A Few Months Late
over 5 years ago – Sat, Jan 19, 2019 at 01:22:45 AM

Dear Backers,

Today we're announcing that Vast: The Mysterious Manor will be a few months late. This update will come as no surprise to folks following the campaign closely. But, we wanted to wait till we had a  concrete timeline before bringing everyone up to speed. Vast: TMM should be on its way to backers by June of this year and will be in retail by this summer.

We are sorry about this delay, but we promise the game is better for it. And, in the end, we're committed to making sure that the game is as good as we can possibly make it.

For those of you interested in the backstory of how the delay happened, read on. For the rest, know that we've used our extra time to beef up the game's balance, produce some extra content, and, we hope, really make something that you will enjoy exploring this year.

There are basically two things that caused this delay. First, this past Fall we totally reorganized the way our operations team worked. Because we are a small studio where everyone one staff is expected to help playtest and develop our games, this reorganization meant that we were often short-handed. We are all better for the reorganization, but the timing was bad for Vast: TMM. Rather than rush the game through we opted to wait until the dust settled and then to redouble our playtesting of the game. This largely did the trick, and by late October development was back on track.

Here we ran into another problem. The delays in development meant that we “froze” a big portion of our art list. We didn't want Kyle doing art for a bunch of cards that would be cut for one reason or another. This gave Kyle time to work on future projects, and we didn't expect it to impact our schedule. However, then Kyle got two bad bits of luck. First he broke his (non-dominant) arm, which really slowed his progress. Then, right as he was done recovering, he got sick. Even over Christmas there was a remote possibility that we might be able to finish on time. But, as the next year started, it was clear we weren't going to make it. We had a simple choice: cut a ton of art from the game or officially delay the project. That's a pretty easy choice to make. Better to make a thing good than make it fast.

With the extra time, we took the game through an extra round of testing and decided to add some additional content, including adding a Pillar of Light mini, making Sniffy (the Skeletons' dog-pal) a fully fledged member of the team, and developing more wicked spells for the Shadow Paladin and new artifacts for the Armored Knight.

Again, we are sorry about this delay. We've all tried to make the best of it here, and we hope you all enjoy the final game as much as we do.

Charge Date and 48 Hour Notices
over 5 years ago – Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 09:59:29 PM

Hey Everyone!

Some of you have noticed that Backerkit listed today (Jan 14) as our charge date. We just wanted to let everyone know that our official chargedate has moved to January 31st instead. We'll send proper 48 hour notices via Backerkit before charging cards. After this date, you will still have access to changing addresses through your survey links until we lock down surveys about a month before we plan on shipping. 

**Please note**

Backers who did not add additional items to their pledges or are not part of the late pre-orders, already had their cards charged when the campaign ended last year and will not see any additional charge on the 31st.

We understand that some people planned for cards to charge today and if that is more convenient for you, please email me at [email protected] and I can manually do that for you. 

Questions?

As always, if anyone has any concerns or questions, please email me at [email protected].

That's all for now! Thanks!

Caryl

Fantastic Miniatures and How to Paint Them
over 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 12:59:15 AM

Hi everyone,

Today I called up our development schedule for the next month or so, and a new date popped into view: final submission. I don't know why I was surprised by this. Over the past few months, I've been bumping into little signs that the end was approaching. Anyone following Kyle on Twitter has seen him steadily cross off items from the game's gargantuan list of art assets. Our graphic designer Nick has continued to sharpen the games visual presentation and keep up with the many little wording adjustments that our editor Josh rains on him. The final game was clearly coming into focus.

That said, there's nothing like the arrival of a big box of proof miniatures to shock you into realizing how real the project is and how close we all are to completion. That box arrived last week, and we tricked out our play-test kit immediately. Suddenly I didn't have a problem finding volunteers for our office playtest sessions.

As you might imagine, hammering out balance adjustments, running the game through usability testing, and creating the cross-compatibility scenarios with previous Vast products can be exhausting, but the work comes with the territory. Our whole studio is built around making games that present intense development demands. We're all well-suited to the task, but it's still a lot of work, and it's easy to find yourself spread thin. This kind of creeping exhaustion happened towards the end of Root, and it will happen during the next project. It's part of the process.

Still, when we cut open that box of miniatures, a lot of that exhaustion that had been hovering over the office simply evaporated. My goodness they were so charming. Like the earlier Vast miniatures, these were largely hand-sculpted by Chad Hoverter who worked from designs draw up by Kyle. We couldn't be happier with the collaboration.

 (Yes, we know a couple of colors are wrong here.)

As with any proofs, we had a couple of adjustments that we need to make which may require new molds for a couple of the miniatures. This will likely translate into a small delay on the project, but nothing is certain yet, and we will let you know when we know more. In general though, we have a pretty clear rule-of-thumb when it comes to stuff like this: if you can make it better, do it. We plan on following that rule.

Despite a couple production hiccups, I want to say that most everything is running on time, and these miniatures are very close to perfect. In fact, as soon as we got them, we forwarded a set to Casey Holt, a local miniature painter. If you'd like to see him paint them, he'll be doing a live stream this evening at 7PM US Central Time. You can find that live stream here. 

And, if you'd like to see the painted miniatures in person, we'll have a full set with us at Pax Unplugged next week at booth #2415.

Alright, that's all for now!

Manor Pledges - TCC Shipping Update
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 06:45:28 PM

Hey everyone,

Just providing an update on what was going on for Manor backers and the Crystal Caverns portion of your pledges.

An Apology to our Manor Backers

Back during the campaign, we promised the immediate shipment after the campaign for the Crystal Caverns games for our Manor backers. After waiting about a month for backers to confirm their addresses, we soon realized internally that a mistake was made. We had not taken the proper preparation to brief our fulfillers and arrange the stock to get sent to the appropriate shippers in their regions until it was too late, resulting in the current delay. 

For the past few months, we've heard and read all of your comments and concerns, and completely understand and sympathize with everyone's frustration that the project was not fulfilled as quickly as promised. For that, we sincerely apologize. During that time, we've made corrections internally and made some changes to our team to try to get the project back on track. 

It's not in our interest to air how these mistakes happened or led to this point. We instead, take full responsibility for the failings as a team and as a company as a whole. The campaign ended at the very end of May and it is now October, and we find that unacceptable for our first time backers and our returning backers. This definitely isn't the experience we want any of our fans to have. 

We just want you to know that each and every one of our backers is appreciated because the support they show us on Kickstarter is what allows us to exist and fulfill our passion to make games. We can only hope that knowing that we're working hard on making the best that Mysterious Manor can be, and that we're working hard to rectify our mistakes will provide some solace for some of you. We apologize again for disappointing our backers. 

Regions Breakdown

US & Canada - TCC shipments have already been completed as of August/September

EU, Asia, Australia and Rest of the World - to make the process fast and simple, Happy Shops in Germany is handling all non US and Canadian shipments for TCC. When the rest of Mysterious Manor fulfills, region specific fulfillers will be used. 

The Current Timeline

As of Friday afternoon, we were informed by Happy Shops that they would finally be shipping your Crystal Caverns games on Monday and Tuesday of this upcoming week. To our understanding, they've been emailing backers with notices that their shipments would be going out soon. If you have not received such an email, please email me at [email protected] so I can make sure that your order was properly imported into their system. 

From the time of your packages being sent, depending on where you are located, may take anywhere between 1-3 weeks to arrive (South America or Asia, for example, taking longer than EU for transit time). Delays at customs are entirely possible and may affect your delivery timeline. 

Additional Questions or Support

If there's any questions regarding the campaign or need for support in any way, please email us at [email protected].

Please refrain from messaging us on Kickstarter, as our communication is easier to track via email.

We apologize for how these delays happened, once again, and ask that you please do your best to stay a little more patient as we wait for your packages to send out. 

Thanks!

Caryl & Leder Games

New Print-and-Play Kit!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 01:30:24 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to announce that today we are releasing a new print-and-play kit for Vast: The Mysterious Manor!

Over the past few months, we've been hard at work punching up Mysterious Manor and trying to implement more of the lessons we've all learned from Root. This print-and-play kit represents a snapshot of our efforts. At this point principle development has been finished for all of the roles in the base game and many of the player configurations. In coming weeks, we'll be releasing crossover modes for folks who want to use some of this content with other Vast products. We also will be sharing the Armored Knight, Shadow Paladin, and the game's solo modes as they are completed.

I think both fans of the series and newcomers will be glad to know that the word count for the rules has been cut nearly in half and that we've done our best to make this latest iteration as easy to teach and easy to play as possible without sacrificing the deep strategy and asymmetry that made the TCC such a hit. We've had a blast exploring the game in the office during its development and we are delighted to be able to share this new version just in time for the Halloween season. 

For those who built the previous print-and-play, basically every component has been improved in some way and will require reprinting. However, the tile mix remains the same, so, as long as you don't mind drawing a pit symbol on your abyss tile, you can play with those tiles.

All of the files you need for the print and play can be found here.

Enjoy!