Root Live on Kickstarter!
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 11:12:58 PM
While we are waiting for the factory to finish Vast: The Fearsome Foes, miniatures, and promo cards we have been hard at work on Root. It is a game of adventure and battle where woodland creatures fight for control of a great forest. It is being designed by Cole Werhle while I am acting as developer. Kyle is doing an amazing job with the art and we have had fun testing it in the studio. We are already up to our third stretch goal and Cole has done some amazing design diaries on BGG.
You can read more about it here:
Root
Update: Fearsome Foes/Minis/Translation
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 01:38:17 AM
Hello everyone I just wanted to make an update here about the status of Leder Games.
As always if you need to change your address, get a missing part, or you need help changing your order contact Caryl at [email protected]. Contacting me here is useless as it is really hard to follow up on issues.
Fearsome Foes/Minis Update
Fearsome Foes is the expansion with all of the new characters (Ghost/Ghoul/Nightmare Unicorn). We decided to bundle it together into one expansion to save on printing costs and only a handful of people ordered 1 or 2 of the characters. We will be hand packing 1 or 2 characters for the people that ordered them but if you want to upgrade contact Caryl and we will help you get all 3.
Printing is being done, I have seen the proofs and I am waiting for the actual copy from the factory. I will post some video when the proof arrives. The games are scheduled to ship out at the end of November and arrive in December. I have a feeling they are going to arrive too close to the holiday for Travis at Atlas to get them out so it might be the first week of January.
The Miniatures will be on the same boat. Here are the covers of the two!
Translation
The Translation has become a complex issue. Three things have happened.
1. Due to an illness in the graphic designer's family things have take longer than expected.
2. It took us longer than we expected to finish Fearsome Foes anyway so we are just getting into it now.
3. The costs is considerably higher than we were expecting and the orders are considerably lower than we were expecting. I won't get into exact terms but essentially for every dollar we have received for the translation we are looking at 3 to 4 dollars of liability. I can't print under these condition and I know its disappointing but it would be a poor result of this project to drive me out of business to fulfill this part of the order. I am working with several partners to find a solution and here is what we are discussing. Nothing is set in stone and attacking me isn't going to make finding a solution any easier.
Solutions:
1. Back when we planned this project we had several orders from non-English distributors that would have brought us up to the point where income was greater than liability. Those orders were much lower than what we were expecting when we received the orders. When some of the distributors learned we were going to have to shut down the project the orders came back up. Brave New World is at Essen right now trying to increase their order in Germany.
2. Find partners to take over and publish the game in the impacted regions. I have some mixed feelings about this option particularly now that I've paid for the translations.
3. Canceling the project and doing a refund. Naturally people would get the chance to convert their orders into English. If we are going to do this I need to do it before we start shipping in December so we have the right number of units in the EU.
Brazil will largely not be impacted since I had a partner there and they are gearing up for their own print run in Brazil.
If Root is particularly successful we will be able to take more risks with the Vast money and the decision to print in the non-English languages will get easier for us.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor
Vast: TMM is basically ready to publish. I need to do some more balancing but the flow is there and Kyle needs to wrap up some art. We shelved it to work on Root but once Fearsome Foes ships we will start looking at our publication options. To prevent some of the issues above the miniature design is nearly done and we will send the figures to the factory once we know our funding is secure.
Take care everyone!
The Fearsome Foes
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 01:53:47 AM
We have combined the three addon characters into one expansion and called it the Fearsome Foes. We contacted folks that only purchased one or two addons and asked if they wanted to trade up. If you still want only one character we will accommodate you. Its not too late to get all Fearsome Foes though, just contact Caryl (below). Here is the cover!
As many of you are aware the project is now late. The factory and I have been going back and forth with and it looks like the games will get here some time in December and we will then begin fulfillment. All of the English components are currently being printed. I apologize for the lateness I ran into a few problems that I could resolve with better planning. Here is what happened and my resolution to fix the process next time.
Overbooked
I spent many weeks after I left my last contacting job way overloaded. This lead to bad project management on my part. To resolve this I did some hiring, which also ate up time and I had to train people on the tasks I was doing as they left my plate. I’m really pleased with the result as about half my time is now spent in creative work and half is spent keeping the company running, but it did eat up some time.
Resolution: My new director of operations, Jacob Tonding, is very focused on timelines. We will build project plans as we go and he will hold me to a schedule.
Miniatures
The miniatures ran into a few problems. The sculptor had a family issue so we went way over the time we had scheduled to complete this part of the project. The originals were also held up for 6 weeks in customs in China. I feel like we were just getting shaken down but it took some time to get them moving again.
Resolution: Next time I do miniatures again I will have the majority if not all of them designed before I get to into the project.
Editing
Adding three more roles to the game and having time to balance them was a great effort. I want to commend the people that helped me, primarily Joshua Yearsley and Kyle Woelfel In addition there were many proofreaders thanks to the BGG forums and my other professional contacts.
Resolution: Not much to be done here. I wanted you all to have a quality product. Project management will help. In addition I have hired Cole Wehrle on as a Game Designer and Developer. He will keep me on task for writing rules in the future. He and I are working on a game we will announce soon as we finish researching the name so we don’t end up with a Trove situation again.
Factory
The factory is a bit behind. I can’t do anything about that. We will keep an eye on things and keep you posted.
Languages
I will talk about the non-English versions of Vast in a coming update. Everything is fine the layout is just really slow.
Address
Changes
You should be able to change your address yourself. Backerkit turned address changes back on.
Support
As always if you need help the first and best way to communicate is to contact [email protected] so Caryl can help you. If you contact me here I will probably direct you there.
Thanks everyone!
Patrick Leder
Customer Support/Translation/Miniatures/Addons
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 08:53:35 PM
Support/Address
Contacting me here will do you almost no good! Please contact [email protected] for all support issues. The messaging system on KS is difficult to track, its way better for you and us to email where we can sort and process the issues.
If you need to change addresses contact [email protected]
Spanish/German/French
The translations ran into some delays with personnel. Everything is fine the translations are done we are just waiting for layout to be completed. There is some back and forth with the translators as we proceed.
Spanish - You can review the files here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B8xlQYyEm7zMNGZWYUhock44UUE
If you have any feedback I will set up a thread on BGG to discuss it.
The Translation was provided by 2Tomatoes who will be providing logistical support in Spain and France. Be sure to check out their game Peak Oil.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1031232934/peak-oil-a-tabletop-game-about-crisis-and-profit
German - We are almost done, they are just wrapping up a few questions.
The translation was provided by Board Game Circus whom you can check out here: http://boardgamecircus.com/
French - Layout has been started but isn’t complete yet. Translation was also provided by 2TOMATOES.
Portuguese - Translation is done we are waiting for layout and then co-production can start.
Miniatures
The Miniatures went into production ahead of the expansion material, as they take longer. The molds are currently being produced. Chad Hoverter and Patrick Fahy did an excellent job here. I made this video of the unboxing if you want to see. I did miss the Dragon Gems by accident. I will do another update with miniature pictures soon. I am hoping to have a full set with us at Gencon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhaNl10ua9c
Addons
I am doing my final checks to the addons. Kyle Woelfel and Josh Yearsley have been hard at work getting them just so the last few months. We will send the files this or next week to start production.
Unfortunately it looks like we are going to be a little late. They will hit the water in September and I will start shipping them in October.
Kyle wrote a pretty good post here about the progress we are making. There are 32 cards now in the promotional pack.
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/26425515#26425515
Deep
Deep: Enemy Frontier is our upcoming asymmetric 4X game. I have recently done a search for more Developer talent to work with me on it and provide me time to focus on Vast (I have also added an operations person and soon someone to handle sales) .We will have Deep: Enemy Frontier to look at while we are at Gencon, Designer Sam Bailey will be on hand to run it and answers questions! Woo!
Vast: The Mysterious Manor
We will have Vast: The Mysterious Manor at Gencon also! I will be personally doing demos when I can since I want feedback. You can also hear Going Last talking about an early version of Vast: TMM at the top of their show.
http://goinglast.net/2017/07/25/episode-210/
Thanks,
Patrick!
Backerkit Closing on May 10th 12pm EST
almost 7 years ago
– Sat, May 06, 2017 at 11:35:14 PM
Hey all,
Just a quick update to announce we'll be locking surveys, charging cards and finalizing everything on Backerkit on Wednesday May 10th.
We're at the point where final numbers are being submitted to the factory and are still looking like we're on track for an August fulfillment for the English fulfillment of the following: promo cards, add-on characters, miniatures and upgrade packs :)
For anyone needing to change their address or alter anything with their survey from now til August, please email us at [email protected], rather than send us kickstarter messages since they are not monitored as regularly.
And as always, feel free to email us at [email protected] for any other inquiries as well!
Thanks!
Caryl
