, there would be a mounted board, player boards, rules, etc. Then, at the bottom level, there would be the two level insert. 

For determining the depth of the insert, I chose to key the bottom level to about 25mm (the depth of the tower piece). With everything else being known, this gave the top tray about 16mm.  This was nice because it ensured a shallower tray that could be easily used during the game, but it might present some space options. I roughed out a basic layout, but I didn't want to commit to any layout just yet. I had to get physical first.

Building trays by hand is surprisingly easy. All you really need is some thin chip board and access to a paper cutter and some nice packing tape. First, cut long strips equal to the height of your tray (so 25mm and 16mm strips in this case.) Then, cut out the bases. 

Next, lay out the pieces to get a feel for how the tray will be organized. After this you can take your precut strips and fold and tape them as needed. 

At this stage we don't need to get too precise. After all, the plastic walls are going to be 3-4mm and we will want to round our corners. The main thing is to just make sure the tray is feasible and makes sense in practice. 

Factory Specs

Next I take these photos back over to Illustrator and map out a precise design. This isn't a final design--the engineers at Panda will do that. Instead, this is just a guideline for them. 

After a little back-and-forth with the factory, the tray arrived yesterday.  Generally, things turned out great. Here's a picture of the tray loaded as if the cards were not sleeved.

Now, you'll notice the cards are, in fact, sleeved. This is because I didn't want to unsleeve all of my cards and instead just reduced the decks to reflect the difference in height. You'll also notice that the tower levels do not fill the chamber on the top of the bottom (rightmost) tray. I only have a few white cast prototype pieces, so I just checked to make sure that the top section could hold 4 rows of 5 (it can!). The resin towers levels are a bit thicker so they couldn't all fit. You'll see them in some pictures as placeholders. 

The tray turned out very similar to my final design. The basic strategy to this organization is simple. Nearly everything you need to setup the game is at the very bottom, in the tray that will remain in the box. That middle-left box contains all of the pieces which are used every game, so players will often first take those pieces out and just place them in their corresponding spots on the board. Any cards that aren't used in the scenario can remain in the bottom tray but everything else should be placed in or near the area of play. 

In contrast, the two removeable trays contain pieces which are frequently added and removed from the game state such as coins, ships, etc. Pieces that require some fishing (like the uniquely named ships) have a larger tray so that it's easier to find the ship you're looking for.  NOTE: the coin tray will fit the metal coins but probably not both the metal coins and punchboard (this actually might be possible, but I don't have a full set of metal coins to test with). If you don't sleeve your cards, you might be able to fit both or two sets of metal coins in the box. 

When packing up the game, the two smaller trays are place on top of the large tray, then a plastic lid is placed over everything to seal it in. (We're looking into adding a finger hole to the plastic lid if possible). 

Then the board and player boards and anything roughly US-letter sized goes on next (the solo rulebook and playaids etc). 

Finally, all of the player pieces and the rules are placed on top. I like to keep all of the cards that go with each player with that player's pieces because it speeds up the setup process. 

It's a full box, but it closes flush!

For the Sleevers

Like the Pamir box, we've added enough space for folks who like to  sleeve their cards. However, they will have to be a little creative. 

On the bottom level, you'll notice that the cards take up about 50% more space.  Ignore the orange tower levels in the bottom, those won't need to be there. However the game's setup pieces will be tucked in with some of the smaller cards and the orange cubes will have to be spread across the smaller trays. Any remaining setup pieces can easily be bagged and saved for the top layer.

You'll notice that the leftmost sleeved cards don't have a finger hole to fish them out easily. This was important because that well is primarily designed for piece storage. Thankfully, there's only about a centimeter of overflow bridge cards. So, I'd suggest stacking them on top of some of the mini euro cards so that they can be easily taken out. You'll also notice that some of the card stacks are just a bit higher than the tray. This is okay because when the top trays are placed on them they will compress down and fit just fine.

And that's it! I'll be sending a few small notes to the factory later this week, but I'm really happy with the tray. In our tests, we found we could set up the game generally in under ten minutes and pack-up didn't take much longer if all of the players were helping. For a game of this size and scope, that is very good and the tray was critical in making those times possible.

Looking Ahead

I imagine this will be our last update for awhile. While we wait for the factory, Drew and I have switched gears to look at new projects, and I've been kicking off the process of localizing John Company in other languages. As soon as we get our MPC copies towards the end of production, we'll be sure to send you another big update with lots of pictures, and give you all and overview of what the fulfillment timeline looks like.