June Update
over 5 years ago
– Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 02:53:07 AM
Greeting Alphas of Titan City!
Let's jump into some great news for a moment!
Shipping
It would seem for now the Chinese Tariffs are on hold, and that spells very good news for us as we wind down the development on the Campaign Books for Alphas. While the UK situation remains in flux, that's something we have known about since Brexit some time ago. We had, like those in the UK, simply assumed it would have been set in stone by now.
Development
This is what you all want to hear about right now anyways. So, when we first started on Alphas, we had what was effectively a branching story with A/B consequences for each scenario. With each one progressing, it added to the escalation of the game.
Now, while you might say, why wasn't this done before the kickstarter launched, the first draft was. Of course, the problem came with a bit of bad timing. So at the time final notes on balancing were returned, Ben was stepping back from KLTG, and given the nature of the campaign and game design, 1 developer alone cannot possibly balance all sides because the game does function on hidden information when controlling the villain side. Coop and Solo were easy to look through and balance, but of course, unless we did different books for solo/coop than the 1 vs all, the game would have been wildly different/unbalanced when playing the villains.
We keyed 6 specific situations where players literally could not win through blind testing, that needed to be ironed out at the minute that we had 1 developer. While this was later in the timeline than we would have liked, it would have met our original delay announcement of 3-4 months, which would be about now that we would be wrapping everything up.
We have been making progress, but because of the way Villains and Heroes have to be tested, and the testers KLTG has available, this has been slow going and 1 time per week. Next month, we should have a breakdown on the development scenario by scenario, and possibly the final proofs of the Scenarios that are finished.
We apologize for the shorter update this month as our non development resources were geared towards shipping Beast Masters Duel half a year early. We do thank you graciously for the patience and hope July's update has some graphics and examples to make these less dull as we problem solve through these.
May Update!
over 5 years ago
– Fri, May 31, 2019 at 09:44:34 PM
Greeting Alphas of Titan City!
We are getting this update out as it has been a month since our last, and we wanted to communicate to you all what has been going on with us, where our progress is, and what steps we are taking next moving forward!
First up is the current situation in the United States and looming uncertainty of the UK
Shipping
As you all know, we updated you on our plans for Brexit should the deadline be reached and what we intended to do. Right now the situation seems more uncertain than ever, and with help from our UK representative for KLTG, Daniel, we hope to be able to maneuver through it flexibly and get everyone in the UK, EU and European Areas their games in a reliable and timely manner with his help. Should anything with Brexit actually be decided or set in stone, we will be sure to inform you all the minute something is certain.
A new wrinkle has hit us here in the States though, and that being President Trump's new roll out of Tariffs for goods coming from China, and now apparently Mexico. As you all know, regardless of the manufacturer you use in this industry, most of the goods and services are imported from China, as they are the only ones with the quality and skill sets needed for most board games (some exceptions exist of course). Now I am not sure about you all, but a 25% Tariff on something is a crazy big hit for anyone to take. Right now we are exploring ways around this as it looks to be in effect very soon for us, but this is a frightening development for many creators on kickstarter, and publishers that do not use kickstarter as this was likely not planned for by... anyone. When we know more about this situation, expect the same kind of update as the Brexit Situation. Goodness what is the world coming to?
Development
We covered some of this in the previous update, but it has been slow. Losing Ben was a large detriment, because as you all know, most of the game was developed with he and Chris in tandem, so at this moment, we have had to rely on blind testers still to schedule sessions, break down sessions and continue the balancing issues.
This has been slow going because to maintain consistency, we have wanted to use the same people who know said breaks in game balance exist, and try to correct them, then have them exploit them. There has been progress on this, and we are closer. But not done. When we said this game was more ambitious than TR or the ones that would follow it, we were biting off a bit more than we could chew given the current development team's size because it left us unprepared to deal with losing a team member, for any period of time, let alone the other situations listed above or in the previous updates.
For those that have backed Guardians or Beast Masters in the last year, you can see how far we are into manufacturing those games, so clearly this is not a situation we enjoy (the delays) or relish.
For instance, Beast Masters is likely to be shipping a whopping 6 months sooner than expected and Guardians 2-3. We bring this up not to rub in the delays here, but because we want you to know, we learn from these projects and processes, and do not take your support, or those that followed lightly (though there is a good deal of overlap as well).
One thing that has really saddened us is without a set date for the balancing issues to be resolved, our manufacturer is unwilling to work with us on getting materials prepped, as they have little to no desire to store things for us (unless we pay a massive storage fee) in the mean time.
Current Status
So with the current status being what it is, the next updates that come will be bullet pointed updates on where we are in the development, as well as progress shown on both the rules and the campaign, so you guys can see what was, and what has been corrected as we corrected it. As things round out for those developments, we can begin to assess the timeline beyond the 4ish month delay we had thought we needed back at the end of last year.
Thank you all for being so patient, and we cannot wait to talk again soon!
Delays, Statuses and Progress!
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 10:19:39 PM
Hello Alphas!
This is a bit late, but with all of our shifting schedules, we will move the Alphas Updates to the end of the month and this is the April Update! The title says a lot of it, but we still have a lot to cover nonetheless and if you are getting this email 2 times (once in the email list and once via Kickstarter), we apologize but with late backers we felt it needed to communicate this material.
We also want to preface this update with the mentality that this is the biggest design we have/are currently working on, as well as it being the most complex game (manufacturing wise) we have/are planning to do. So let's get started!
Other Projects
As many of you are backers of Guardians and Beast Masters Duel, you can see we do not like to make a habit of being late, as one of those games should be shipping in the next month, and the other well before its delivery. The Design work of those games is done and has not diverted our attention to the following things below.
Any other Beast Master Duel things you may see teased via Kickstarter, Facebook or Instagram have been done asset and development wise for some time and were planned to release alongside the first KS had things gone really really well.
Basically, we thank you for your patience here, and know from your other experiences, it is not our goal, nor is it a habit we want to continue.
Shipping
We have resolved all of our shipping plans, to keep things within the margins we charged and the rising shipping costs. Also the Brexit deal seems to have been pushed back. Should it effect the shipping of this game because it is somehow resolved before shipping, we will be sure to update backers about said changes.
Production Updates
So the good news first. We have complete production on all of the MDF Buildings, and are currently in possession of them. Each set is individually packed and boxed, with instructions on assembly and a heartfelt thank you for supporting us and a lovely hobby business in Northern Lights Terrain.
We could not be more excited to have one component of the Kickstarter 100% wrapped up and ready to go!
Onto the bad though. After we shipped out Tabula Rasa, we opted to switch manufacturers for Guardians and Beast Masters for a litany of reasons and we thought we would break them down below and how they have effected our process and proofing for this game:
Quality. The Quality of most components in Tabula Rasa were acceptable or top notch. The problems quality wise arose from the linen finish on the boards and drifting images on some of the cards and tokens.
Communication. They communicate on our off hours, which makes some sense because of the place in the world, but it isn't even daily responses, but more like weekly at best?
Timelines. When we first began working with them, their timelines seemed realistic, not too good to be true. But given where Tabula Rasa ended in terms of timelines, it wasn't ideal because we would get moved behind larger companies who paid them for larger orders oddly.
How has this effected Alphas? Well, the quality of plastics we have seen were immediately rejected when we began proofing. The plastics looked far too waxy and bendable, not at all close to the quality of even Tabula Rasa, let alone the quality we have seen on our samples for Guardians and Beast Masters. They looked akin to Guardian Chronicles from IELLO back in the day, which was unsettling for all of us.
Their communication and timelines have been where we were most effected. Knowing that we were going to be delayed, we continued our work developing the systems for our Graphic Novel system. There is A LOT of blind testing that goes into them because of the branching consequences and the different possible line ups, as well as the ability to play them in 3 different modes. Admittably, we definitely bit off more than we could chew with them. But we soldiered forward. Thinking they were the last thing that needed to be completed (they are just books after all), we kept at them.
Unfortunately, after Ben announced he would need to step back from KLTG, we were notified from our blind testing groups of such huge imbalances in it. This was terrible timing because it left only Chris to try and balance things. Of course, that's not feasible to do at any kind of haste or good pace because he works from home with his kids and the work load was carried by him and Ben evenly in Alphas Development.
Pair this with the manufacturer being unwilling to work with us after being paid in full, they are refusing to store any items, so they are halting production on any items until all of our assets are to them or we have a definitive date for them to be completed.
This is predominantly the reason we have been hesitant to give a firm timetable now. With Tabula Rasa having it's own shipping issues and our next few games being done and ready, our main focus is and will be this game's story balancing. The problem still being Chris being the only active member of the design team, as everyone has had to increase their fulltime work, its been a challenge for us. Of course, we did note that this was something we were waiting on in the previous update, we wanted it to be clarified.
The Future of Alphas
We have talked multiple times in the past about the future volumes of Alphas, but right now, until we get this sorted out, is still in question. This project has eaten up more of our lives than any of the other projects and is exhausting. That said, when we have the final development done, we will likely have a sort of "State of the Union" for the Alphas franchise, so do not worry Alphas.
Pledge Manager
Also note, we will be closing down the Pledge Manager May 31st at 11:59 Pm. After that, all 1$ pledges will be refunded and all pledges will be locked, with only addresses to be amended beyond that point, so double check your information so we can lock it all down and try to get our shipping ducks in a row well before we have Alphas shipping!
Thank you all so much for your patience and stay super.
If you have any questions, feel free to email us at [email protected] or via Kickstarter.
Development News, Manufacturing News and KLTG News!
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 09:06:45 PM
So we announced months ago we were expecting a decent delay with Alphas Volume 1. And as March is upon us, we wanted to take that opportunity to discuss the why's. Now before we dig into this stuff, none of this is an excuse. We take the responsibility for this delay because we feel it is needed.
KLTG Staff Changes
Addition by subtraction happened the past few months.... well... not really but. We added a few people to our team. One resides in China, and is effectively our liaison to manufacturing. We think this will make sense a few sections down as to why we felt we needed this. Another resides in the UK, which, while a mess right now is going to help with our EU backers, both in shipping but also replacement parts.
The next though make us very sad as we said goodbye this week to a good friend and amazing talent!
Ben Pohl
As you all know, our margins are pretty tight. So we do this for the love of doing this, and right now, Ben simply couldn't. Pulled from his statement;
"Due to things going on in my personal life, I have chosen to step down from the team. I am not myself and haven't been for some time."
The rest of his statement was more personal and to the KLTG Family, but for those of you who know Ben, saw his imprints on the development of Alphas, you know what a huge blow this is to the team that he is forced to step back for some time now. We will get back into how that figures into everything later.
Manufacturing News
So the good news first. Byron has completed all of the Buildings for Backers and they are currently in transit to the KLTG Headquarters in MN.
So expect confirmation that all of those have hit our headquarters and are being sorted shortly!
Now one thing we have had an issue with is the manufacturer and our previous shipper. Now in case you weren't keeping up with us for the Tabula Rasa Campaign, the delivery was a large challenge. Here are some challenges, just here in the US as to how they arrived.
We lost because of damage, some 25 - 35% of our US product. Now that may not seem like much because we can claim them as damages, but as I am sure you know, that isn't anything close to the sales we were hoping for.
On top of that, many were missing a token sheet, forcing us to ship out a token sheet separately for some, or hold off on shipping others until they arrived. Talking about margins as we did above, there are a few things we learned from this mess and have been applying to Alphas Volume 1.
Samples need to be successive and exact translations to retail.
We wanted more Quality Assurances before moving forward.
We needed both thicker boxes and better shipping methods given.
Digital Proofs on the finished Cards still have not been finished, as they were focused on a larger project than ours pre Chinese New Year, and our engineer attends trade shows it seems.
Basically, we just needed a better process going back and forth with them because on our budgets, those kind of mistakes are impossible to solve the way most would. This has caused us to take more care and time.
Development Updates
Right now we are still waiting, for the rulebook and the final cooperative rules to be blind tested to our approval. Though all the assets and language is written, we are waiting for feedback from the last 3 weeks of testing to know any minor tweaks needing to be made.
But how does Ben's departure really effects you and us. So for us, our development schedule is shifting. This will delay any live streams until we fill the void Ben has left, as well as our testing days for future content.
In Closing
We still expect the previous delay of 3-4 months, as that gives us some breathing room to finish the final language in the rules, as well as make sure every possible duck is in its row in regards to shipping, the final product and the future.
And while we do have future content planned and ready to finish developing, our main focus right now is on Alphas and it's current state!
The truth is, we are still a very small team, and this isn't our full time job. So while we love doing this, we also love and appreciate your patience and understanding that we need to get this one 100% right, for us and more importantly, for you. And we thank you all for your love and support as Ben has to take a step back. We know he loves the Alphas Community as much as you all love him!
Alphas Live Stream! Vol 1 - Crossroads District
almost 6 years ago
– Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 12:09:45 AM
