New Year, New Update!
about 6 years ago – Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 11:32:06 PM

The Manufacturing Process

I'm excited to announce that mass production of The Curse of Misfortune Lane has officially started just in time to celebrate the arrival of the new year! The final manufacturing sample arrived from LongPack Games on December 21st. It was definitely my favorite Christmas present I received this year! 

The Final Components

We were thrilled to find that the weeks of back and forth on color adjustments paid off by producing a truly stunning display of Dave's artwork. This was also our first chance to handle the newly upgraded cards. We worked with LongPack to improve the card materials at no extra cost to our amazing backers. These changes include making the tarot-sized cards (Monsters, Kids, and Locations) thicker and giving all of the cards a beautiful linen finish. The thickness of the tarot-sized cards is perfect because they don't need to be shuffled during gameplay and it gives them a nice weight. The linen finish dramatically reduces the potential for glare on the cards and gives the cards a nice textured feel which is important because Misfortune Lane includes a LOT of shuffling. Below you will find a couple pictures of the sample taken by LongPack before it made the long journey across the ocean.

Moving Forward in 2019

We here at Howling Hog Games have a lot of plans for 2019. In fact, I'm kicking off the new year by signing a very exciting contract! I'm happy to report I mean that sincerely as it turns out in the world of board games there are such things as exciting contracts. Unfortunately I need to keep the contents of that document a secret for now... 

Hopefully you will continue to follow our journey even after receiving your copy of The Curse of Misfortune Lane!

An Update Two Months in the Making...
about 6 years ago – Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 08:09:10 PM

We cannot believe it has already been two months since our last update was posted! Now we get to enjoy the privilege of condensing the last 70 days of progress into one mildly coherent ramble. Pour a cup of coffee because this is going to be a long one.

Board Game Distribution Services

We are excited to announce that Howling Hog Games has officially landed an agreement with Impressions Game Distribution Services! 

Impressions is a service company that will handle the sales, shipping and warehousing for The Curse of Misfortune Lane. They are the longest running consolidator in the board game industry! Unfortunately, for logistical reasons we will no longer be using the fulfillment services of ShipBob. There are no hard feelings and we highly recommend considering ShipBob for any of your future fulfillment needs. Don't worry though this change will have absolutely no impact on your pledge in terms of cost or shipping dates. While we hope that Impressions will help The Curse of Misfortune Lane end up on many more tables and shelves than originally planned the fulfillment of Kickstarter orders remains our absolute top priority. 

The Manufacturing Process

The process of coordinating overseas manufacturing is definitely challenging. However, LongPack Games has done a great job of keeping us informed every step of the way.

It has been a long road of color adjustments, text revisions, shipping agreements, and digital sampling but we can now comfortably predict that mass production of The Curse of Misfortune Lane will begin before December!

Updates to the Artwork

Dave Collinson, the artist and graphic designer for The Curse of Misfortune Lane, is quite possibly the most patient person in the industry. We are not ashamed to admit that we have sent him literally hundreds of emails over these last two months. Almost of all of those emails end in "Thanks again for everything!" because he has adjusted the colors on all of the cards to improve manufacturing, revised the text of many rules and characters, redesigned elements of the box art and layout, and worked tirelessly on creating truly stunning characters for our custom backers. 

Here is an example of his improvements to the box: the beautiful side display of our trio of monsters, adjusting the age limit and average play time to better represent the game, improving the description of the game, and reorganizing the layout of the back of the box to make it more accessible in stores.

Backer Surveys

We currently have approximately 89% of the backer surveys completed. Overall that is fantastic but remember for you 11% out there, that without the information in this survey we will not be able to deliver your copy of the game. If you aren't sure if you completed the BackerKit survey feel free to send us a Kickstarter message, post a comment, etc.

Early Delivery????

We have been informed that it would be foolish to make any promises that we cannot 100% guarantee. As backers you have been told four months a specific delivery estimate so would changing that to an earlier date now even matter? If we officially changed that estimate and ended up being wrong wouldn't our backers surely shower us with complaints? That seems taxing for everyone involved. Even heavily implying a specific month for early delivery seems risky. So we definitely won't do that. Guess we will just have to delay any official announcement until we are absolutely certain. Thank you for your patience!

If anyone read this entire update and still wants more information on any specific topic:

1. You are clearly a robot or that coffee was a little too strong.

2. Please message us with your questions and we will be happy to answer them!

BackerKit survey is live!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 07, 2018 at 08:31:37 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

A small change of plans… Also, preorders!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 11:40:05 PM

Despite our previous statements, we have decided to use BackerKit to improve the post Kickstarter campaign process!

We will be sending a new backer survey from BackerKit to each of you to verify the number of copies and shipping addresses. Sorry! Even though many of you completed the original survey, please complete this new survey to help us consolidate all of the information in BackerKit. We hate to double-dip on our requests from you, but this will help us streamline our process greatly. There are also several of you that have not filled out the original surveys, the new survey is all that will be required. We should be sending these new surveys out within a couple days.

You can still decide at that time to increase your pledge if you want any additional copies that you had not previously ordered. This entire process will be much easier in Backerkit!

These pre-orders will sit at the full MSRP of $30 for any non-backers. Retailer bundle discounts will still apply. Kickstarter backers can increase their pledge for additional copies at the same discounted price as their original pledge ($24).

Thank you all so much for your cooperation, and hopefully the next time you hear from us will be to let you know that the manufacturing process has officially started!

What Happens Now?
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 03:00:01 PM

$19,583! What a wonderful experience this first Kickstarter has been for us at Howling Hog Games. We are ecstatic with where we ended up, but don’t worry, we won’t count our werewolves before they howl. From here, our team will be working to start manufacturing as soon as possible with the hope of shattering our delivery estimates. You all did an incredible job supporting us and now the ball is in our court to deliver! Regardless, we will keep you all updated through these wonderful emails as we go to keep you abreast of any delays or hiccups that appear. We will also be sending a general survey from Kickstarter to each of you to verify the number of copies and shipping address. You can also decide at that time to increase your pledge if you want any additional copies that you had not previously ordered. We are not using a “backer kit” during this process, so please bear with us as we navigate the logistics. For the time being, sit back, and relax knowing that you helped our small team accomplish a big dream of ours.  

For those of you who did not pledge and are already feeling a “Fear of Missing Out,” or know someone who wanted to back the project, we are already working on pre-order options for the remaining inventory from manufacturing. These pre-orders will probably sit at the full MSRP of $30 and without the shipping discount that was provided to Kickstarter pledges (Retailer bundle discounts will still apply).