FYOVSoundscape First, last week we released the soundscape music file rewards through Backerkit's Pledge Manager. There was a bit of an error with one soundscape not being included in one of the zip files, but we added it in as a separate zip file when you good folks let us know. Visit your survey page (here: https://five-hundred-year-old-vampire.backerkit.com/), which will give you access to the digital downloads available to you. You'll find the zip files there.
International Fulfillment Our fulfillment partner in the UK has received our shipment and is preparing orders right now. If you are an international backer still waiting for your shipment, you should have an email confirming your address with them, either already or shortly. We've been told the plan is to book orders on their schedule at the end of this week, with shipments going out next week. We're nearly there folks!
A quick update for international backers. We've received updated guidance from the freight company regarding our stock delivery to our UK fulfillment partner. Right now, we expect the shipment to reach our partner's facilities on 13 January 2025. Once they have confirmed everything is ok with the games, they'll start fulfillment (orders are already staged in their system and ready to go; we're just waiting for them to receive the games).
If you want to follow along at home, the vessel the shipment is booked on is the Santa Viola, which will leave the Port of New York on December 28, 2024.
Howdy folks, we've had a few questions lately about this, so here's an update on where we are with the crowdfunding campaign's fulfillment.
1) Domestic US shipping is largely complete. They only stragglers are those who either: a) didn't answer the survey yet; or b) had their credit cards bork when shipping charges were added. On (b), we've done two rounds of recharges for those that have fixed their credit card issues, the last was at the beginning of November. We'll do another attempt at charging outstanding cards in the first week of December (so after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US). So if you don't have your rewards yet and haven't had a chance to update your credit card info in Backerkit, do so soon. If you need a link to your survey access, please reach out either to Backerkit Support or directly to us ([email protected]).
2) On international shipping, we have different updates for different regions. For Canada and a few select countries we had to fulfill directly (e.g., Brazil), fulfillment is complete on our end.
For Europe and the rest of the world, we've had some delays in getting the stock to our UK-based fulfillment partner, but as of today, the freight is being picked up and put on a boat for overseas transport. We'll update with a timeline on arrival and fulfillment when we have those details confirmed to us. Our UK fulfillment partner, in our experience, is usually fairly quick with picking/packing/shipping out orders once they have stock, so we don't expect much of a delay on the backend of fulfillment.
We apologize for these delays on this component of fulfillment. FYOV has had a lot of moving parts throughout the whole process, and international fulfillment got caught up in some of the gears in the last month and a half.
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We'll reach back out with further updates once we have those details.
First, we caught a few errors with the FYOV Pregen Character sheets that made it into the manufactured version of the game. One error was just a spelling error for a name in the character descriptions in a few places, so no big deal. The other error was in the character description for Kirra in the Australia cohort, where Kirra's description was replaced with another character's. We have corrected the error in the pregen character print & play file and have uploaded the corrected version to your digital downloads in Backerkit (which you can access here: https://five-hundred-year-old-vampire.backerkit.com/). We have also added the corrected file as a free download to our product page on our website (here: https://cmichpress.com).
Shipping Costs
Second, we have pushed the date for charging shipping costs to Monday, October 7. You will receive a 48-hour notice from Backerkit directly about charging for shipping on Friday, October 4, but we wanted to give you a little more of a heads up. You can check your orders in Backerkit to see the shipping charges by going here: https://five-hundred-year-old-vampire.backerkit.com/.
Like we mentioned in our last update, the shipping costs for US backers ranged between $15-$20, with the vast majority on $15 (that's the base package of the game, the journal, and the expansion deck; higher shipping costs here reflects additional copies or other games added on).
Cost ranges for international backers vary by country. For instance, UK backers (our largest international cohort) have virtually the same costs as US backers (in this case, $15-$19.50) because our main fulfillment warehouse for international backers is in the UK. For other international backers, it varies by country, but the overall range is $18.50-$55, depending on which country and what's in the order. There are a couple of outsized shipping costs because of unusual circumstances (for instance, our Brazil backers have rather high shipping costs because our fulfillment warehouses cannot ship there at reduced rates for some reason, and there's one package to a German backer that weighs over 11kg, so will cost a lot).
Schedule and Port Strike
Once we charge shipping, our US warehouse is scheduled to start processing orders the week of October 14, so that's when we expect fulfillment to kick off in earnest. For international backers, we will have a bit of a delay because of the US port workers strike is triggering cascading shipping delays (we don't have our stock at the UK warehouse yet and are waiting on our fulfillment partner to gives us an update on those logistics).
Thanks all for your patience on everything. If you have any questions about anything, please ask.
We're gearing up for fulfillment on Five Hundred Year Old Vampire. The games have landed stateside, cleared customs, and are scheduled for delivery to our New York warehouse on Friday, Sept 6 (that's tomorrow!). How exciting! That leaves only the FYOV keepsake journal stretch goal/add-on still yet to come (its container ship is in or near the Panama Canal right now, scheduled to arrive in New York at the end of next week). Once that and our add-on copies of Thousand Year Old Vampire arrive (uh, there's a sequel out there crowdfunding in the wild right now, in case you have been dead and buried for many years now -- check it out!), we'll have all the pieces in one place. Wundebar!
The next step is to get shipping added to your accounts and charged to your credit card on file. Starting sometime next week, you should be able to head over to Backerkit and see the shipping charges applied to your account.
For just a single copy of the base game, plus the keepsake journal and Beguiling Whispers stretch goal add-ons, shipped in the US to a US address, we've landed at around $15.00, which is a little bit higher than the range we quoted last summer, but our picking and warehouse fees have gone up from last year, so that needed to be accounted for. Additional copies and add-ons max out at no more than $20 for everything.
International backers will have higher shipping costs for obvious reasons that vary from country to country; however, European backers will have customs friendly shipping already baked into their costs. We will have those costs added next week as well.
To check out the shipping costs on your order when they are added, you can head over here to access your survey again:
Additionally, Backerkit itself will be sending you an automated email with a link to your survey roughly 48-hours before we charge cards. We'll give you more heads up on this as we go forward.
We will be charging cards again for shipping costs on Friday, September 27. If you see anything wonky in the costs added to your account or have any questions about anything, please reach out, so we can troubleshoot that.
Once shipping is charged, we'll proceed with fulfillment. US domestic fulfillment will be quicker than international fulfillment. We will first need to sea freight the requisite copies of everything over to our international fulfillment partner, GamesQuest. That process will get underway in late September/early October. Once GamesQuest has the stock, they tend to fulfill pretty quickly.
Finally, if any followers who haven't backed yet would like to jump on the FYOV bandwagon, you can preorder FYOV through our CMich Press website right now (https://cmichpress.com). Go on, do it. Do it.
